Laos Chomcheng To Sayabouri Via Paklay Dirt Trail

Day 12 Chomcheng to Sayaburi

277 Km 11 1/2 hours

Sometimes riding in Laos although beautiful can be depressing, the speed of change and deforestation is alarming. Todays ride was a real joy and reminded me why i continue to return to this sleepy little country.

Chomcheng Border point

The  ride from Chomcheng was my turn around point to head North and is all paved and a very easy scenic ride

Arrived in good time at the Khemhong Restaurant in Paklay and had a nice breakfast while talking to one of the English speaking guides from Off Road Laos Adventures stopping at the Sayadeth GH across the road (good place to stay by the way) and talked about my route through the national park.

The mekong early morning view from the restaurant 

Almost unused slip at Parklay

The start of the trail from Paklay is a nice cooling water crossing, here you have options, the first one was awash with green moss and had a risky looking climb after it, so i moved upstream to a more easy crossing

I should say at this point, if you have not done this trail before you should, but do it quickly, although most of it goes through the national park it will surely get upgraded sooner or later

The start it a nice graded surface up to Thongmyxay

Easy so far but very beautiful

Still graded 

Then i came across these guy’s

Two working elephants on their way to work, i stopped for a while and chatted with the very proud mahouts 

Notice the guy with the AK47 on the bike

This ride was turning out to be better than i would i have hoped

Then not long after another, this one had water to go and was cooling off as he walked 

That was three sightings in one day, normally i never see any on a trip like this

Heading down into a small village

These guy’s flagged me down for a picture and to ask where i was heading

Songkran still in full swing here

More gravel tracks

Beautiful Wat entrance, marking the start of the national park area

Great views although still smoke spoiling the landscape

Almost no water crossings as new bridges appeared

Laundry time as his son practices his duck diving

Now the trail got interesting and steep

As usual the camera never capture how steep it was

Now this was the fun part

Then the trail got less used

Then i came upon this beautiful crossing

From this point it was almost single trail and little sign of 4WD’s

This guy shouted me to stop, i wasn’t about to argue with him holding his AK47, he only wanted to beg a cigarette. As we chatted i heard thunder and he suggest i should get the hell out of here, i agreed i didn’t want a reoccurrence of several days back ! !

Seldom used

I could hear the rain behind me i hoped this time i could outrun it

Finally the dark clouds behind me

Good job this had been cleared

Came across this very small settlement, a guy came out to talk, but i had an uneasy feeling about the situation and kept the engine running and with a wave i was off 

Some evidence of fires

And blow me, another elephant. This one was 28 years old and the mahout had been with it since it was two years old

The mountains behind me the trail opened up

One of the larger villages

In danger of getting very wet here but they all wanted a picture

Never seen trucks loaded with so much timber, this way

More great views

It was hot and these guys know how to cool off

Even the wild pigs had the same idea

So did the locals

Forestry checkpoint

Well it had been an amazing day, the best of the trip, back onto tarmac and heading to the bridge in Sayabouri

Spending the night in the Vang Moungkhoun GH

My trip almost over, the next days to the Nan Crossing back into Thailand