A Big Out Breath 3

Getting Higher

The next day I really hit the hills, and had a long day of cycling. My legs are doing really well, I gotta say, given that I haven't cycled for so long. Way better than I expected.

Beautiful hills are appearing everywhere now.

Riverside village

I stopped for riceflour cupcakes

And to admire the view

Three different flavours, all yummy.

Cabbage patch

The view from my lunch stop

And the view inside

Basket for birds to use as a nest

They're getting taller

Roadside stalls

They were selling home made whisky, which is made from an endemic tuber. And the other bottles are full of local honey.

King Kong. So wrong.

As I rode further north, the roads got worse and worse. That's actually the hardest part about riding here, the road quality. It's one thing to have steep hills, but steep hills with long sections of loose rocks and gravel is really tough.

This bekery looks pratty bere. Notice the beguettes, e Franch colonial lagecy.

Bumping in to Kasi.

My standard fare around here. When I can get it.

Kasi to Phou Khoun

The next two days were tough riding, with long long steep uphill sections on sometimes really bad roads, and nothing much in the way of fresh vegetarian cooked tucker.

Rolling out of Kasi

Drying grass for brooms and dusters

Mud bath pamper

The scenery became more and more stunning as I headed up

Typical small village scene

Don't push me cos I'm close to tha, edge

This is steeper than it looks. It's impossible to ride my loaded road bike up sections like this, it's way too heavy and the tyres are too skinny to get any real grip. So I had to push it up. I've been doing that a bit lately.

I was pretty exhausted as sundown approached, and there was nowhere to stay. I asked about sleeping in a little village called Ban Hin Ngon, and an old lady kindly said I could camp next to their house, which was right on the super dusty dirt road. I stopped to get some food there anyway, and cooked up some two minute noodles and eggs, and then eventually found a much better camping spot up the hill.

My kitchen and dining room

Kiddies playing with some puppies.

I sat around for ages, loads of people from the village came to have a gawk, and not one person could speak any English whatsoever. So I just sat around and played guitar to the kids and anyone else who sat for awhile.

The kids are so great. They were so fascinated with me they just stared at my every move, watching me setting up my camping stove, pitching my tent, unpacking my stuff. I got them to help, of course.

The dusty road outside their house

My much better spot up the hill

A killer sunset with hammock moon

The next day up I went, further. The road just keeps getting higher and higher, it peaked at over 1400m, which is not all that high really, except for the gradient and the poor road quality.

Up and up

Witches hats, Lao style

When the road's not rocky it's covered in grey bulldust. You can imagine how filthy Blackie and I got. We looked even more elderly.

Am I in Lilliput? The giantest road marker I've ever seen.

Sometimes there was old bitumen, but it was often broken

Cruising into Phou Khoun

Downtown

Guesthouse foyer. The sculpture is made of Lao (worthless) banknotes

Wedding snap, and snapper

The view from my very (relatively) swish eating place

I can't describe how good it feels to eat food like this after a hard day's ride.

The Long Cut

So I've got a lot more hills to climb, and villages to visit, before I get to the Viet border.

I need to eventually make it to Hanoi, the best place in the region to get me a Chinese visa, because I plan to cycle through that great ancient kingdom sometime soon.

But, as usual, I'm taking the long cut. I plan to ride further north in Laos first, further up into these magnificent leg-killing hills, before eventually cutting across to Vietnam again.

Yay! Vietnam! Banh mi op la! Real cakes and coffee in some ex-French café in Hanoi! Rice paper rolls!

Aaaaah, it's neverending.

Life's bounty is truly boundless❤️

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