Day 1:
Vang Vieng to Kasi
Distance - 60km
Average - 16.1km/h
After relaxing in Vang Vieng for a few days we were about ready to get back on our bikes. We were not off to a good start on day 1, when 7km out of town Nick realised that he had lost his sunglasses which were sitting on his handbar bag. So we re-traced our path with no luck of finding the glasses. 14km later we started the day off again minus a pair of sunglasses. But the abundance of fake glasses in Asia means a new and cheap pair is never far away.
The ride towards Kasi was easy enough rolling hills, with the odd steep part. Kasi is a stopping point for every bus heading between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, and this seems like the main business for the town with restaurants everywhere. Other than this, there was very little to Kasi.
Just as we were about to have a ridiculously early night at 7pm, we were approached by a school kid who wanted to take us back to his high school so that his classmates could practice their English on us. We agreed and off we went to the 'high school' which was actually a basement in a local mans house.
There were more than 50 kids packed into this small area to learn English from a man who spoke poor English himself. He explained to us that he has this class as at the students actual high school, the 'English' teachers dont actually know any English to teach. So it seems a bit like the blind leading the blind with students trying to learn English off people who can not speak it themselves. But miraculously, there were a few students in the room that could speak very well.
It was a really touching experience to spend time with these students. Nick spoke to one 18year old student who explained that when he finished school he wanted to do computer programming at the university in Vientiane. Yet he did not have a computer, nor did anyone in the whole Kasi town and had never actually used a computer. Another girl who spoke excellent English wanted further her English classes at university, yet at fees of US$200 per semester, university is unattainable for most of the Lao population. We left the class wanting to establish some university scholarship, so that these students could actually go through with their dreams. One student explained that most will probably end up picking cabbages once they finished school. It was really sad but at the same time amazing as all the kids were so enthusiastic about learning, they all had big dreams but its a pity that in reality they will not be able to leave their families due to responsibilities or be able to afford to study.
Day 2:
Kasi to Phou Khoun
Distance - 47km
Average - 9.8km/h
Today we hit the mountains!! We new we had a big day ahead of us, even though the distance is quite small we knew we would be travelling mainly upwards. After a cruisy 5km out of town we hit our first climb, a steady 5km climb that wound its way through some beautiful limestone landscapes (see photo). We were in high spirits when we met two chinese cyclists heading the opposite way who told us what we had ahead of us.......so we stopped at some hot springs to fuel up on baguettes and ice coffees. We set off again then started the final part of the days riding - a 23 km climb that took us up to 1500m elevation. The climbing just didnt stop, it was 23km straight up and quite often we could see the road snaking high up the mountain, so while demoralising that we had so far to go, it also provided a target. We got into a pretty good rythym, we would climb for 45 mins then stop for a break. It took us about 3hrs to do the 23 km climb, riding at 5-8 km/hr up the hills. At the top was Phou Khoum, the town we would be spending the night.
Entering the mountainous area we were also getting close to a rebel stronghold zone - which when we say rebels we mean US trained guerillas who have staged attacks against government interests - so there is a large increase in the presence of guns. There were a lot of army checkpoints and random guys walking along the road with machine guns, which was a bit unnevring when we were riding slowly up a hill and couldnt really make a quick escape. But most of them were friendly and we made sure to say sabaidee (hello) to show our good will. Some even tried to practise english on us as we rode past! Even groups of people working in the bush always had at least one armed person with them.
Most of the villages in the mountains lie on the roadside, usually at the bottom and top of the hills. Quite often the kids would come running out to greet and wave at us but it often took us a few minutes of riding up a hill to reach them, meanwhile they were yelling out sabaidee and waving the whole time. At one village a group of 5 year olds ran along next (and often running faster than we were riding) to us cheering us on and ended up following us for 3km out of their village and up the hill!
Day 3:
Phou Khoun to Kiew Ka Cham
Distance - 50km
Average - 12.6km/h
Today was another hilly day, but this time we were heading to Kiew Ka Cham, another mountain top town. So we had a mix of climbing and descents. Most of the climbs were about 5-10km, much shorter than the previous day. The legs were a little sore but we knew at the top of each mountain we had a speedy descent.
We met a Scottish couple at our guesthouse who were travelling south. They had just been to china and so we picked their brains over dinner for routes in china. We have decided we will be taking the bikes to china and probably riding the southwest part. So it was great getting some tips on cycling over there.
Nat and I both felt weird after dinner, kind of nauseas and not quite right. We both could not sleep due to discomfort and Nat ended up spending most of the night vomiting. Having to share a bathroom didnt really help the matter as everytime Nat felt sick she had to go up the hall to the toilets. I faired a bit better, felt like crap but nothing "came up".
Day 4:
Kiew Ka Cham to Luang Prabang
Distance - 78km
Average - 16.5km/h
After a restless and sleepless night we decided it would be best to try and get to Luang Prabang. We both felt slightly better but still very nauseas. But we agreed getting to LP would be better than staying there another night. We were not keen on catching a bus so we decided to head out riding. All we could stomach was a green tea and two biscuits but we headed off knowing it was mostly downhill with only one 15km climb as we would come down off the moutains to Luang Prabang. If we could get up the 15km climb we would have 2 descents then rolling hills to Luang Prabang.
After a 2km ride out of town we had a steep 20km downhill descent, which was worth all the effort we had put in over the last few days. Now was the hard part, we had a 15km climb up a road which zig zagged up the valley ahead of us. We broke it down into 2km blocks, using the kilometer markers as short term goals. We rode for 2km then had a break, 2km then a break. As we approached the top of the hill (4 hrs later) where a village was sited we came across a group of school kids walking down the road, we said hello and they could tell we were stuffed so they gave us some encouraging pushes for a few metres up the hill. When we reached the village we craved sugar so we went to a thatch hut which sold drinks, to our delight when we looked in the hut there was a brand spanking new fridge, so we downed an ice cold pepsi while sitting in the shaded comforts of the shop ladies house. The climb up the hill was incredibly hard, we both felt very sick but knew it was the hard part of the days riding, amazingly we made it up without pushing the bikes once!!
We headed off pumped on pepsi and had a amazing 15km descent, that took us out of the mountains down a warm river valley. The ride down was great, it wasnt too steep and had flowing corners so we hardly had to use the brakes. We were passing trucks and bikes that had passed us on the way up!! We stopped for another pepsi (the only thing we felt like having), at the bottom of the hill, we both decided we made it this far so we kept on pushing and covered the remaining 25km to Luang Prabang in 1.5 hours. This part was mainly rolling hills which seemed tiny in comparison to the last few days.
We arrived in Luang Prabang totally famished after eating only a few biscuits all day. The last thing we felt like was asian food so we splurged on some western comforts!!
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