Franks real skills surface.

B

bigntall

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2011
After thrahsing about the offroad trails with Frank, Harri, and Jim for a couple weeks I began to realize that Frank had a revered ability to inhale Jack Daniels at an alarming rate and yet be ready to ride the morning after. Much respect. After returning from the trip Frank began the uneviable task of trying to sort some video of the trip. It was his first time ever trying to do this and neither of us had bugger all confidence in what would come out of his efforts. Against all odds it seems Frank has a talent other than keeping the market share of Jack Daniels strong.

Well here it is, his foray into topping Francis Ford Coppala. This is footage from the first day where we left Huay Xai and proceeded instead of the usual route along to Pak Beng we stayed tight against the Mekong. The usual track to Pak beng follows the Nam Tha river northEast and heads inland in order to get to Pak beng, at this juncture we continued following along the Mekong instead. At one point the track ended and we ended up having to load the bikes onto a fast boat and take the boat about 8 KM's down the mekong to hook up with a track on the South side of the river. We then took this track offroad through the mountains to come out about 15 KM north of Mueng Nguen. A nice change from the usual Huay Xai to Pak beng slog and avoids the tarmac from Pak Beng to Mueng Nguen.

The track on the north side of the Mekong was enjoyable but the track on the south side of the mekong that we did turned out to be a maojor dirt road and too developed. next time we'll look for a more rural way to Mueng Nguen.

This is some raw footage Frank took of that day and whittled together a video
 
Very professional Mr. Sallows, I like it.

-- I must admit opening it, I was concerned that it might be a home-made porn flick, thankfully, all the riding was motorcycles.


Nice Job :DD
 
Yes great first effort - can't wait for the following episodes......
 
Justin, it looks like you did part of the route I took in reverse.
That track along the Mekong is good & you're right, once you get to Pakoh (if that's where you got off the boat) the road does get boring.
Noice.

What did they charge for the fast boat? I got hit up for 1000 Bht
 
I bieleave that the Mekong was running to fast in that time for the small fery to come back up. So they offered us the two speed boats. When we were in the boats just drifting, the gps speed was 25 kph. It was a exciting boat ride, I was waiting for the stand to punch through the bottom of the boat....
 
Correction ---very professional Frank, Justin told me today this video is your handy work.


KTMphil said:
Very professional Mr. Sallows, I like it.

-- I must admit opening it, I was concerned that it might be a home-made porn flick, thankfully, all the riding was motorcycles.


Nice Job :DD
Click to expand...
 
Pounce said:
Justin, it looks like you did part of the route I took in reverse.
That track along the Mekong is good & you're right, once you get to Pakoh (if that's where you got off the boat) the road does get boring.
Noice.

What did they charge for the fast boat? I got hit up for 1000 Bht
Click to expand...


The track along the north side of the mekong was a fun dirt fireroad that had a nice up and down rythm as it bounced along the ravines. I was hoping for it to be singletrack but oh well. The south side has a bunch of tracks on Dons map and i'm hoping some other choices into Mueng nguen will reveal some more remote variations and not as much traffic.

They hit us up for 800 baht for the speedboat but i forget what we got it down to, needless to say not anywhere near the local rate.
 
Afanddy - This route does not get you to LP. It goes from Muang Nguen, Hongsa and then south into the hills that are kind of close to the Lao - Thai border and come down on the East side of Xayabouri.

Alexuk - I have the tracks but unfortunately on my computer in Thailand 9and I'm in the states currently. Its all on Dons Lao GPS map except a section up in the hills between Hongsa and Xayabouri but its pretty bloody obvious. You'll hit a T intersection and on his map there is only a left option but in reality you can also turn right, don't turn right as that goes to a Thai/Lao border crossing (locals only). Go left. All easy dirt roads but at least nice and scenic. As you come into Xayabouri there are some fun, fast sweeping fireroads. Careful of one sneaky left as its all 5th and 6th until you get to that corner and it's probably 3rd gear ( i don't know as I hit it in 5th, brakes locked up and sliding out of control off the road, scaring a poor Lao as I crashed into her farm plot). I apologized as i dusted my self off, picked up the bike, and thanked my lucky stars.

Franks working on the next leg of Xayabouri (where Frank was too kind, and almost donated his GPS to an establishment) to Vang Vieng.
 
Franks put together day three. This day was an easy ride over a nice mountain range going NorthEast out of Xayabouri then west towards the 13 highway. then South on the 13 to Vang Vieng. We ended up overnighting there and having some fun. It was two days until we left to VTN.


Day 3 all videos compiled by Frank.
[VIDEO]http://youtu.be/6OscgH6jNfo[/VIDEO]
 
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