We headed out of Phonsavan into gently undulating hills, but soon our road was rocketing skywards in typical northern Laos fashion. At the climax of our road’s ascension we set up camp in a little secluded field, and marvelled as dozens of fire flies punctuated the evening gloom with their vivid orange bodies.
The next morning we were rewarded for our previous day’s efforts, speeding downhill for km after km.
However, soon enough we were in our granny gears again, straining up another steep incline which lasted all day. A spectacular thunderstorm meant that we finished both soggy and tired, having cycled around 100km.
However, we felt happy to be back on our bikes and pondered whether there is a masochistic streak in all cycle tourers!
The climbing continued the next day until we came across an oversized road sign which marked the start of a glorious descent through striking karst formations which put their lauded cousins in southern China to shame.
Of course, our whizz culminated in another wall of a road, which soon had us pushing our bikes until we finally collapsed in a sweaty pile by a family of amused, if slightly concerned, store owners. We guzzled iced coffees with glee.
By late afternoon our exertions had caught up with us - Harriet had a severe blood sugar drop resulting in Jonathan having to force feed her biscuits and Pepsi like some peculiar fois-gras goose. Unfortunately, the sparsely populated, hilly landscape we were in was not conducive either to guesthouses or to flat land to camp on. As we were confronted by yet another hill, we came across a quarry site full of workmen and their prefab accommodation. Too tired to feel self-conscious, we rolled over to the sea of bemused-looking faces and indicated as best we could our desire to camp somewhere on their lovely flat quarry site. As we have found the world over, the unexpected arrival of two sweaty, bedraggled cyclists smiling inanely, and pushing comically-overloaded bikes, appears to have an effect on people akin to the appearance of a lame animal or possibly a friendly imbecile. We are treated with kindness, amusement and a whiff of caution, with the general consensus seeming to be that we should be looked after until we move on of our own accord. As such, the workmen were more than happy for us to join them for the night, and showed us to a little hut where we could pitch our tent which was an acceptable distance from their sleeping quarters.
We began cooking our dinner feeling quite pleased with how things had worked out. However, our happiness came to an abrupt end when we looked up and saw a man dressed in full combat gear, brandishing a large rifle and approaching our tent. His appearance, gestures and tone of voice made it very clear that he was not at all keen on our chosen camping spot. By this point it was almost dark, our dinner was already half cooked, and we were utterly exhausted and so, sublimating our naturally compliant tendencies, we stood our ground. In the absence of a common language, we mustered our politest array of bizarre gesticulations and, pointing, nodding, and smiling, with the occasional hand on our hearts, attempted to highlight the impossibility of us moving on at this late hour. A stalemate then ensued for about 20 mins until our gun welding “friend” departed, only to reappear a few minutes later with another man and the saviour of such situations – a mobile phone equipped with Google translate. We soon gathered that he was a guard at the quarry and was concerned that we were going to cause all sorts of mischief in the middle of the night. With the help of Google we managed to convince him that, although we thought his quarry was truly remarkable, we were far too tired from cycling to consider any sort of midnight escapade. Having absorbed this information, he disappeared again, leaving us unclear of where we stood, only to reappear 10 minutes later, gun-free and dressed in his loungewear, to give us an extremely friendly thumbs up. Deeply relieved, we tucked in to our noodles and then settled down for the night.
The next day, we rode out into a beautiful rose-tinted morning. We were off to Vang Vieng – a former backpacker mecca renowned for drug-fuelled, riverside parties where participants moved between makeshift bars by floating down the river in tractor tyres, but which had been “cleaned up” by the government after a series of drownings and broken necks. A 45km dash through beautiful karst scenery and dusty villages culminated in us sitting down to breakfast in Vang Vieng, where we gorged ourselves on omelette-filled baguettes, freshly-brewed coffee and mango shakes – all treats after an extended stretch of a predominately rice and noodle diet.
We spent the next few days continuing to empty the town’s bakeries, paying homage to Vang Vieng’s past by drifting down the river in tyres, beers in hand, and being woken up by a monstrous gecko that lived outside our room.
Leaving Vang Vieng feeling refreshed, if a bit hungover, we had the magical accompaniment of a troupe of multi-coloured hot air balloons, which brought back happy memories of our time in the Turkish town of Goreme.
As the day wore on however, we soon realised that Laos and Turkey shared another feature – intense, baking, inescapable heat – which reduced us to cooking our lunch in a drainage ditch at the side of the road.
When we passed a small motel it was an easy decision to check in and sit out the worst of the afternoon’s sun.
The next day we set off at 5am to try and reach the capital, Vientiane, before it got too hot, which almost worked until we got lost in the city trying to find our guesthouse and promptly got baked to a crisp. Once rehydrated, we met up with another cycle touring couple, Cameron and Monique from New Zealand, who we had met in Luang Prabang. A very enjoyable evening was spent swapping stories from the road, whilst devouring huge quantities of curry.
A few more days cycling through a gorgeous, green countryside dotted with pools full of waterlilies and we reached Tha Kek, a relaxed riverside town on the Thai border.
On our day off we set off to explore the series of caves and lakes that punctuate the surrounding area. Crawling down into the first cave we almost turned back as the underground river which flowed through it quickly came up to our chests. However, we pushed on through the darkness and were rewarded with a breath-taking cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites, and the chitter-chatter of bats.
We then cycled to a beautiful lake for a swim. The water was warm and full of fish, and the perfect tonic to soothe away the stresses of cycle touring. A brief thunderstorm only added to the magic of the scene.
Several blisteringly hot cycling days then ensued, with red ochre roads cutting through a green landscape full of water buffalos (and some pretty sweet ducklings that joined us for breakfast), the occasional golden Buddha or temple, and rickety wooden bridges.
We set off each day as early as we could, enjoying both the cooler temperature and the opportunity to watch monks collecting alms in the early morning light. Roadside stalls selling freshly picked pineapples offered welcome, delicious breaks.
When we finally rolled into the city of Pakse, we found an extremely chilled riverside guesthouse, with hammocks looking across the water which Harriet which was particularly partial to.
Pakse was to be our launch point for an excursion into Laos’s coffee growing region - the Bolaven Plateau – where the air is cooler and the sun stronger after the land rises by over a thousand meters. Leaving much of our stuff in Pakse, we set off on delightfully light bikes and began the long climb up to the plateau. An awful, gravelly road, bakingly hot weather and a constant stream of articulated Thai lorries meant that we were delighted to spot a roadside café and have a rest after only 10km. At this point we discovered that the “suncream” we had bought in Pakse omitted the letters SPF after the big number 40 on its front, and as a result we were now both a bright shade of pink. The rest of the day turned into an unpleasant obstacle course, with us dressed in increasingly bizarre outfits to cover our bodies, dodging between patches of shade and roadside huts.
When we reached Tat Fan waterfall and discovered a series of beautiful wooden lodges in the jungle surrounding the falls, we decided to cut our losses and splash out, spending a wonderful evening gazing at the majestic scene in front of us.
We set off early the next day wrapped up in a crazy array of hats, scarves and gloves to try and shield our skin from the sun. Reaching the top of the plateau the landscape flattened out into a beautiful tableau of coffee plantations, little villages and free-roaming farm animals.
We soon stumbled across a gorgeous resort, and settled down to a delicious lunch and coffee just as the clouds split and poured their contents across the plateau. Riding out again into this refreshed landscape we were soon in Tat Lo, a small village with a very relaxed atmosphere where we were going to spend the next couple of days. Our room was another wooden bungalow, albeit a little bit more rough around the edges than the one from the previous night. However, Harriet was extremely happy when she discovered firstly a hammock strung across its porch and secondly that the French owners served baked Camembert for dinner.
After settling in, we went for a short walk to another picture-perfect waterfall, before we joined the village kids for a swim in the somewhat muddy and surprisingly strong river.
The next day unfurled in a similarly relaxed manner, albeit this time with the companionship of the guesthouse’s three dogs.
Returning to Pakse we stopped for one last caffeine fix in an organic coffee farm/homestay, before beginning our long descent back into the city (and realising why we had been so tired coming the other way). We treated ourselves to rooftop cocktails and beers on what was our last night in Laos, thinking back over the last couple of months and speculating on what cycling through Thailand would be like.
Our final night in Laos proved slightly more eventful than anticipated when Jonathan rolled over in the middle of the night for a loving spoon, and was greeted by a series of sharp, stinging bites. Feeling that this was an excessive reaction from Harriet, he quickly turned on the light and inspected the bed, finding a large, orange centipede. The poor creature had unfortunately got rolled upon mid-spoon and had reacted accordingly. We inspected the rest of the bed thoroughly before a slightly nervous sleep. However, the rest of the night proved uneventful and we set off excitedly the next morning for the Thai border. After a hot, sweaty cycle we were stamped out of Laos, and on our way to Thailand, the last (possibly) country of our trip.