Laos...What A Start

Laos

Exciting, poor, exciting, fucked, exciting, wet, exciting, hard enduro main roads….sounds like me.

Exiting Boten from the border our eyes were opened very wide very quick, the concrete pavement lasted maybe 2 km.

Then it was road works, then bomb holes and rocks, lakes of mud and water…and these were the good sections.

First day took nearly 5 hours to do 144km, I was completely spent when we stopped, both shoulders had a full on workout.

Our first night in Laos we stopped ata Chinese run hotel and chinese run cookery, comfort fud for Ellen from the stress of the border..

Thinking we must have just caught a rough bit the next day was not any better, it was very wet (rainy season) and very muddy, our tires are good combo road and gravel but in mud they lack big time, always a tradeoff.

Yeap ...fun

177km to Pak Beng was faster tho as the roadworks were shorter, funny thing is once we turned off the main road the road got better and our average speed went up, however you just get the train rolling then you have to throw the anchors on hard to avoid a 2, 3 or 400 mm deep hole with sharp rim kinking edges.

Again in one set of bombholes I carefully plucked our way through then the last section was the almighty with no way around, our centre stand took the brunt of the hit which was big and jarring, no damage other than full nappies again.

Some scenery along the way, stunning countryside

Typical road conditions that went on for many km. 

This dude needs an award for skilly driving, he handled it like a boss.

The one thing that is heartening is the kids all wave like no tomorrow, we alway wave withing missing one of them.

This riding does tires you out and again I was feeling pretty used, we had already done our homework and semi sorta organized where we were going to stay.

Arriving at desto Pak Beng in one piece we rocked up to our accommodation, looked at the room and the view …sorted.

It wasn’t until we walked into town and came back we realized we were in the wrong place which was next door…age…overated….LOL.

Relaxing to my first G&T on our trip

This old story book was the menu

Long boats, they call them slow boats

 

Our next day was to Xayabouly, looking at the road we were planning a  l o n g  day, part way along we came across two trucks side by side on the road, one clearly not right, turns out he had run out of traction and a large tractor was just arriving to help, we squeezed through the blockage and motored on coming across even worse bits that were wet clay, not sure how he would have go on. To our surprise with the massive electrical station part way through a lot of the road was majestic once passed the bad bit and we were clipping along at 75 – 80 kmph.

Another small truck incident

We hit 6015 km on arrival, time for an oil change as as the Moto Morini travel god presented a shop 650 m from where we had stopped, oil done and dusted.

Xayabouly was a good stopover then on our bike again to a touristy spot called Vang Vieng, we pulled up to our preorganized stay …which we could not find, didn’t matter there were heaps and we chose a place one block off the main which was way quieter.

Two nights to have a small break and it was worth it, on our “day off” we hit the caves and swimming area, very nice indeed, I even took some premix G&T with me.

Van Vieng next..