After an overnight train ride to the Thai/Laos border Dana and I rode the first 23km across to Vientiane. We spent Sunday strolling around and getting ready for our big first day of cycling.
Vientiane to Hin Hoeup - 96 km
Our first day we managed to cycle 96km to the small town of Hin Hoeup. The roads aren't large, but are fairly quiet and about 20km outside of Vientiane the air feels a bit more breathable. We stopped in one town for breakfast, which consisted of noodle and meat soup. This is turning out to be a staple dish in Laos, and the bane of Dana's trip. After cycling for another hour we stopped in front of a guesthouse to check the time and discovered Dana had left her phone on the breakfast table. It was only about 20km back, which doesn't sound like much of a distance, but amounts to about 2hrs of biking round trip. Ugh! After some complicated interactions with women working at the guesthouse we arranged to leave our bikes locked up with them and get a ride back. Once they understood our situation they were extremely helpful and even flagged a bus down to take us back towards Vientiane. After successfully retrieving the phone we hailed yet another bus back to our bikes. I attempted to buy a bottle of water from the guesthouse and the women, who likely thought we needed all the help we could get, instead insisted that we take three bottles of water free of charge.
It ended up being a tough day for Dana. She also managed to destroy an entire meal by accidentally pouring in half a container of chilli paste into her soup for "flavour". Needless to say, she didn't finish dinner
Hin Hoeup to Vang Vieng - 59 km
So far we haven't seen many other cyclists. We've passed one lone foreigner who looked geared up for touring and a young Dutch couple who were going in the opposite direction. The road may be lacking in other cycle tourist but just past one school we were joined by a group of school boys who formed a group around us and joined us for almost an hour of riding. With their old one gear bikes they were keeping up a good pace on the hills.
This afternoon we arrived in Vang Vieng. This town reminds me somewhat of Koh Tao, Thailand. It is made for and catering to tourists in the most unfortunate way. While Koh Tao allowed people to scuba dive and get in some sober recreational activities, Vieng Vang is centered on drinking with things like tubing and caving appearing to be an after thought. We decided to head tubing for the afternoon and ran into a young Torontonian when asking for directions. She excitedly informed us that we didn't even need to rent a tube, the bars were within walking distance. Dana tactfully informed her that we were actually hoping to go tubing for the sake of tubing and not as a method of reaching bars. We spent the afternoon on the river lazily floating past all of the bars in a huge inner tube. I have to admit some aspect of it seemed like it could be entertaining, but not tempting enough to get out of the water for. Plus a day of biking is not something I think I could do with a hangover.
We're in Luang Prabang now, but I'm far behind on this blog. I'll try to update it again tomorrow and hopefully we can add some photos soon!
We've decided to expand on our cooking skills. After a very serious request from a friend at UVic to cook Thai for him and his wife when I return go Canada, I decided to take some Thai cooking classes.
