Roadmonkeys now in Lai Chau

Greetings from Lai Chau, 60km west of Sapa!

Sorry for long absence, my friends. The expedition simply hasn’t had an internet connection free over the last 48 hours.

I’ll write more again soon and post photos, but for now, a short update: We have been riding in and out of small rains and thick cloud forests since we left Hanoi.  We’re lucky to have made the train trip to Sapa, though; yesterday, the train were were on two days earlier became marooned halfway to Sapa because of the floods. (In Hanoi, we learned that the rains this late in the season were the worst in 35 years. People downtown were netting fish in the flooded streets. Two Hanoi men died in their car last week after they fell asleep drunk and the vehicle flooded drowning them.)

Roadmonkey expedition members riding along a mountain ridge, through fog, near Sapa.

From Sapa, the weather relented, and though we’ve been shrouded in clouds in the higher elevations, as we descend the mountain roads, blazing along rivers and through villages, we’ve gotten sunshine and chunky, fluffy cloud cover. The ride on bikes from Sapa to Lai Chau was magnificent for the first 30km, downhill along a rushing river with mountains rising on either side…and then began the uphill climb, hard uphill climb, long uphill climb.

The eco-lodge near Sapa, during a rare break in the mountain clouds.

The group peddled incredibly well. There is so much more details to give, but we’re on a schedule to leave Lai Chau now so that we can reach Muong Lai (see map on website page called Vietnam Expedition) before dark. We will report more details of the journey so far from there, and will post photos.

Two people have come down with yucky stomach syndrome, and that is going to be fairly unavoidable among the group over two weeks. But it is fair to say we have a good group that enjoys its own company and is very hardy and adventurous. And yes, Alison, we’re taking good care of David. He’s climbing those hills like Mr. Armstrong, so no worries!

Remind me to tell you about The Socialist Boulevard we explored here in Lai Chau, where the group was simply blown away by the new, enormous (but unoccupied, yet) committee buildings carved out of whole square miles of empty field — all part of Lai Chau’s new status as the provincial capital.

Paul