With the lead up to Christmas and New Years Eve, we needed to go to the border to stock up on alcohol; all the stuff we cannot buy in Luang Namtha.  So we thought it was a great opportunity to make a mini-holiday out of it, stopping many times along the way and staying in a flash hotel with amazing views of the Mekong.

On the way we experienced our first motorbike problems ever in Asia (apart from Jillian’s bike not working) – although this was slightly different; we were probably about 50kms from the nearest village, and we had no mobile reception!  So we had to figure it out.  Dre took apart the side panels and found the fuses – which seemed like a logical place to start since the bike had been fine  minutes earlier before we stopped.  So luckily the bike had a spare fuse and Dre replaced it, very proud of his handywork since it was his first time fixing anything like that.  During the hour or so it took us to figure out what to do (including walking several kms to try and get mobile reception), we flagged down buses, cars, some Ahka’s walking past, but no one knew what to do so we were pretty stoked to continue on our way.

The mission was successful, and we returned to Luang Namtha well rested and with everything we needed to conquer Christmas!  Our photos of our adventure are here.