Still cycling in Laos

Sabaidee!
So now our next attempt to include some photos but it is very slow..two photos in 20 minutes...anyway, therefore you get a little bit more text!
We made it to the capital Vietiane with our speedy japanese friend and spent a few very needed relaxing days in the city. Very small, not too much to see but relaxing all the same. Found a great Scandinavian bakery and thanks to the french colonisation some great baguettes. Sadly we here had to say goodbye to Tadashi as his next and last journey ends cycling to Bangkok, we thoroughly enjoyed the cycling experience and stories (of which he had plenty) and would love to meet again.
Off again on ourselves, this time heading south where not many tourist ever venture. The scenery changed completely, giving us flat roads as long as we followed the mekong river which stretched about 300kms. Only a few guest houses along the way, which are often used as love hotels at the same time! A lot of the Thai or Lao business man have at least another girl next to their wife which she doesn't know about??? anyway, this is the place to meet and we were wondering sometimes why it is all pink and very cheesy romantic rooms...but very clean and we just had no other choice, ether!
We hit on a small problem on day 2 after leaving the city. getting to one of the larger towns we had seen late in the afternoon we found a guest house and relised that our money had run out completley, we located a bank only to find out there was no atm and could only change travellers cheques, but having left these at the room and it closing in 5 minutes we asked wether we could do the transaction the day after. the only problem travelling is that you seem to loose track of days and thinking it was fri we walked to the bank early the next day and stood at the gates wondering why it was closed ad what to do next. After quite a while we relised it was sat, the local bank shuts on the weekend and we were stuck. Aggggghhhhh, the lovely boy from our guest house had to lend us the bus fare to go back to the city and we retraced our last 2 days on bus to reach an atm!! The joueney was def an experience however as there was no more space for us so we sat on very wobbly plastic chairs in the isle the whole way, praying for our lives as the driver seemed to have a death wish and by inches missed a small child crossing the road swerving to the other side of the road and creating an uproar on the bus!
Problem solved and back on the road south we stopped for the night only to bump into 4 other bike tourers staying at the same place! 2 from Thailand who have been cycling for 6 years around the world and 2 french guys who have juat finnished India and Bangladesh, great to meet others and hear there stories.It was here that Nils got his first offer from a Laos lady who fell in love with his beard and hairs both of which are never seen on a Laos man! However we think she wanted to get her daughter in with a westoner! After a short and funny conversation with our new Thai friends they all decided that it was one of the French guys who was the most handsome without a girlfriend so the heat was taken away and mr French soon went a shade of red!
Today we cycled 100kms almost with no break, very exhausting although pretty flat, however we didnt want to stop as once we did our bodies sweated more sweat than we cound have though possible, sweat in the eyes is never a fun thing, so pedaling the whole day is actually a much nicer experience. We visited a few schools along the way and handed out books to the head teachers that we had bought in Luang Probang, as most schools do not have such things and it was really great to give something to the children.Outside is one huge rain storm thankfully one that has waited untill after cycling, lightning and thunder and possibly some floods tomorrow. Although we are quite experienced now at cycling through floods as hopefully a few pictures will show. One day we went through a whole village that was washed out and the water came up to our knees! The locals watched as we sped through and cheered us with laughs and splashes.

so, now finally some photos, like always in random order and supersizable when you double click on the pic. Enjoy!!

Tadashi and George fighting through the floods
Goodbye Tadashi!!!

rain brings flooding every year
today we dress like locals, he he!

(don't repeat this at home, special qualified doubles)

A close encounter with a racing pig!
A well needed break in a village along the way
At the top!

One thirsty George after a day of climbing Looking back at our path upwards

Setting off for our Laos adventure
Up and away in the mountains of Northern Laos

After 5 days one silk scarf is finnished
Wading through the flooded walkways of the waterfall

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