Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang wonderland

Where to start... I haven't written in 4 days!!! Very unusual; now I need to start digging back in my memory, also very unusual! So, I'm doing this more or less chronologically.

The beautiful Vang Vieng village scenery

4 days ago we were still in Vang Vieng, our second day there, with the plan to go hiking - which we did. We took it easy in the morning, and left late morning for a hike. First towards an easy walk that also went past a cave, then a shortcut to a next hike uphill. Every such "attraction" in Vang Vieng comes at a standard entry of 10,000LAK (the currency is kip, about 9,000 kip to 1 eur). Although we didn't plan to, we also went into the cave, but as we were not prepared for it, we just went in very briefly - there are no signs, no light, and it would be very easy to get lost. 

The cave entrance, you have to look for it. Inside the cave there is no light, no signs...

From there we went to the second, real hike (although we did not really know in advance). Another 10,000kip each and up we went. This was a serious hike: in total well over 500m uphill on a steep trail. They had really done a good effort to make this a good trail, so the money was deserved in this case. We hiked to the first stop around halfway uphill and further to the second, around 720m high, with a magnificent view over the Vang Vieng surroundings. It was clear, going uphill, that our condition is very strong, and that the legs are well trained for uphill hiking thanks to the cycling. Downhill was good fun and went very well too, but it did give us sore quads the next morning; ideal start to cycle into the mountains of northern Laos...

The first viewpoint on our way up

A view over the rural area near Vang Vieng

The trail up Phongern (silver mountain), steep and beautiful, made with a lot of effort

So we left Vang Vieng, a town that by itself is really not pleasant, but the surroundings are just truly astonishing. Great to stay a bit outside of town, as we did in Sivilay Guesthouse, but I would certainly not want to stay in the town itself.

Kids playing near Vang Vieng, with self made toys (looked like the small wheels of luggage trolleys fixed to a stick)

The first day towards Luang Prabang was incredible, unbelievable, magic, euphoric. The limestone mountains, the villages, the happy kids (imagine cycling in the opposite direction of hundreds of school children on bikes, all of them enthusiastically laughing, waving and saying "sabaaidee"!), the scenery, ... Also the cycling was fine; even though it was a total or around 1000m uphill, it's all very gradual and feasible. On the road we also met up again with Bas, the Dutch guy we had met in Nong Khai, and we continued cycling together. Nice to have extra company, great chats, good cycling stories, ... 

Leaving Vang Vieng in the morning, riding through remote Lao villages

Going bananas! Making sure we have power food on our way

The first euphoric descent

So beautiful everywhere all the time, you could just stop every 5 minutes to make photos

We had a gradual climb, an "ecstatic" descent, and then more climbing, but it was all so wonderful I just couldn't get the big smile off my face - until it hurt. The day ended after 83km in a hot spring resort a bit past Kasi; it seems the majority of cyclists who ride this stretch stay there (although there were no other ones when we were there). Even though the water is just warm, it's fantastic to end the day with a good soak in a warm "bath". There was hardly any internet connection there, so: no blog post. It was definitely one of the very top days of our trip, we both enjoyed it to the fullest, with several goose bump moments and a good smiling muscle training.

We met up and teamed up with Bas, who made some wonderful pictures of the 2 of us cycling together

Kasi hot springs, what a treat!

It was only when we were looking at the route for the next day, that we realised it would be much tougher. And it was... In total 79km with almost 2000m climbing (that's "ok" on a light race bike but much tougher on a heavily loaded tour bike!), luckily mostly gradual with percentages around 6-8% and sometimes going up to 10%. It was still extremely beautiful, and also really physically (and to some degree mentally) challenging. I'm sure our ultra running experience helped a lot to just enjoy and keep going... By the time we arrived it was late afternoon, we were happy to have found a simple guesthouse in Kiewkacham with hot showers (to some degree at least), and once we had had dinner it was just time to go to sleep - we were all spent...

Looking back to where we came from: impressive scenery and a long climb (and this is only a small part of it)

Bas and Ellen enjoying a downhill stretch

The compulsory sunset picture on arrival in Kiewkacham

Yesterday it was the final day into Luang Prabang, and it was totally euphoric again!!! We left an hour later than usual, by 9am. It gets really cold in the mornings, not much above 10C especially in the mountains (Kiewkacham is at 1400m asl), and we knew we would have a long downhill to start with - extra cold. So leaving 1h later would give the sun the chance to come through, it makes a big difference. We had more than 20km downhill - wooooohooooo! - our reward for all the climbing the day before. Then another 15km gradual up, and 15km down again. This day was really what it's all about, so beautiful, so rewarding, I was cruising down, totally enjoying it, and realising that we're doing a fantastic thing here... More goose bumps...

My bike on the top of the world (well, kind of)

After that last descent it was 30km cruising into Luang Prabang and after so much uphill pushing, flat or gently undulating terrain felt like a breeze. There was another "small" climb just before LP - we call it small now, probably would have felt different about it just a few days ago, it was still 20 minute solid pushing - and once up there, 5km rolling into town.

Magnificent scenery on the goose bump ride

Laundry day in the village

Did we have another noodle soup or fried rice yesterday evening in LP? Nope, definitely not. The pizza and beer were so wonderful, the best food on earth (for a day at least), a great reward for 3 days of hard work. But wow, now we understand all the superlatives about Laos and the route we just did, it's impossible to explain... There is a reason why it's a "popular" cycling route, and we did see quite a few other cyclists on this stretch (9 if I remember well). And yes, when we were on a holiday in Laos in August 2011, on the bus from LP to VV, and I saw some cyclists on that impressive road, I was already dreaming about doing this myself one day. Ellen was still thinking "you must be crazy to do this" back then, and now... we both did it 😁

On the final descent direction Luang Prabang, and enjoying it 100%

A last note, about haze. Back in Thailand there was some haze already, resulting in a constant unwanted filter for our views, and often smoky smell. Laos is not better, as you can see from some of the pictures. It seems haze is becoming something semi-permanent in Asia nowadays. There was haze in Nepal when we were there a few years ago. There is haze in Malaysia regularly. China is well known for all the haze. Thailand and Laos are not spared, and I saw online today there is a lot in Cambodia too. Indonesia is also well known of course. It's mostly caused by fires, fields and forests, mostly deliberate. It's almost totally avoidable but there needs to be (transboundary) political will to do something about it, and that seems to be lacking... What a pity...

Uitsmijters (no idea how to translate to English)

 

 

 

 

 

Just can't get enough of it...  Now we're enjoying Luang Prabang, and trying to get our China visa. The first try today failed, but we're hoping we can get it done tomorrow. And then, it'll take 4 working days to get it, so we'll be here for a little while. There are certainly worse places in the world to wait for a visa!