We got up at quarter to five this morning and were on the road at twenty to six, a bit early because it was still quite dark. We had our lights on (which is a lot more than many of the the local vehicles) and we road very carefully until it became light.

There was only one hill on today's route and we reached that soon after sunrise so it was still nice and cool (about 28 degrees if www.wunderground.com is to be believed).

After that is was flat, flat, flat.

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

Just before Phonhong we spied some cycle tourists approaching from the south. They were two Chinese guys who had done Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand and were on their way home to China via Laos. They were wearing custom made cycling shirts showing the route of their tour. Communication was a bit tough but we managed to understand that they really enjoyed Vietnam. They were also probably the only two people on this trip who didn't give us a blank "you've lost me now" stare when we answered "South Africa" to the question "Where are you from".

At Phonhong we bought a few baguettes for for breakfast and turned left onto the route 10 which took us down to Toulakhom (where we bought a pork kebab and some sticky rice for second breakfast - neither of us being very hungry after eating well in Hin heup yesterday).

The road followed the river south until it made a sharp turn to the left where we found the Vansana Nam Ngum Resort. It was only 9:30 but today is forecast to get very hot again (41 degrees), it had a pool overlooking the river, we weren't certain what we would find once the road left the river, etc etc. Lot's of reasons to cut the day short which we did. At 250,000 Kip it is more than we would normally pay, especially since it has obviously seen better days, but it is certainly a worthwhile place for Leigh to relax and for me to get some outstanding admin work done (yes, we're still working) and do a cleaning job on the bikes