The Reward!!

It is difficult to sum up all that happens in the course of a few days or weeks, however describing our past few days in the Bolaven Plateau as a “reward” is by far the most simple way to describe what our final few days in Laos have been like. Riding through the cooler climate alone was great, but to see life of the people on the plateau in the late afternoons and everyone out actively doing something was such a highlight for us. As we have experienced throughout all of Laos, there were still the calls of hello/sabai dee/thank you/good morning (at all times of day) and kids running out to the street to wave at us.

Spending the afternoon swimming in the waterfalls at Tad Lo and enjoying the high rolling hills, flat plains and coffee plantations on the ride to Paksong were made even more rewarding with the long ride downhill to Sekong and Attapeu.

Good food, interesting people, rich and strong Laos coffee, cool climate, and an interesting experience at a small festive carnival in Paksong made the past 4 days in and around the Bolaven Plateau our favourite part of Laos. It was such a great way to leave such a diverse country.

We thought we would sum up our time in Laos with some highlights and challenges:

Highlights
* Friendly welcomes from children – in trees, at schools, on roads, on bikes, underneath houses.
* The welcome temperature drop (of about 10-15 degrees), scenery, people and coffee on the Bolaven Plateau.
* Places: Nam Kading National Park, Don Khon in the 4,000 Islands, Bolaven Plateau, parts of the road that kept us cycling right along the Mekong.
* Seeing rural Laos and riding in remote areas that had a great local feel and allowed us to feel that we truly got to know Laos.
* Laos traffic jams (buffaloes, cows, pigs and goats)
* Meeting other touring cyclists and gaining tips and route information from them. On this trip, we met a Canadian/American couple in their 50s/60s. The woman hadn’t been on a bike in 30 years when she agreed to set out on this trip. They’ve been cycling for a year and a half now. We met a very friendly young Japanese man who had been cycling in Asia for about a year and was reaching the point where as he put it, he was starting to drive himself crazy. We met a couple from England cycling throughout Asia on a tandem bike. We also met a Frenchman who left France 2.5 years ago on his bike, biked through Europe, Africa, and across to Asia. The best part about meeting these tourers are the tips we’ve received from them such as the tip to use socks on our water bottles to keep the water cool(ish).


Challenges
* The heat: throughout most of our time in Laos, our bodies resembled leaky faucets.
* Health difficulties associated with heat and food
* Smoke: cycling during the dry burning season.
* Witnessing the wildlife trade in action (we saw a tiny little Loris at a bus stop a few days ago).

All of the above highlights far outweighed the challenges. Our eyes are now set on Vietnam and we look forward to the experiences ahead although we are both a little anxious about not having any language skills to help get by so we are studying our guide book to learn some basics. We’ll update the blog again once we’ve biked through the central highlands and are on the coast. Sabai dee!