Vang Vieng (I)

Trip Start Sep 13, 2004
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Trip End May 06, 2005


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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Friday, March 25, 2005

We met more cyclists in the morning at our hotel. They had lovely lightweight road bikes and were a little bit rude about my dream machine, which had after all borne me 95km so far, or maybe 93 what with walking up a couple of hills. They'd made the same trip from Vientiane in about 3 hours less than us and told us about a place to stay about 20km short of Vang Vieng before disappearing at speed. So they doubt our ability to cycle 108km over hillier terrain than yesterday's? The thought was in the back of my mind, but I'm allowed to think it, they're not.

Today as well as waving we tried out a few high fives with the kids (or low fives, depending on the size of the child). We passed a couple on a tandem who must have drawn an incredible mount of attention considering what we were getting. Reactions range from hellos to looks of surprise or amazement to laughter, whether at or with is hard to say 01 Drawing attention at a water stop
01 Drawing attention at a water stop
 . Cycling past groups of schoolkids always resulted in a few race challenges, but with further to go than them we usually resisted getting too drawn in.

Fortunately we had the perfect cycling day: overcast, probabaly somewhere in the early 20s all day and with the odd spot of water falling from the sky (casting my mind back I can remember something similar in Tahiti nearly 2 months ago). This allowed us to keep our lunch stop brief and so we arrived triumphantly in Vang Vieng at around 6pm. A few days later in Luang Prabang I bumped into one of the guys so had the satisfction of being able to tell hiom that we made it all the way. He then invited me to cycle to Vietnam with him, but I think that will have to be another time and definitely with my own bike if I'm going to do it.

We stumbled across the organic farm accidentally as we missed the turn for Vang Vieng, but it was a great find with the best food I've had yet in Laos (or at least a draw with the fruit salad in Vientiane) and having worked up a healthy appetite I was able to try out quite a few items from the menu.
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