Oldies Gap Year

Some 1000km finds us now on the Vietnamese coast, having left the 4000 islands region in Laos where my last blog finished. This has been 1000km of cycling, although I have to confess to us taking a taxi with bikes from Pakse to Savannhakhet in Laos- the excuse being that we had cycled this road in one direction and neither of us could face up to repeating it in the opposite direction! This is us leaving the island of Don Khon in south Laos, via the French bridge. So called because the French couldn't find any way of getting past the rapids in the Mekong River, and built a railway line and this bridge to circumvent said rapids. It was a terrific place to get some sunset views in the evening, along with most other tourists it has to be said. We cycled back north towards Pakse, but this time on the opposite side of the Mekong river, experiencing the worst of Laos roads - 30km of exceptionally bumpy red dirt track.  There is a certain leap of faith when you look ...

We have been about a month now in Laos, and have pretty well cycled as far south as you can get. It took us 7 solid days of cycling to get from Tha khet to here: an area known as the 4000 islands, so named because its an area of 4000 islands in the Mekong river, and very pretty it is too. I doubt it's exactly 4000 islands... Maybe about 10 of the 4000 islands. I suspect the definition of "island" might be a bit tenuous. North from Vientiane to Vang Vieng. This place has quite the history: it was easily backpacker central for many years, fuelled by the legendary "tubing"trips that you can take down the Nam Nung river. A truck dumps revellers about 4km upstream of the town complete with lorry inner tube and they float down the river. Enterprising Laos people built bars along the river, and would throw ropes towards the tubers, who would grab the rope and be pulled in to have a beer. The problem was that what was for sale wasn't co...