It was another gray and quite morning cool to start from Oudomxay, even though we did not get going that early (well, around 9am, still Ok) - as today's distance was not too bad at all. The first 10km or so were not so interesting. Boring scenery, lots of ugly buildings, quite heavy traffic. And yes, we're not used to gray skies anymore, that certainly helped as well. After that initial, mostly flat part, the road started to climb. It was a mostly gentle climb, very feasible, even nice (we really start to like climbing). Once we were climbing the scenery also became much nicer, green: some farmland, some bamboo, a few young rubber plantations and also a lot of beautiful forest.
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| Much time today for a long coffee break in the fields! |
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| Banana trees and wildflowers, a nice combination |
The climb was gentle, nevertheless it was around 20km mostly uphill; as soon as we were around 1100m high, it did go up and down a bit but stayed around the same altitude. The weather was nice, not so hot, even a bit cool in the descents. Then we came to the last 20km, with the reward we like so much: long, gradual downhill for most of the way!
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| A still very primitive/traditional village along the way today |
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| With a good road through it however, road 13 still |
We arrived early in Na Mor, our destination for the day. 3 guesthouses and a couple of restaurants, and apart from that a very average Lao village, not much to see or do. It's becoming increasingly clear that we're getting close to China: we sometimes saw cars (and trucks!) with Chinese license plates already a long time ago in Laos, but now it's very frequent. Businesses have Chinese characters, there are Chinese restaurants. When we entered a restaurant for lunch, nobody spoke English, but actually they only spoke... Chinese. We just pointed at the stuff in the fridge to show what we liked to eat, and they made a nice dish with it.
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| Usually I show the nice pictures of beautiful views etc, but the reality is also that there is a lot of plastic litter along the road, like here... |
Our guesthouse is also a Chinese owned business. Maybe the Lao guesthouses are not the very cleanest in the world, but they're definitely OK. The one we're in now however, ... won't be a problem, it has a decent bed, a toilet and a warm shower, that's all we need!
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| Sign to our guesthouse and restaurant in Lao and Chinese |
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| A side street in Na Mor, with Lao houses and Chinese lanterns |
Our dinner was maybe the last Lao meal we had as it gets more and more Chinese from here on, and it was nice. We just stepped into a restaurant where we could see the "pok pok" to make som tam. The lady was really happy we came to her restaurant, and we had a nice cucumber som tam (the Lao way, with "pharaa" (pla laa, fermented fish) and all!), grilled duck and sticky rice. There was no light in the restaurant, and we learned that was because it was only open since 2 days and they had not yet installed the lighting! I guess that explains why she was so happy to have us, and gave us tip top service! And thanks to no light, we even had a candlelight dinner. I did not try to explain that concept to the Lao lady...
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| Typical in the Lao villages: the old traditional bamboo and wood houses, next to newly built stone houses |
Tomorrow: our last ride in Laos! (If we get through the Chinese border, that is, of course)