Mysterious Laos

---

I was not sure what to expect when arriving to Laos. Would it be very different from Thailand? I crossed the Friendship bridge (Laos in at the north, Thailand south) which links the 2 countries in the afternoon and headed to Vientiane, the capital city, about 25 km away. My first experience was that there was no road sign, you just have to know where to go (or in my case ask the locals and trust your luck^^). After 2 weeks pedalling in the countryside, I felt a bit out of touch with the backpacker crowd; the guys at my hotel would only talk about how much they dunk the previous day and how much they will drink tonight... I was also getting used to meet friendly locals that actually want to meet and talk to you because they never see any foreigners. But in the big cities, they got over it and moved to a cash based economy and the new goal is to sell things to tourists. So I decided to take the road again after spending only one night in Vientiane.

The next day I left early (8AM) and the first 2 hours were just awful. There was some roadwork for kilometres that made everything very dusty and I had a string wind against me. I never realised wind could make such a big difference 😊 After 30km, I met a guy at the petrol station that offered to give me a lift until the next town where he was going to work. That was great timing, I was getting a bit tired already and I ended up buying him a "beerlao" afterwards. I did another 50Km when I met an Australian couple travelling around Laos with a Tuk tuk. They bought it a few weeks ago and are planning to travel Laos for about 2 months. Check the photos on their blog: TukTukLaos. They were heading in the same direction as me so I got a free Tuk Tuk ride for maybe 80 km. The road was a highway so I was actually quite happy to move on and when we turned left on road number 8, the scenery changed completely. We were inside a forest, passing between fantastic mountains.

The next day, I was about 80Km from the Vietnam border but in that part of Laos it's very hilly so my goal for the day was to reach Lak Xao, about 50Km away. I stopped at a lot of tiny villages along the way, usually for a quick snack or drink something cold or simply to get a 5 minute rest. I eventually made it to Lak Xao but it was my most difficult cycling day so far. I went to bed at 8PM or something like that.

Tomorrow I should be able to reach the frontier and if I'm lucky enter Vietnam, yeah!

---

Photos

Friendship bridge
I had been told it was not possible to cross with a bicycle but I had no issue whatsoever.

Motorcyclist I met along the way.
He was nice enough to stop are we had a quick chat. He bought his motorcycle in Hanoi :)