Luang Prabang to Viengpukha

Day 1: 112km, climb 947m, Luang Prabang - Pakmong
Day 2: 81km, climb 1693m, Pakmong - Oudomxay
Day 3: 118km, climb 1243m, Oudomxay - Luang Nam Tha
Day 4: 60km, climb 658m, Luang Nam Tha - Vieng Phuka

We could not wait to get back onto our bikes after a week of rest but found ourselves cursing soon as we were so out of shape. Chinese New Year was closing in so there was a great display of firepower in Pakmong which seemed to have quite a large chinese community or just a large bunch of gunpowder loving children. It was a bit of a dump but we slept well.

The next day to Oudomxay continued to be very demanding, hot and tiring but the scenery was nice and we were rewarded with a beautiful guesthouse in Oudomxay. In fact we liked it so much that we stayed an extra day to take full advantage of yet another branch of the Lao Red Cross massage and steam sauna. The schools of Oudomxay had english exams coming up and the town was full of youngsters in search of their ultimate english conversational practice. We were first invited to have a cup of tea by one boy so he could practice his english, then another kid acosted us in the street and tried to come home with us. From then on we pretended to be Russian.

We set off to Luang Nam Tha the next day because there where some fellow Russians in town that wanted to meet us. Around lunch time we stopped to say hello to a beautiful big box on wheels. There turned out to be a couple of friendly Bavarians inside it, asking us if they could help us or if we needed any medical supplies. We said we were fine but jokingly mentioned that we had not eaten bavarian sausages in a long time. The next thing we know was that we all parked in a big gravel field and they cooked lunch for us! Over a delicious home cooked bavarian feast they told us of the german butcher in Thailand where they had refilled their freezer compartment and about their travels that are taking them all around the world. After lunch there was even espresso with hot foamy milk to be had and it was all slightly surreal and very enjoyable. Setting off again was difficult due to the beer that naturally goes with any bavarian meal, but we still had 60km to ride. It was a nice road and mainly down hill for the last 30km so we made it into Luang Nam Tha just as it was getting dark.
We stopped there for a day and went to a little village festival which was as interesting as a village festival anywhere in the world, with food, drink, singing, playing and dancing.

The next day was a short day for once, along the beautiful road to Vieng Phouka where we stayed in a bungalow after having a swim in the river next to it. We were planning to book a trek as we heard many good things about it.

children looking for unexploded fire crackers

friendly Bavarians in a boxmobile

sun setting over ricefields outside Luang Nam Tha

Luang Nam Tha Village Festival

little fishermen

kiki enjoying his purple sticky coconut rice

carwash

Luang Prabang

The morning we arrived in Luang Prabang we spent looking for accommodation and luckily we found somewhere nice (with bathroom attached) as we ended up staying here for over a week. In the afternoon we supported the Lao Red Cross, having a massage and herbal steam sauna, which was much needed.

The next day Kiki got ill again and spent the next 3 days in bed. We were told to go to hospital to make sure he did not have malaria, but he did not. Again it was a fun trip to the hospital with lots of young nurses fussing around. Had we waited a few hours we would have realised it was not malaria because he spent the next 24 hours on the toilet. What fun.

Today we cycled to the Kuang Si Waterfalls (30km from Luang Prabang) as we heard they make for a beautiful daytrip and we thought we definitely could do with a wee warm up before facing the mountainous raod up north. The waterfalls were lovely and we went for a swim in a pool that had formed halfway up the falls. We also saw some moon bears, which did not seem majestic and bearlike but smaller and clownier and they also had a tiger that had been rescued from poachers. Our training completed successfully we will head north tomorrow morning.

'tourist taking photo of stone'

Mekong seaweed in front of Mekong

Wat Xieng Thong

monks at work

Luang Prabang from above

Tat Kuang Si waterfall

skipping is the new walking

Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang

Day 1: 61km, climb 617m, Vang Ving - Kasi
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.

drying ferns

the way we came

more chubby pigs

little troupe of acrobats, known to like satsumas

waking up to a bright new day

having curious company at a snack stop

28km from Luang Prabang our saviour guesthouse