Originally, we planned to leave at 7am this morning which is already quite late for me. That would let us only 2 hours of fresh temperature before the sun start attacking seriously. We got prepared, asked to the owner of the hotel if he could take a picture of us which he did obviously. Then, we were kind of ready to go but still talk and talk and talk until 9am! Arg! That’s nearly too late to start cycling now! Anyway, we must move! Have a good trip Stéphane. Enjoy Vietnam :-)
Map.
Elevation.
There is very colourful house around this place! Pink, purple, lilas, golden colour, green… So many different colours for just one house.
I enjoy so much cycling on a flat road :-)
With some short hills. That’s very surprising how the landscape changed too. Here there is pine trees which I’ve never seen until now in Laos.
The villages are now more something like town. The house are colourful and big.
Look at this one. I prefer the first now personally.
I keep on going. Up and Downs, that’s nice.
Oh, ok, that was nice…
After roughly two hours cycling, the temperature rose above my limit. The sun hits very hard. I must stop. There was a little shelter on the side of the road so I will have my break here.
Around 3:30pm, I came back on the road. I’m on a climb again… That’s hard. One day off was not enough, really, to recover fully. Sometimes, I feel it’s even harder to stop for a short period of time. I think 3 days is good.
Hey :-)
I nearly reached 1400m height again and finally I’ve got a long downhill front off me.
Once I’ve reached the village I tried the find a place where to stay tonight. The night was starting to fall. The first spot I found was not so good but it could work except that a dog nearby never stopped to bark at me. I’m sure someone would have come to me very soon so I decided to keep going and find another spot, more quiet. I was cycling through that village at night. Every one could see that I was looking for a place. Everyone know that rain comes almost every night. But no one tried to help me, or even redirect me to a guesthouse or something similar. The only thing I got was hearing “Pharang, Pharang”. That didn’t help at all… Anyway, I don’t expect any help of Laos people now so I continued cycling until the other end of the village. Even there, nothing. I could not find any shelter or trees for my hammock. This time, it became completely dark and I was still looking for a place. I know I will find one. I always find a spot. The question is when.
Finally, as I was starting climbing a long hill that reminds me what I’ve done the past 8 days, I’ve found a tiny flat area on the side of the road next to a destroyed tiny shelter. First, I thought I could fix quickly this shelter but I knew the next storm would blow up everything again. For now, I didn’t hear any thunder yet but sometimes I could see some flashes in the sky. As quick as I could, I set up my camp, on the ground again before another “friendly” storm would hit. The steps in order: Roof first, then footprint, hammock, mattress, sleeping bag, shower, dinner, close everything tightly against rain, lock the bike and sleep.
Hey Damien nice photo of you. :-)
Dis donc, elles ont soufferts tes lunettes, non ? Autant que toi visiblement !
Thank You Damien…and I can tell you: You will really enjoy Vietnam it’s so cool :-)