So it was a 5:30 wake up, I had not slept very well at all, in fact my sleeps were not the best in Vang Vieng at all. So I was a little tired, was on the bike at 6am and off down the road, I thought I would get breakfast before I left so stopped by the local bus station and had a omelet and sticky rice. As I was eating my breakfast an Aussie guy walked in. We started chatting and he has been mapping the Mekong river and putting in marker buoys so ships can navigate it easily. Hhhmmm an idea was forming in my head.
He also gave me some rehydration salts as he was heading back to Aussie as his job was finished. So my idea is as I don’t really like having to go back on myself is I get a boat down the Mekong from Luang Phrabang back to Veintiane and the carry on south, well have to check if this is possible.
After I left the Aussie guy I started what would be the longest up hill in my life, You start climbing straight away, just a slow hill but it goes from 250m altitude in Vang Vieng to 650m over the first pass, well you go from one valley in to another, so I have been riding up and over 3 valleys and passes.
The first one was not to bad and I had done 60km it the usual 3 hours so stopped for second breakfast, I thought it was only going to get worse from here on out and I was so right. After I had cleared the next valley which was not really that bad at all I had the final ascent to do, this was from 600m to 1400m over 38 km. Now you know how I have been going on about road signs, well Lao what they have done is put all different places on the signs so you never know when your sign will be coming up.
The start of the climb was not too bad the road is in pretty good condition so I was cruising away and making what I thought was good time, moving up the hill doing photo’s on the way, absolutely marvelous country side, the road winds its way up the edge of the valley, massive limestone mountains on the other side of the valley, cloud covered peaks looming way above me. It was very imposing.
To get you in the feel of things, most of the road was a bend after bend, like the bruce road at Whakapapa, (NZ), for the English like the roads through the Lake District. So after the first climb I was feeling like I had got places when a sign pops it little head up and I had only done 3km, it was going to be a long day. The only thing to do was carry on, and keep going up and up and up, you get the picture. After about an hour of uphill the road flattened out for a bit and then started to go down a bit, this was not good I was losing Altitude, it’s the worst thing.
At least the downhill did not last very long before the climbing started again. I had been going some two hours now climbing when the road crossed into the next valley, now we have all had this happen to us were you get to what you think is the top and no it’s not still more to go. By the third hour of climbing I was starting to wonder when it was going to end, I could see a bit more down the valley and it was still going up, there was a village further on so I thought that would be a good place to stop and have a break.
I came across the coolest thing in this village, a guy was playing a flute type instrument, it was really wicked, the sound was incredible, the perfect music for the scenery, I think he was using it to put the baby he had strapped to his back to sleep. After some photo’s I was off again, the village had not restaurant or shop so I just carried on.
It was now coming up to 3 ½ hours of climbing, I had been using my granny gear a bit but on the stuff that was not really steep I used higher gears. I had just come through yet another village clinging to the side of the road an thought after this village I would stop and eat my Mangos that I had got earlier, saw the perfect place to stop on a corner up the road, it looked right back down the valley that I was climbing. As I got to the corner I saw the English girl again. I yelled out and asked if she wanted a mango.
We both sat on this corner looking down the valley with the limestone cliffs on both sides and the little village just below us clinging to the road side. And the mangos were beautiful too. We stopped and had a chat for 20minutes which was a great break, then carried on up the hill, I left her behind as she was walking and carried on up, after another 30minutes I came to where we crossed over the spine of the ridge into the valley next door, and that’s when I saw it, I could see right up the valley, it was what looked to be the top. I still had a lot to go but it was a point of focus, I had my goal to make it to the shed at the top.
Now the road at this point got steep, it was granny gear all the way, at a crawl, at some point I even had to stand up on the peddles to keep going. My legs were starting to ache, my body was not feeling the best, this was way worse than 160km on the flat, this was hell on a bike. I had my goal so I kept on going, at one point I had to push my bike just to use some different muscles. I kept moving up winding my way up the valley, the big trucks were not going much faster than me.
I came out of one set of turns and the top seemed not so far away, but then you dip back into the little valleys that the road follows and it soon takes a lot longer. I must have been close to 500m from the top when the clouds came in and the rain started, I was hoping to get my photo looking down the valley but it was not meant to be. The clouds around me got thicker and it became like riding through Pea soup, my legs were still screaming for rest and the rain started to come down thick and fast. I could not hide anywhere so just kept on going.
At 5pm after starting the big climb around 11:30 I came to my point that I had focused on, I was now soaked from rain and sweet, the sweet was running off my head into my eyes and the hill carried on, my focus point was not the top, I was not sure I could carry on, I was already on my 12th or 13th wind and was running out of the go juice. I am not sure from where it came but I just knew I had to push on.
So it was that at 5:15pm after climbing all day, and a steep climb for the last 6 hour straight I reached the top and finally started my decent, it was still poring with rain, I was wet and cold but I was going down, then I saw the sign 8km to go, 8 bloody 8km what the F#&K. I had thought maybe the village would be at the top, No such luck. I was just about beaten, the road flatten off, climbed up and down a bit more but was relatively easy to ride compared with what I had been riding.
The next sign which came up pretty quick said 2km to go and the rain was slowing up, around a few more corner and at 5:30pm I had made it to Phou Khoun, my goal for the day, so I have found a room in this little village at the top of the hill, tomorrow I have 127km to go, most downhill thank the gods, do have one 600m vertical climb but that’s it. One thing the ride down the hill I just came up would be a hell of a ride, probably need new brake pads at the bottom though..
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