Yesterday was a seriously challenging ride again. As we spent the night in Ban Nam Bak, we had to backtrack 10km to Pakmong first, a beautiful but hilly road already. Then, from Pakmong, the road initially went a bit up and down - well, more up than down - and at some point started to climb for about 25km. About, because there were a few up and downs near the top of the climb. No real brutal climb but a long one, with often soft gradients but regularly going up to 7, 8, 9 or even 10%. Definitely feasible - and again, it's clear we're getting trained better and better for mountains - yet tough.
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| It was a misty morning again, this was our view for breakfast |
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| Fantastic scenery with a pale sun breaking through the mist, just after leaving Ban Nam Bak |
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| Still the cooler part of the day with some shade, pushing our way up. Most of the route between Pakmong and Oudomxay is very exposed to the sun, so on a hot day like yesterday you get pretty much grilled... |
It was also quite hot yesterday, definitely much hotter than during our previous long climbs. And then... our plan yesterday was to stop for the night after around 60km, in a place where we had seen some guesthouse online. When we got to that village however, the guesthouse was closed... There was another one a bit down the road, but that was so unattractive that we decided to carry on all the way to Oudomxay. That meant, more than 30km extra of which 10km uphill. It made yesterday quite a tough day, in the end we did 95km with roughly 2000m elevation in total... Add the heat to this, and it was maybe as challenging as the second day between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang. Something was also not fair to us on this ride. In those first days in the mountains, we were rewarded regularly for our hard work with long downhills. Yesterday, "they" cut the downhills in smaller parts (4km here, 6km there, ...) and built in some extra climbing in between...
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| At the "top" 1300m asl, 900m higher than Pakmong |
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| The other side of the "top", ready to go down after a good lunch (you can see the road on the mountain side) |
By the time we arrived in Oudomxay it was late afternoon. We took a break coming into town to go online and find out which guesthouses are recommended (on Travelfish, what a great online source of info), and found the Littavixay Guesthouse with very good value for money (a room for 70,000 kip or 8€, with a good bed, hot shower, all you need!). After the so much needed shower, we had a so much needed fantastic dinner in Kanya's Restaurant (probably we ate twice as much as normal) which for the occasion was accompanied by 2 Beer Lao Gold; we're spoiling ourselves, I know, but oooooohhh it was nice. We also enjoyed a lazy morning today, had breakfast at the Friends Café, I did some fine tuning to my bike gears, then we had an early lunch at Kanya's again, and off we went.
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| Fascinating villages on the way, some still very primitive. It's impressive how many stone houses have been built in the last couple of years in many villages though. |
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| Find the road, snaking down... Nature was much greener on this part of the ride, very nice after weeks and weeks of dry and dusty scenery |
We kind of liked Oudomxay. Many blogs and other online sources are relatively negative about the place, as being just a transport hub, nothing to do, boring town, ... Although we only stayed for the night, we found the town had a nice and positive atmosphere, with kind people, a lot of good places to stay and eat, enough things going on to make it alive and interesting but without any of the tourist crowds you'd find in other towns. We think it deserves a better reputation...
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| In many places we see people cutting this kind of grass, drying it, and then hitting it on the road surface or other hard surfaces to beat the seeds out of it. Then it's used to make brooms - which are much needed with all the dust here I guess |
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| What a scenery for a coffee break! You just can't ignore that... |
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| The last gentle downhill stretch towards Muang La. The road today was generally good, although there were potholes of the impressive kind |
We considered staying for 2 nights, but had already set our mind on coming to Muang La today. Muang La is again "just" a little village, about 30km from Oudomxay. A short ride, with some good hills (which we'll have to backtrack as well when we leave), for which we took our time. Muang La is a pleasant Lao village, it has a very nice guesthouse at the river edge, the Lhakham Hotel, some hot springs right next to the river, some short hiking options, and that's about it. It's just a great place to stay, in a very natural environment, amidst small villages worth strolling through. We'll be staying here for 2 nights, after which we'll continue our gradual approach of the Chinese border...
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| The Muang La surroundings |
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| More Muang La surroundings |
A final thought. We've now been on our way for a bit more than 3 months, since we left KL on Nov 22. It's been a great trip so far. We didn't know what to expect really, we did not even know whether the cycling would work out well. But it's all been really good for both of us, we're both happy with this big "adventure", I think it's exceeding expectations for both of us. This is true for the cycling bit, the more physical side of the story. We're still around 60km average cycling per day, and this includes all the rest days (also the ones in Luang Prabang), and it's good fun. But it definitely also includes the experiences; it would be difficult to capture that in a few words. You see, hear, smell, feel, taste, ... things all the time (more on a bicycle than any other way of travel), often things you're not used to. You meet an enormous variety of people, definitely not always in person, but just by passing through, and get impressions constantly. Any regret so far? Nothing at all. We miss some people, we miss home sometimes, we miss hashing and the hash gang, but we have not had any difficult moments or motivation dips. I think we could easily do this for a very long time still... There are still almost 5 months to go, and I don't want to think about the end too much yet, but it's already clear that going back to "normal life" won't be easy!
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| A view from the bridge across the Nam Phak. Our guesthouse is the long green roof building, does not look very appealing like this perhaps but is much nicer than you'd expect |