Little Adventures on Two Wheels: Hue to Savannakhet LAOS

Day 1: 71km, Hue - Dong Ha
Day 2: 64km, climb 675m, Dong Ha - Huong Hoa
Day 3: 65km, Huong Hoa - Sepon (Laos)
Day 4: 35km, Sepon - Muang Phin
Day 5: 94km, Muang Phin - Dong Hen
Day 8: 78km, Dong Hen - Savannakhet

With Bea still having a bit of a runny nose and Kiki being tired (lazy), we left Hue as we were looking forward to getting into Laos. The traffic picked up on the first day with lots of lorries heading for the border. Staying in two more small towns in Vietnam reminded us how much we were looking forward to a change of food and people and to a less customised pricing system, not that we did not enjoy Vietnam, it just felt like it was time to leave. Surprisingly the border crossing was quick and easy as there were no queues and they did not even search our luggage.
In Laos the scenery changed quickly and we were surrounded by nature most of the time, with the occasional small villages. There was virtually no traffic (we do not know what happened to all the trucks that we saw on the vietnamese side seemingly heading across the border) and we had the perfectly smooth roads to ourselves.
In Muang Phin we stayed in an old hotel that seemed to have had a grand past with goldframed pictures of important looking people shaking hands in the lobby, but the village seemed pretty deserted, the only attraction in town being the carcase of a downed american helicopter.
After a long cycle in the scorching heat the next day we were loured in by what at first appeared like a mirage three kilometers away from Dong Hen: THAI - GERMAN GUESTHOUSE & RESTAURANT. Curious and delirious we investigated, but after we saw Bratwurst & Kartoffel Salat on the menu we were convinced and stayed the night(although in the end we ate thai curries). The owner was a nice thai lady who had lived in Germany for over 20 years. She is responsible for most of the broken Lao we now speak as she was happy enough to sit down with us and teach us the basics.
We arrived in Savannakhet ready for a rest and a think about what to do next. It was not as large as we had been expecting but felt more like a sprawling relaxed town. With not much else to do than wander the streets we decided to jump on an overnight bus to Vientiane the next evening in order to allow us more time to explore the north of the country.