North Laos Collapsed road.

[chrisw1955]

This is an extract from a tour report still under preparation and to be posted shortly. A group of eight friends from the UK on a nine day motorcycle tour of Northern Thailand. It contains current road conditions and may be of interest.

Laos Road Report: Jan 2010

The original intension of the tour was to cross into Laos at Chiang Kong and spend three days and two night there as part of the trip. Steve Brooks who lives part of the year in the Golden Triangle checked out our proposed route in mid January 2010. He crossed at Chiang Kong and hired a local Laos driver and truck. The first night was spent in Luang Namtha at the Boat Landing before setting off to Xieng Kok the last major port on the Mekong before China. It is our understanding that the only way back to Chiang Kong was via boat to Xieng Dao or to double back on ourselves to Long, then over the mountains to Vieng Phoukha. From there we would retrace our outward journey back to Chiang Kong.
After Steve passed Muang Sing he found out from the locals that our exit road over the mountains was blocked for many Kilometers by landslides caused by poor construction. He was also told that the repairs are expected to last for nine months.
(We can provide more details if required).

 

[2Up Chiang Khong]

Hi,

We were on this road in Late January riding from Muang Sing to Xiang Kok and we had no problems. In fact the dirt/rock road was a bit boring.

We wanted to go West of Xieng Kok and onwards back to Houei Xai, but could not get our DRZ400 down across and up over a deep gully that is about 10Km West out of Xieng Kok. Honda dreams were taking 4-5 guys to manhandle and the 400 was too big and heavy.

We therefore returned to Muang Sing the same day, back along Rt17B.

Cheers,
David and Mai
Chiang Khong

 

[jimoi]

I can not confirm the landslide but did have clients ride from M. SIng to Xieng Kok in early January. There has not been any rain up there since so I do not believe there are slides closing the road.

The boat services from Xieng Kok to Xieng Dao are not running for bikes in boats as the water level seems to be far too low in the Mekong but it may pick up again.

The big ditch David talks about has been there for a while as I was up there in late 2008 and found that to be quite difficult to get by. I think with 2 rainy seasons past, this gully will be almost impassible for big bikes.

Pretty much nowhere in Laos will you have landslides closing roads for more than a few days unless it is quite remote. In this case, it will take a little longer but locals will dig it out.