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Walker's Travels in Scandinavia 2017 and others
Cycle Tour Day 10, 60km, average 20km/h. Slept well despite a rather rock-hard bed. Bacon, eggs, warm french bread and extra strong coffee was the fuel for this morning's ride. Vang Vieng was abuzz with bikes, kayaks, buggies and people as we rode away. Certainly an adventurers' Mecca. We continued our onward and upwards ride into the mountains for 60km, one 10km section had a number of 10-14 percenters. It was the most interesting morning yet, very basic housing, rural setting, farm animals of every shape and size, wandering across the road, all backdropped by magnificent mountains. As we climbed and climbed and climbed some more, we came across a section of road that had just been laid with fresh red dirt, which had turned to mud in the rain. Cars, trucks and scooters had a real job to stay upright, but we all make it through. The bikes and is ended up covered in red mud. More heavy rain fell and we were glad to get to the village where we had morning tea. This village is notorious for trapping, selling and eating anything that moves. They had monkey, tortoise, turtle, birds, buffalo skin, frogs, small crabs, possum and the "normal" meat on display. The guides asked us not to take photos as "it may get back to the government". We then climbed into the bus for the 90km trip to lunch. Halfway there we encountered a partly closed road affect by a landslide. It was also on a steep uphill section. The bus driver made an unsuccessful attempt to drive through, but due to the rain turning the dirt on the road to mud the bus just slipped and skidded all over the place. We hopped off and tried to push it but we were in danger of getting swept off the road as the bus started to slide to the edge of a very big drop. The driver eventually had to reverse it all the way back down the mountain to the bitumen and get a run up. We all cheered when he made it through. Big double-decker coaches also got through but had to fit chains to their wheels to prevent the skidding. It was back on the bus for an hour drive, forever upward, to our lunch stop, the highest restaurant in the country, 1,300m. Unfortunately the clouds covered the whole thing and we couldn't enjoy the view. But the food was great, although everyone by this time was feeling cold as we were still wet and soggy. We decided not to brave the slippery roads down the mountain in the rain on our bikes so we hopped back on the bus for another couple of our. We eventually made it to our Lao Guest House. We were very glad they had a warm shower and nice dry, warm (although very basic) rooms. We were so high up that we sleep with a blanket over us. No aircon of course. Dinner was traditional Lao in-house and it was great. One beer was enough to send me to bed early.
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