Again, having only a 150km stretch to ride today, we decided to have breakfast at the fancy French bakery. Pain of chocolate (pain au chocolate) is just my favourite way to start the day. Again, it was delicious. We were happy now to leave Vientiane behind which did turn out to be a sleepy little town.

150km north of the capital is the small town of Vang Vieng. In earlier days, it was a party-haven for young travellers wanting to tube down the river while being high, but three years ago the party scene was shut down. Nowadays, outdoor activities such as kayaking, tubing and rock climbing are the center of tourism here.

The road to Vang Vieng turned out to be the worst in quite a while. Giant potholes interchanged with missing stretches of road. It reminded us of Timor-Leste, to be honest. Thus, it took us longer than expected. Unfortunately, there was also no nice space to stop and take a break from the taxing ride as we were pretty much walled in by trees and bushes that had taken on the colour of the dirt. Riding in the clouds of cars and trucks was also not that much fun.

We finally stopped on a bridge for a rehydration break as the view from up here was refreshing after all the red. Nothing to linger on too long though which meant that we arrived at our destination before lunch time. This early, we even got a room at Pan’s Place, one of the popular hostels in town. Since the cafe and our room looked nice, we decided to book two night from the get go.

The prices at our hostel’s café looked reasonable so we had lunch right here and then in form of Western food. While waiting on the burger and cheese-garlic-baguette, two other Germans sat down at our table. They had seen us arrive on the Transalp and were keen to talk, one motorcyclist to another.

Being in a slight food coma after lunch, it took decisive action to get out of our room once more and actually DO something with our time in Vang Vieng. The Lonely Planet recommends a tiny loop of about 26km which is short enough that many attempted it on a bicycle. We, however, took Rocinante out for a spin enjoying the dirt roads through mountainous scenery rather than the many waterfall and cave stops. And what beautiful scenery it was! We took 1 ½ hours for the 26km to take it all in, take many photos including Flo riding on the dirt roads and wave to all the locals we met.

At one moment, a lady working in a rice field actually smiled at us and waved and I wish I could have taken a picture of this moment but some things are too fleeting to grab on camera.

Very happy that we actually went on this loop, we arrived back at the hostel to plan tomorrow.