Day 2: 45km, climb 1338m, Kasi - Phoukhoun
Day 3: 104km, climb 1788m, Phoukhoun - Xiang Ngeun
Day 4: 28km, Xiang Ngeun - Louang Prabang
As soon as we cycled out of Vang Vieng we did not see an inch of flat road for the next four days and we found ourselves in a landscape where you can imagine meeting fairies, hobbits and wizards around the corner. We did not see any but there were lots of grubby children and villagers drying ferns by the side of the road everywhere. We were not sure what they do with these, do they supply the whole of Lao with brooms?
The first day cycling was pretty short so we set off late and stopped for a relaxed second breakfast at the organic mulberry farm. Had we known only 20km past Kasi (our destination for that day) was a hot spring with some bungalows we would have hurried on up there but unfortunately we did not know about it. In Kasi we ate in a chinese restaurant where the owners were very pleased to see us even though they did not speak a word of english and had to drag us into the kitchen by our elbows to get us to point at what we would like to eat. The food was great.
Day two was as short as it was tiring, but the mountain landscape was breathtaking. We stopped at the restaurant by the hot springs to get some energy for the 1000m climb to Phoukhoun at 1400m altitude. We made it up by around lunch time and checked into the guesthouse. Unfortunately there was only one (dirty damp smelly) because the other one was playing music at deafening volume as they were hosting a dancing wedding crowd. In the afternoon we walked up a wee hill in the village to escape the noise of the wedding where we were entertained by a troupe of young breakdancers/acrobats/clowns/children. We managed to spend the rest of the evening not bumping into a german couple who were staying at the same guesthouse and had cycled from the opposite direction.
The next morning when we left the guesthouse we came out into a very foggy mountain morning, it felt like being back in Edinburgh. We set off planning to reach Luang Prabang, but with the option of stopping somewhere half way if we had not made it that far. It was a very hilly road with lots of fast downhill and lots of very steep slow uphill. We made it to Kiewacacham (the place we were considering stopping at) by lunchtime so we decided to continue the 80km on to Luang Prabang even though we knew we would probably not get there in daylight. From there we dropped 1000m over the next 20 or 30km but unfortunatly the road went up again and we had to climb another 600m. Near the top of that climb it was already 4pm and it had just started raining. It continued to rain and we had to get our jackets out for the second time on our trip! The drizzle turned to buckets and our shoes soon started to fill up and we were getting pretty cold. At 6 o'clock just as it was getting dark we cycled passed a sign for a guesthouse which we could not resist. We were only 28km from our destination but we were defeated, it had been a long day and we were frozen to the bone. The next day still soggy we continued on to Luang Prabang and got there in time for our second breakfast.
having curious company at a snack stop
28km from Luang Prabang our saviour guesthouse
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