We left the hot springs and immediately started climbing. This climb was 700m and lasted around 17km. The gradient was mostly quite nice and the views were spectacular but slightly obscured by the mist surrounding us. This felt very dramatic but was a bit gutting when we got to the top of the hill where there was a famous panoramic viewpoint, and all we could see was cloud.
We did use the hot water dispenser in the café to make coffee, and enjoyed hot coffee in the cooler altitude for the first time in Asia. After the top of the climb we reached a small town where we stopped for some noodle soup. We also spent about 10p on two delicious fresh juicy mangoes. Stopping at the side of the road to buy cheap fruit is something we've done often in Asia, but not frequently. This is because all the stalls selling one thing will be in one place. So we'll have 50km of nothing, and then 15 mango stalls next to eachother with their tables touching. 50km down the road we'll have 15 of pineapple stalls next to eachother with their tables touching. We'll think - oooooohh that's alright, there are obviously loads of pineapples/mangoes round here, which is probably true but there's only one place to buy them. Why this is I will never understand. Anyway after we lunch we set off and soon got to the only hotel for the next day. We decided to keep going to make some progress and quite liked the idea of wildcamping in the mountains. The road was up and down constantly going through small villages and sweeping round hairpins.
Soon it got to evening and we found a nice little platform with a gorgeous view of the mountains. This wasn't very hidden from the road but we decided that the traffic frequency, and the overwhelming friendliness of the people meant we weren't worried. We cooked pasta and ate looking over the mountains, before settling down to sleep. Whilst neither of us were worried, it was quite hard to sleep...
May 8th - Wildcamp to Xieng Igeun - The ride of my dreams.
We woke up nice and early and had breakfast before setting off again. We started the day with small climbs before descending to our lowest point for ages, before the long climb. On our descent we met Elisa (ngl I can't remember her name so I just made that one up), a German woman who'd been travelling on her trike for 17 months. She was older than Mum and had cycled most of the way from her house in Germany. We were asking her about her trike and she told us that she had had a stroke 4 years ago and lost mobility in her left side and couldn't ride on two wheels. As she said this I noticed that her left hand was paralysed. She said she liked the trike but found it quite scary being so low down - a couple of days ago she'd been hit by a lorry. I was staggered by how impressive she was. She was going over the same hills as us, on the same roads, carrying the same things, on a trike with a paralysed arm.
It was a shame we were going in different directions. The long climb was hard work because of the heat, but morale was high as it was our last climb in South East Asia! At the top we stopped for lunch which was disappointing as our bottle of methylated spirits had leaked over all the food making it uneatable. Oh well! We could practically smell Luang Prabang at this stage (except we could only smell meths). We spent the night in a tiny village 20km up the road from Luang Prabang, which had a gorgeous view over the hills and over the Mekong. We had some really nice food (although not enough as we were running out of money).
May 9th - Xieng Igeun to Luang Prabang - The Last Hill
We had a bit of a lie in in the morning and then set off to Luang Prabang. 1km in Mum's gear cable snapped, and by the time we fixed it the day was hot! This heat had a different feeling this time though, because it was the last cycling in the heat we were going to have to do! Luang Prabang is actually quite small which means it was nice to cycle in to. We immediately stopped by the river for iced coffee and pancakes. We'd met Monica in Vientiane who's an American woman travelling the world with her backpack (huge suitcase). She'd got to Luang Prabang and promptly started volunteering at a local school, and told us about the guesthouse her host family owned for just $15! We got there and they had never heard of her and it was not $15... They gave us a bit of a discount and it was very nice so we stayed there. We spent the afternoon cleaning our bikes for the first time in far too long, and sorting out our panniers. You do not want to know what we found at the bottom of these. Luang Prabang is a coooool city, full of nice street food and people selling fruit shakes and crepes. This is about as far from the rest of SE Asia as possible but a welcome change for us. For lunch we had an avocado and bacon baguette. I mean can you imagine the luxury. In the evening we had a vegetarian buffet which was clearly made for tourists and very bland and disappointing. The beer was good though. We climbed a hill to watch the sunset from the temple. This was beautiful.
May 10th - Luang Prabang - How many fruit shakes is it acceptable to have in one day?
In the morning we got up outrageously early to cycle to the nearby waterfalls. These waterfalls are incredibly hyped up and expectations were high. The cycle was 30km and actually really hard work, and then when we got there Mum had forgotten her purse so we couldn't pay the 20,000 kip entry fee, or buy breakfast. I was pretty annoyed but luckily we managed to persuade the people to let us in for "5 minutes" - mainly by not giving them a choice. Once we were in we made friends with some French people who gave us money for the entry, on condition that we give the money back to a Jewish charity in London. This meant we could stay for longer and had a swim in the waterfall pools. This came with a free foot spa as the fish went to town on all the dead skin on my feet. I can't believe people actually pay for that level of pain? It was very sad not being able to have an ice cream before the ride, and this also meant that paying for a lift home was out of the question. The ride home actually felt a lot easier though which was good news. For the past few days we'd had lots of stress because Bangkok airways were saying they wouldn't take both our bikes on one flight, so we were trying to change it so we did the first leg of our trip on different flights. All I'm saying is don't book budget air. Eventually we had to get Gramps the basecamp legend to sort it out from Cornwall.
We then went to the UXO museum about "The Secret War" in Laos. During the Vietnam war the Americans dropped bombs on neutral Laos, to stop the Vietnamese using Laos as a trade route. They dropped more bombs on Laos than were dropped in the whole of WW2, and a lot of them are still unexploded. Every day in Laos somebody is injured when they come into contact with one of these unexploded bombs, and mostly it's children trying to find scrap metal to sell. We watched a 20 minute video during which we both sobbed. It was shocking stuff. The link to part of the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGWA6M8pQ-M
After this we packed up the bikes and had another equally disappointing vegetarian buffet. Luang Prabang is well arty, with fairy lights strung up everywhere and very tasteful buildings. It's a UNESCO World heritage city which means it's protected. We were very sad on our last evening in Asia.
May 11/12th - Luang Prabang to Bangkok, Frankfurt and finally Baku - Phoebe is an idiot and loses her passport again.
Our separate flights went smoothly and we met up again in Bangkok. Mum had had the better deal as she got to wait in the Bangkok Airways lounge in Luang Prabang. I tried to get into the one in Bangkok and they refused entry in a very humiliating way. Soon it was time for the flight to Frankfurt! I loved this plane journey. I watched Hidden Figures, La La Land and Girl on the Train (in French). Hidden Figures and La La Land were fab but Girl on the Train really doesn't work as a film #dontjudgeabookbyitsmovie. Anyway soon we were in Frankfurt! Soon after arriving in Frankfurt I realised that I'd left my passport on the plane. I mean really that is too much from me. After a stressful few hours they found it and we could continue to Baku. Arriving in Baku wasn't stress free as our visas were only valid the next day (in 3 hours time). The immigration staff acted like we were definitely criminals and took our passports before escorting us to a secure area waving their truncheons. Baku airport is PLUSH. I fell asleep but Mum didn't, and wasn't even allowed to go to the toilet! There was another man in the secure area who had been there for 6 days waiting for his visa! Soon we were set free and got a taxi to our hostel.
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