Laos - Top Thakhek Loop - Vietnam border

Vieng Kham to the Vietnam border, across the neck of Laos, was our favourite bit of our short Laos cycling.

26 March - Vieng Kham-Na Hin, 27 miles

Today is all about getting over a hill - where there is a beautiful view - before descending on the other side to the town Na Hin where we stay the night.

Turning onto Highway 8 was immediately more scenic. Jagged limestone hills, sharp with tsingy like we’d seen in Madagascar, and jungly green. Replacing cows, water buffalo with their amazing low-set ears and gentle expressions, calmly watched us cycle past. Butterflies circled around us and danced on by.

Roadworks stopped us in our tracks… until people got bored of waiting 😆. With no traffic lights and no-one to direct traffic it was pretty much a free-for-all as to how best to continue on our way across the dug up road. Smaller traffic negotiated both diggers and lorries, whilst trucks used their might and horns to blast on through.

Leaving the roadwork dust behind we sailed through rural villages specialising in handmade sweeping brushes that I desperately wanted to buy. We hadn’t been through a SEA country yet where people hadn’t been fastidious about sweeping. Every porch and yard is continuously swept, every leaf banished. The sound of sweeping will forever be part of the soundscape I remember from this Trip. And these brushes are beautiful with their featheriness and upward curve.

The hill when it came was tough - steep and long and hot - but thankfully largely in jungly shade. ‘Rock Viewpoint’ at the top is a tourist setup with walkways and zip lines through the limestone forest landscape, a stylish cafe with lookouts, and glamping pods. This area is where the rare Laotian Langur lives (a monkey with a funky hairdo), and in caves, the Giant Huntsman, the largest spider in the world (30cm legspan: size of a dinner plate. Horror). It was too hot to explore the walkways, so we opted for lunch looking out across the sun bleached view. Young tourists arrived on scooters, the lads in football shirts, the lasses in body hugging Lycra. The lads were loud and physically took up a lot of space. They boomed their food and drink orders at the quiet spoken Lao staff. Some sported cuts and bruises from scooter accidents.

Going down was a twisty bendy affair with gravel at the sides of the road to look out for and sections where tarmac was suddenly forgotten. Large trucks struggled slowly up the incline. Their faster counterparts thought nothing of overtaking on tight bends, dangerously looming towards us on our side of the road. It was stunning scenery all around - thick jungle and karst limestone pointiness.

At Na Hin, rolling into the hostel courtyard we met Chris, a really sound lad of 22 from Keswick. He’d cut ties with the UK and was travelling on his own by bike. Lucky to be alive, this was his second bike. He’d had an accident on a Thai highway from which he escaped harm: not so his bike which was bent in two. He’d been cycling in Thailand and Laos and as a climber he spoke joyously of the Green Climbers Home just outside Thakhek. Describing it as a climbers’ bubble he told us he could lie in his tent and listen to the clink clink as climbers scaled the 600 bolted limestone sport routes nearby. He was heading to NZ to work for the next 3 years, and hopefully live…?

We went to the local market to pick up some veg for tomorrow’s dinner when we’ll be on the outskirts of Lak Sao. The market was full to the brim with ladies selling all manner of colourful fresh produce. Cows lazily meandered by. Chickens scratched in the dirt. Dogs were alert after a day sleeping. We topped up our supplies in a local shop, served by a tired smiling woman holding her tiny newborn.

27 March - Na Hin-Lak Sao, 32 miles

We really liked Na Hin. It is a beautiful place with forested hills and a good community feel to it. The hostel is run by a patient Lao lady, who exuded forbearance as she was talked at rudely by loud international guests, barking their demands with never a smile. As we left she apologised to me (!) for the loud drunken chatter of guests the night before.

In Laos we have found Laotians much more reserved (compared to the Thais), less ready to instantly engage and smile. They hold back warmth until they have the measure of you. I wondered if this was due to the rise in tourism - we’d not witnessed many good manners, sensitive behaviours or the wearing of modest attire from visitors. Chris had also noticed the lack of respect from many tourists. Is it any wonder locals are reluctant to engage and regard us as a cash crop instead?

Although we tried to get away early, the free breakfast took a while to arrive, and as we were packing the bikes an Irishman came and chatted to us to see what we were doing. With the sun now over the mountain ridge and the heat building, we started the five mile climb to the 1500ft (450m) day’s summit. The road was wide, well paved and newly built. Views were bleached and hazy across a wide expanse of brown parched fields, the ridge of mountains holding the heat in. The smell of hot asphalt mingled with the smell of sweaty me.

At the top the physical exertion of the climb was immediately replaced by the exhilarating freedom of gravity. Sweaty discomfort instantly transformed into happy release as wheels roll free, the wind cooling as it whips past leaving behind a fine layer of salt on my skin. It’s moments like these - and why I now don’t mind a good hill - that make me feel alive.

We met Sam, a cycle tourer from Thailand who had started in Hanoi and was cycling back to Bangkok where he lives. He gave Lilz a sandwich! We are forever bowled over by the niceness of people we meet.

Going over a bridge we spotted some unusual metal boats in the Namkading River, made from the fuel tanks on US B-52 bombers in the Secret War. The high quality of this wartime scrap metal didn't go unnoticed by Tha Bak villagers who turned the spherical debris into very durable ‘bomb boats’.

The rest of the day was like cycling in a beautiful oven. The hot air dried out our eyes.
Hazy rock and dusty fields: the palette grey, tan, khaki, fawn. Curious water buffalo eyed us quietly. An impressive high rock mountain ridge accompanied us into Lak Sao.

We were glad to pull into our accommodation just outside the town. Tired we automatically fell into our established routines.

• Remove 10 bags from bikes and ferry them into room.
• Quick bike maintenance if needed
• Shower (always feels transformative!)
• Handwash clothes. Work out how to rig a washing line and hang clothes.
• Source and eat dinner - if lucky we’ll find a local eatery. If not, some fresh veg to prep and cook back in the room. We carry Tupperware topped up with onion, garlic, ginger, little bottles of soy sauce and honey, and always instant noodles.
• Source water - if lucky the accommodation may have a water filter, but more often than not we’ll need to find a shop to buy water to top up water bottles and for cooking.
• Look at tomorrow’s route and see where we may be able to sleep, eat and find ATMs.
• Put electronics (power bank, GPSs, phones) on charge.
• Catch up with messages from home.
• Relax. If we’re not too knackered we try and update Footprints (ha ha we’re always so behind!) We’ve recently been enjoying The Capture on iPlayer.

28 March - Lak Sao, 5 miles

A short transfer cycle from one end of town to the other. At a coffee shop we met Matt, an American who had spent two months travelling through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. He confessed he’d been miserable in Laos. The heat and smoke (farmers use slash-and-burn methods to clear land for planting crops) had got to him as he’d travelled up from the south. He was researching buses to take him north.

Whilst getting food at a restaurant near our hotel we met Ben, a young NZer hitchhiking his way around. He had some stories. At home he was a carpenter builder in New Plymouth and had hitched around NZ and mapped an unknown cave with his friends. He’d arrived in Thailand with his cousin and friend and travelled from Bangkok, halfway to Chiang Mai by train, before they decided to get off the train in the middle of nowhere. There was a local festival on. Nervous of strangers the villagers called the police. After figuring out who they were, the villagers loved them and took them into their homes. They hitched to Chiang Mai to Pai then Chiang Rai. Ben decided to go it alone and took the slow boat to Luang Prabang, a train to Vang Vieng and then hitched to Vientiane. His plan was to take a bus from Vientiane all the way to Hanoi where he’d rejoin his friends, but he was dumped in Lak Sao in the middle of the night as he hadn’t sorted a visa for Vietnam. The local dogs didn’t take kindly to a stranger walking around their town and chased him to the hotel we are now all staying in: a rundown place, but for £6/night you can’t complain. It was good to chat to Ben, and we shared beers later that evening. He was the most laid back individual I think I have ever met - nothing phased him.

29 March - Lak Sao-Vietnam Border

Our last day in Laos would take us 20 miles up to the Nam Phao border crossing at the top of the Keo Nua Pass. It was a quiet scenic mountainous route. We paused by a beautiful section on the Nam Phao river and felt at peace. The climb up to the pass was through uninterrupted lush green forest.

At the top a long queue of parked trucks transporting minerals from Laos to Vietnam for export snaked its way up to the checkpoint. Waiting for border clearance they clogged entirely one side of the narrow windy road. Glad we were on bikes, we could duck out of the way of oncoming traffic - not so any vehicles coming up who then had a battle of wills as to who would reverse up or downhill to enable passing.

It felt strange to already be at the border. I was a bit uneasy about Vietnam, a country I know hardly anything about. Stepping, or at least wheeling, into the unknown…. what new adventures will be in store?Read more