New Bike - Customer satisfaction - extra day in Phonsavan

11/04/2012 7:10 PM

So I am supposed to be in Xam Nuea tonight, however, I had some unexpected delays and had to spend an extra day here; enjoyable and relaxing.

I woke up around 6:30 AM, went to grab some cans of iced coffee from the shop next-door, came back to my room and got packed. My bike was loaded up by about 7:15 and my plan was to stop in for a quick breakfast at Craters, the place I’ve been eating at for the last few days, and be on the road before 8 AM. Well.... my bike didn’t start this morning. So I wheeled it over to the Mechanics shop.  Now, I'm not entirely sure what the problem was, but it had something to do with the fuel injector or something, I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Anyways, the result was that it was burning oil like crazy, and If I kept riding it I was going to need to change the oil every 80 km, meaning that over the next 800+km I was going to be needing 10 L of oil. This was the first issue, second was the fact that if I did choose to continue my ride, the chances of something going seriously wrong with the engine would massively increase. So this all took about an hour... I had left the bike with them and went across the street for a quick bit, to figure out.

So pretty much what I needed was a number of new parts for the engine that are not stocked outside of Louang Prabang or Vientienne. So finally I called, rather, the mechanic shop’s owner called, the rental agency in Louang Prabang and they gave me two choices. I could either A. Ride back the way I came and get a full refund or B. They could bring me a new bike which they told me would arrive between 5 and 7 PM. Obviously I went with option B. I do not want to be in Louang Prabang during the holidays as it will be absolutely insane and I simply want to continue my ride. So I figure ok, well whatever, il spend an extra day here and just hang around. 

Rainy day - From my Balcony - I really like this town!

Now, the bike at this point was still running and working relatively ok for short rides, so I decided to go dirt biking on it. Without full armor and full-face helmet, I am limited to what I will and will not do, but anyways, I spent about two hours riding some really fun dirt trails that wind through villages and rice fields. Finally around lunchtime it started to rain, so I pulled into one of the villages and stopped for a coffee break until the rain stopped. I ended up hanging around there for about an hour and a half... it was really nice and enjoyable just to watch the rain and the villagers go about their daily chores. 

So I came back to town and just wandered around the markets a little bit, watched some TV, not much. Now, they said my bike was going to arrive between 5PM and 7PM, so I'm thinking, ok, this is Lao; it will arrive sometime around 9 PM. At 5PM on the dot, the bike arrived on the back of a pickup truck. We called them at 9 AM, its 268 KM from Louang Prabang to Phonsavan; within 8 hours of making that phone call I was one a new bike. 

Now, if you remember, I originally rented I bike from them that they said was the best bike they had, but I crashed it on my first day out riding around Louang Prabang.... I ended up breaking off one of the turn signals. Instead of fixing that, they simply gave me a new bike. This turned out to be a terrible decision on their part, because the bike I am now riding, is the bike they originally rented me... fixed of course and in perfect working condition. So I couldn’t be happier. I’m just ecstatic with the customer service. I am slightly annoyed that the rented me the bike knowing that it had engine problems, but the fact that within 8 hours of making a phone call I had a brand new bike makes up for it.

Tomorrow il head for either Xam Nuea or Vieng Xai... 230+ km of switch-back mountain roads!! Should be fun!

Oh, almost forgot, funny story. I went to get my weekly shave today at the barbers... I showed up and the barber refused to shave me. I asked him why, he says to me something like “its the holidays and I’m too drunk to shave you”. Happy Lao New Year!

That's all for now!