Small wheels in a big world
Sunday 20, January 2019 90 km – Total so far 1462km
Today the routine started again. I got up at 6 preparing everything and then I waited for Hernan. He was ready at 7:15 and we started to pedal. We looked for the road to the Friend Bridge and it was very easy to find it.
Saturday 19, January 2019 4,5 km – Total so far 1377km
I woke up early today at 8 and I couldn t sleep any more. I went down the stairs and got a coffee. After I went back to my room and watched some TV.
Friday 18, January 2019 00 km – Total so far 1372,5km
Today I woke up at 9 o’clock. I was so happy I could finally sleep a little bit longer. I went to have breakfast at a fancy place on the main road. I had a baguette sandwich with chicken and a very good coffee.
Thursday 17, January 2019 52 km – Total so far 1372,5km
I don’t know why but I didn’t sleep very good. Before before the alarm sound I already was awake. I finished packing, closed the panniers and at 6:30 I was pedaling.
Wednesday 16, January 2019 94 km – Total so far 1320,5km
At 6:40 I was already on the road. The weather was perfect, kind of chilly 22°C. Right after I got out of town the road was going along the Mekong.
Tuesday 15, January 2019 00 km – Total so far: 1226,5 km
At 7 am I wake up for a short while but I was happy enough to fall asleep again until 9 o’clock. I had a coffee here in my guesthouse and afterwards washed my uniform.
Monday 14, January 2019 103 km – Total so far: 1226,5 km
The night was really short. I couldn´t sleep because the people in the bar were really partying…. I don t know until when but they were really loud. At 6am I was already pedaling, no chance to sleep.
„Nam Phoun river-Sanakham: No water and steep climbs“ weiterlesen
Sunday 13, January 2019 135 km – Total so far: 1123,5 km
I woke up at 6:45 and at 7:30 I was back on the road again. The morning was cloudy and it was raining a little bit but not too much.The road was not really busy but like always it was going up and down.
Saturday 12, January 2019 39 km – Total so far: 988,5 km
Today we woke up late at about 7:30am. We were lucky the guesthouse gave us a hose and we started to clean our bikes then. They were so dirty and the dry mud was already hard like stone. Hard work!
„Muang Nan-Xayabouri: Short ride but still going up and down“ weiterlesen
Friday 11, January 2019 93 km – Total so far: 949,5 km
As usual got up at 6:30. I went to pick up Hernan at his hostel but he wasn’t ready – still having breakfast. So finally at 7:45 (already very late for me) we were leaving Luang Prabang.
We did a short stop by the market place and bought some fruits and bread. At the beginning pedaling was easy. The road was paved and it was nice to have company. We were really having fun and talking a lot.
At a gas station Hernan bought some gas for his stove and we thought about which way to go as the gas station was right at a junction. I said I think we should ride on on the paved road which was climbing up. We took it easy and started to climb.
There were a lot of tourist vans passing us by while we pedaled up all the way up to the top. At the end the road finished at some waterfalls. Nowhere to go on…. shit happens!!!! We laughed like crazy. As we obviously had taken the wrong direction we went downhill very fast back to the point where we started. At the junction this time we took the dirty road leaving the paved one.
At the beginning the road was OK. Sandy, but still we liked it. No traffic at all and beautiful landscape. After some kms unfortunately road conditions got really bad. It had been raining a lot during the last two days and so we had to fight our way through a lot of mud and a lot of large puddles. We were riding along the Mekong which was fantastic, just awesome.
We had a lot of fun crossing the puddles and struggling with the muddy ground. Sometimes they were very deep and almost half of my panniers disappeared in the water. Soon we were all dirty and smelling like pigs.This was not at all a road. It was going up and down and sometimes we even had to push the bikes while going up because there were huge rocks and the gears sometimes – dirty with all the mud – were just sliding and you couldn’t change from one to another.
In the middle of the way I realized that we would not make it to Xayaboury, our destination for today. We were going so slow and every 200m I had to clean my front wheel as we were crossing constantly those road puddles. The wheel was completely blocked because of the mud stucking underneath the mudguard.
Slowly it was getting dark and Hernan wanted to camp somewhere. I convinced him to keep riding because I knew there was another village coming ahead. We kept on riding in the darkness…..When we were getting closer to Muang Nan there were a lot of banana plantations and also some motorbikes appeared. We knew what this meant: almost there!!!
At 8 pm we finally arrived in the village and we looked for a guesthouse. We really felt a little bit ashamed because we were all dirty. Finally we found a place with a chinese owner who didn’t care how bad we looked. We even could take the bikes inside with us.
First of all we went to look for food. Everything was already closed so we could only buy some eggs and fish cans. What can you do?? We cooked the eggs and each of us had 3 eggs and a baguette for dinner. We took a shower and feel a sleep like babies. What a day!!
The total climb was today 1020m .
