Luang Namtha to Luang Prabang

It’s been an interesting few days through Northern Laos from Luang Namtha to Luang Prabang. The locals are friendly, the roads are hilly, and there are other cyclists around!

So I ended up spending a bit more time in Luang Namtha than I expected.. I got into quite a chilled out rhythm (which is only going to continue in Laos), of hanging out at cafes, doing some work, and drinking Beer Lao! All up I had 5 days off the bike there, met some interesting people, and spent a lot of time at Forest Retreat – a cafe and tourism company partly-owned and run by a couple of Kiwis Karen and ‘Dre. They have a wood fired pizza oven out the front, and you can buy Flat White coffees and get proper NZ Marmite on your bread!

Here are some shots around Luang Namtha.

So I finally got my arse into gear and rode out of town! I knew it was 3-4 days of riding to Luang Prabang, with a couple of hills in the way.

The first day ended up being 125km. It was pretty flat for the 75km, and I thought about stopping there and breaking the ride into 4 days, but after a tasty and cheap noodle soup I decided to push on. It was a 500m climb and similar descent to Oudomxay, which Lonely Planet describes as the ugliest town in Laos. It was definitely pretty dusty, but I met some nice backpackers at the guesthouse, so I couldn’t complain.

Some photos from the day on the bike.

The following day involved riding over a couple of climbs totaling 1500m of ascending that day. As always I started early to get as much done as I could before the morning mist burned off. The road was pretty average all day. About 30% of it was unsealed. Unfortunately the unsealed portion wasn’t together- every couple of hundred metres you’d get a section that was unsealed! Not so much a problem when ascending, but it meant that when descending you constantly had to be slamming on your anchors for the rough transition from seal to dirt and back again!
I passed a couple of cyclists at one point, but they were too cool and didn’t stop. Rude.






I arrived in Pak Mong and did a ride through the town eyeing up all the guesthouses. I saw a bike with a leather saddle outside a small shop and turned around to say hi. I met Tim, an Englishman who’s given up the motorbike for a bicycle and is currently on a “shakedown” ride from Hong Kong to Bangkok! He’s been free-camping most of the time and living on 2-minute noodles, but I convinced him to share a room to keep the cost down and have a chat. We rode to Luang Prabang together the next day. He was a lot more talkative than the South Korean guy I rode with from Pilsen to Prague who barely said a word the whole day!
The next day saw us push on to Luang Prabang, a 112km day that frustratingly had lots of little ups and downs, even though it was following a valley all day! According to my GPS we still ascended and descended 1000m- and we felt it the next day!

It was some great riding though, as always we had kids yelling Sabadee! (hello), and running along beside us or putting hands out for high-fives.. It’s such a friendly country here.

We got a cheap room in Luang Prabang and headed to a riverside bar for a beer and to watch the sunset. I’ve now done this every night since I’ve been here!

I met up with Tim and Claire, a Belgian couple I last met in Guilin, China! They’ve come via Hong Kong and Northern Vietnam. It looks like I’ll be following them south- they fly out from Bangkok a couple of weeks before I do.

I have been buying a lot of t-shirts though! It’s hard not to when they only cost about $NZ4!

So I’ve been in Luang Prabang for 5 days now. I started with a private room in a guesthouse but moved to a backpackers hostel for a bit more social interaction. I’ll look to stay here a few more days before pushing on to Vang Vieng for Christmas.

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