Hell Day

February 3, 2014

"Could the day get any worse?"  Famous last words, that made for an unforgettable day of cycling with our new friend, Darren - a vegan, cycle tourist from England.  We left Luang Prabang heading towards promises of a brand new, paved road thanks to the advice of Charles, the owner of Off-Road Laos.  Never listen to a stranger!

The day only sunk deeper into despair as the road turned worse, dust storms raged, Darren crashed, two flat tires, hitch hiking the wrong direction, and finally an 9.5 hour bus ride back to civilization after 57 km of cycling and 1200 meters of climbing.  Not to mention the lost baguettes, bike water bottle, and camera!

Look how happy Darren and Omar look - still totally unaware the road wouldn’t improve later as promised by that lying french bastard.

Note the skinny road tires on the dirt road.  There are construction vehicles behind . . . pavement must be coming soon!

Wrong!!! 15 km later we were still climbing on dirt roads and dealing with construction traffic.

Nothing says fun liking walking a fully loaded touring bike up a hill in soft sand while avoiding oncoming tractors and scooters in 100 degree heat.

Darren's first flat of the day.

The dust and sand became so soft we then had to walk our bikes back down the hill, to avoid another crash.

Only to endure this every time a car passed on the road!  And they passed on a regular basis. Omar actually disappeared in this cloud of dust after I took the photo, as I did shortly too.

Darren cursed himself by saying the “P” word aloud and had to fix his second flat of the day in this town.

It was at this point we all decided to flag down a truck as soon as we could.  We thought we were only 20 km from our destination, but in these conditions it just wasn’t doable.

After hitching a ride in the wrong direction, beggars can’t be choosers, we got to another tiny town with a bus station and loaded our bikes on top for a charming 9.5 hour ride to Vang Vieng.  We arrived at 1:30 am terrified that we would be arrested for breaking curfew.  

That is not a sock tan!!!

Thankfully, a new day dawned and with it, we secured a lovely guesthouse with this amazing view of the karst mountains, and our lost camera and baguettes were even delivered to us in a minivan!!!

Tomorrow is only a day away.