November 26, 2016
to Xong Ja: the little naked boys club still exists!
"No honking! That's so nice". As we walk around the town and on the road there is very little honking.
We sleep a little later than usual this morning because our plan is to make it a short day to Pak Mong, then tackle the two hills to Oudomsay tomorrow. The crowing roosters next to our guesthouse make sleeping in tough, so at about 7:00 we walk towards the excellent restaurant where we had dinner last night. We had seen an “American breakfast” on their menu. The place is still closed….. A little nearer to our guesthouse is a café that is just opening up. We are given the advice to first go check-out the Saturday market, then come back a little later for coffee and breakfast. All right, good plan as we need some supplies for the road.
The market is nice, people selling vegetables and all kinds of housewares from stalls down the street with impressive karst mountains behind. We buy two nicely filled sandwiches, bananas, tangerines and bread for the ride today, then head back for breakfast. They serve a nice coffee and good western breakfast at Delilah’s.
Then it is time to pack-up and ride. The profile shows a couple of ups and downs, but it is minor and we enjoy the thirty kilometers to Pak Mong. We see two Thai style Buddhist temples, harvested rice fields and a couple of villages with wooden houses on stilts. Our impression the first two days in Laos was that the little kids were not quite as enthusiastic in shouting “sabadee” and waving as they were nine years ago. Today we get more of the “old” treatment, at one point a naked little boy runs with us waving and shouting. We are pleased the “naked little boys club” still exists!
We were surprised that after crossing Nam Bak bridge at 22km there were plenty of guesthouses and shops. At about 10:30 we reach Pak Mong, there are some guesthouses but we are not quite ready to quit. Going all the way to Oudomsay is too far for us, especially since there are two major climbs on the route. We had researched CGOAB, but could not find information about accommodation on-route. As we sit in a roadside café, have a cold drink and eat our sandwiches, a Lao guide and two western clients walk by. We ask the guide if he knows about guesthouses on our route, and he in turn asks the locals. We are told there is a brand new guesthouse and restaurant in Xong Ja, about 30 kilometers from here. The information is a little thin, but we decide to chance it.
The road is fairly new, it is the most direct route between Luang Prabang and China, and with the Chinese dam on the Ou River under construction we see quite a few Chinese vehicles. Traffic is so much more civilized than in Vietnam; no honking, cars and trucks slow down behind you and wait to overtake until it is safe. What a concept! After about 10km of “undulating” the climb starts more seriously. We have to gain 900 meters over about 20km, from 450m to 1350 meters. The steepest sections are signposted at 7, 8 and 9%, nothing steeper than that. And just as we were told, after almost 30km at the highest point on this route is a new Phousay Lom Hmog restaurant and guesthouse complex. The room is very nice, only a little musty smelling. We celebrate our achievement with another Beer Lao and have a decent dinner at the restaurant.
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Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 25,077 km (15,573 miles)
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