Friday 6 March 2015

We did it!!!

"Congratulations, you have just completed a tough ride" is what the cycling blog we've been reading said for an arrival in Luang Prubang via pedal power. 

You know what, I don't think they're far wrong. Pheweeee! What a ride.... 500km of full on, mountainous, 'out there' riding. Well it was for us anyway ;-). Here is a graph showing 2 days of it. We were travelling from right to left, hmm, top to bottom if you get what I mean?

I've wanted to come to Luang Prabang for nearly 4 years. We first heard about it from motorbiking mates we met in Bangkok. We were only doing a measly Oz to Uk but John & Jane (from Surrey don't you know) were going right around the world plus had just 'done' Cambodia & Laos. They spoke of this wonderful place, I got well jell and it has stuck in my mind since then.

Now, the mind is a funny thing (well mine is anyway). Despite the knowledge of what the landscape looked like upon our approach I still had a glimmer of hope that as we turned the last corner we would be rewarded with a romantic mix of Asian bamboo houses on stilts and old French colonial buildings nestled into landscape like this

Instead, when we rode into town we saw this

Hmmm... Luckily the French guy we met a couple of days back had given us the steer on a lovely guesthouse. Now the naysayers of this world would have you believe that the whole town is full up and super expensive but what do ya know, within 5 minutes we were installed in a lovely clean, aircon room over looking a courtyard garden, all for a tenner a night. Stick that in your Tripadvisor and smoke it!

Over breakfast that morning (yep, omelette & sticky rice again) we'd realised that LP pretty much marks the end of our cycling.

We actually never though we'd get here so if the pedals don't turn again we'll still be well chuffed. But don't fret, Betty's wheels haven't stopped turning yet. From here we'll take a 2 day slow boat up to the Thai border and then ride about 300km through to Chiang Mai which really will be the end. We'll try to sell the bikes there or train them to Bangkok and maybe sell there or bring them home or give them to a homeless person or, or, or... There's nothing like a decent plan is there? We do know that we have a flight booked from Bangers to London on the 26th, yikes!

But for now, we're just going to chill out. Kate has wasted no time getting back into the finer things in life

she has even tried to drag me into it. Would you believe that those cocktails are called a Pink Gay and she made me ask for them?!

It's bloody hot here down in the valley but we will try to get out and about a bit as we know you're all relying on us to keep sending reports of lovely & interesting places. ;-)


2 comments:

  1. Well done guys - you made it! Now cheers to that and see you soon!

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  2. Well done you two, John and I have just caught up with the last couple of weeks of your travels. A bit like listening to the Archers omnibus, but much more exciting of course! As you can imagine the photo of the French Canadian guy's bike had John hyperventilating, he obviously hasn't read the John McComb manual on neat and tidy bike packing! Hope your travels continue to be fun and interesting with the occasional Pink Gayxx

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