Laos has no Embassy in the UK so I had to rely on the Visa-on-arrival service. There was no queue and the visa was issued very quickly. From the Nam Phao border post I headed west towards Vientiane. I found an ATM in the first small town I came to. It is always a relief to get some local currency in your mitts so you know you can get food and drink when it is needed. I spent the first night in a guest house at Na Hin. Accommodation was in individual bamboo huts. Each had there own little veranda and a shower which was great. Accommodation was generally easy to find and reasonably priced.
My worst nights stay was at the Pak Ngum guest house at Naxay. It is actually more like a motel than a guest house. I recommend that this is best avoided. As the guest house was a bit out of town I went to the on-site restaurant in the early evening for some food. The girls serving where more interested in doling themselves up for a party than serving, but eventually they did manage to produce a bowl of fried rice with a few bits of veg and prawn or two. There efforts in the make up department were not exactly subtle,it just made them look like a bunch of Oompa Loompa’s ( from Roald Dahl’s Charlie & the Chocolate Factory) following a head-on crash with a make-up lorry. A few hours later I was feeling pretty ruff. Then the music kicks off. I asked them if they would mind turning the volume down a bit, but no. But there was no punters, just the stupid girls and a handful of friends. As time went on I got worse. I was sitting on the toilet and vomiting so violently I could get it in the shower tray without moving from the toilet. Despite feeling rather ruff, I didn’t feel like staying so left in the morning. Fortunately I didn’t have that far to go into Vientiane. I wished I had just done 1 longer than usual day. I couldn’t eat so just had to make do with bottles of Coke to keep me going. I took a staple through the tyre just down the road. A kind man helped me to get the tyre off as Schwalbe Mondial folding tyres are extremely tight on the rims and he also provided a bowl of water to find the hole in the inner tube. I had planned several days in Vientiane which was a good job as it took me a few days to recover. This was the only time during the entire trip that I was ill. Sure enough, the spicy foods took there inevitable course and there were some urgent toilet requirements along the way, but no Delhi belly. I just found that when I need to go, I needed to go NOW, no holding on until the days riding was done. In Vientiane the COPE (Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise) visitors centre is worth a visit. This shows the work being done to rehabilitate those injured by unexploded ordnance left from the Vietnam war. Injuries and deaths continue although at a declining rate. The exhibition also shows the munitions used and the ongoing efforts to clear them. From Vientiane I headed along the main road north. At Kasi I turned of highway 13 onto a smaller road across the mountains. Shortly after Kasi is a considerable climb up many hair pin bends. I passed the aftermath of a very bad accident. A coach had runaway down hill striking a Toyota minivan on the bridge at the bottom opening the Toyota up like a tin can before overturning. Judging by the lack of tyre marks, the brake lining on the coach had probably worn down to bare metal. After the summit you drop down into a valley in the mountains. I camped by a small farming community. As a solo traveller I prefer to camp by some habitation. The locals were very interested in the speed of my petrol burning stove. After clearing up camp there was a bit of undulating terrain before dropping down to join highway 4 for the run in to the historic town of Luang Probang. From Luang Probang I headed to Nam Ha National Bio Diversity park. After a couple of days at Luang Nantha I planned a short ride across the park to Vieng Phou Kha. I arrived early and the accommodation I could find didn’t seem that great and not enticing for spending the afternoon. I decided to push on to Huay Xai on the Mekong River. I arrived fairly late and headed straight to the Sabaydee Guest house which had been recommended by fellow cyclists heading in the other direction a couple of days previously. I was lucky to get the last available room. I cycled to the Friendship Bridge a few kilometers to the south. Departure formalities where quick and easy. You cannot cycle across the bridge itself. A free shuttle bus takes foot passengers between the Laotian and Thai customs and immigration complexes. The bike was simply put in the isle of the coach, but would have fitted in the boot underneath the passenger floor if it had been busier.