Laos i want to marry you....

Hello you, thanks for calling in again!

We made our way down to Vang Vieng, had some hard days of cycling but some very good experiences. Let's start at the beginning, Luang Prabang, the old residence city of the king when Laos was still a monarchy is very beautiful and has a very relaxing vibe to it and lots to see and do. We didn't plan to but we ended up meeting a very nice French couple which are traveling the world since 4 years and went kayaking together with them for two days. There were some massive rapids in between the flat bits and everybody capsized at least once, but it was great fun and the stay in a little village over night was very interesting. We slept together with all the locals in a big bedroom everybody together without walls in between, no shower except water out of buckets and the men wash first before the women allowed to wash...at night we had to drink the self made Lao Lao (which is a schnaps made from rice and tasted like old meet, about 50% alcohol) and teached them to play mau mau which they loved...

When we came back to our Guesthouse we had some pastis with our french friends and found out a japanese cyclist arrived. Takashi Sato his name, cycling around the word since 6 years (made far over 100000kms already), just cycled down from tibet through china, waited one more day so we can cycle together down to Vietiane (the new Capital city). The first day took us up into the mountains, over two hills, more than 80kms and 2200m uphill and the last 4 hours in pouring rain... the whole thing on a diet of noodle soup and cake. But we finally made it and the views on the next day which we spent over 1600m were so wonderful that we did not mind all the effort. After a 44km downhill we arrived in Kasi and the views again, never seen anything like that before! There on the market we saw our first dog to eat, they had a little market store with only dog meat, like small puppies fresh from the barbecue or bigger dogs with or without fur, yummy! In all the villages we came past we had to say sabaidee ten thousand times because the children would come running out on the street and want to do high five, waving while you are rolling past, really amazingly friendly! The last day we did a relaxing 60kms to Vang Vieng, where i am sitting now, sad because i cannot upload photos again, because they use satellite internet. Well, you will be rewarded with some very nice photos soon...

Anyway, except of some of Montezuma revenge we do have a great time here and it is just such an fascinating country, come and visit!

You will hear from us soon again, stay tuned for the photos!

the pumpkins