Northern Laos to Vientiane

Happy New Year everyone!
We are writing from Vientiane, the first capital city we have visited so far...

From Luang Namtha, we cycled through very nice mountains and managed to climb devilish hills. The gradient of the road here is not as gentle as in China and we had our share of 20 % climbs. Laos is not very populous, nor particularly rich, we did not come across many guesthouses or restaurants in the 500km loop we did in the mountains. So we sometimes had to cycle long days in a hilly terrain and carry enough food to keep going throughout the day. We ate sticky rice by the kilo! That was the best cyclist food we could get a hold on. I have to admit that this region of the world is a real paradise for cyclists who like serious climbs and mindblowing descents, in a fantastic scenery without much cars. The people are also very enthusiastic about seeing cyclist falangs (strangers) and children rush towards us shouting "sabai di" as we cycle through their villages, often a handful of bamboo huts with farm animals running around.

It is one of Asia's poorest country and children, especially, are not always healthy-looking, mostly from food deprivation. The mountains offer little space to grow anything and they can seldom rely on fishing for protein. Often, children would use slingshots to kill wild birds or wander around in the woods to grab anything crawling on the ground. Thay also have no toys, a couple of times, I made a distribution of colorful origami birds, it's easy to make and doesn't take much space in my luggage. And the children looked very pleased.

Laos has very interesting sights, the Plain of Jars being one of them. Located in Phonsavan, this site is very misterious, huge granite jars have been carved in the middle of nowhere and their use has not been quite understood yet. Some archeologists think they were used as burrial containers, some other believe it was used to make rice wine (!). Going down south towards Vientiane, we stopped in Vang Vieng, a very weird touristic place where young foreiners get hammered while drifting on the river on tubes. They also sip down marijuana shakes while watching numerous episodes of Friends, looking like brainwashed zoombies. It was a pityful sight.

The markets, on the other hand, were absolutely surprising, we saw things there that we never thought of eating.
-baby birds
-flying squirrels
-water rats
-dried rats
-white worms
-bats
-eggs with embryos
-cat stew

I was too effraid to get overweight so I did try any of them. My brother Alexis however, would certainly be delighted to try them all.

We are now half way through this whole bicycle adventure, here are some numbers:
4200km cycled
43 days of cycling

Tire punctures:
Jean:4
Francoise:0

Falls:
Jean:1
Francoise:1
(with minor scratch and cuts)

Longest day: 140km in the mountains (8 hours on the saddle)
Shortest day: 32km (3 hours in rain and steep climbs, we called it a day)

We have decided to follow the mighty Mekong down to Cambodia and visit its southern Vietnamese delta before going back up north. So far, cycling has been a lot of good fun and we don't envy backpackers at all! I think we are now condemned to travel this way for the rest of our lives! Which feels great!

Speak to you next time!