After two quiet days, we said good-bye to the mountains for now. The next stretch of road will bring us back to the Mekong river and into the Laotian capital, Vientiane. We had heard from other travelers that Vientiane is a rather sleepy little town instead of a pulsating metropolis but the Lonely Planet pimped it for its food so spending a day in a sleepy city was a risk we were prepared to take.

From our lovely guest house in Ban Khoun Kham, it was 270km to go till Vientiane. We had the whole day to cover this stretch so there was no need to rush which made for a relaxed ride. Right in the beginning, we turned a corner to stumble across an amazing view: Mountains behind mountains behind mountains. So we took some time to take it in, enjoy it and take pictures. 🙂

We stopped once at a river for a shade and water break and then again when we tried to sort out lunch. Near one village, a row of food stalls lined the street all selling what looked like cooked corn and rice packed in banana leaves. Unsure whether it was just normal rice or sweet sticky rice (a local dessert), we stopped to find out and buy some. However, I utterly failed in communicating with the local lady despite me using the picture-dictionary. She didn’t confirm when I pointed on the picture of rice but seemed very fascinated by the depictions of cake. Unsure what to do, I called over Flo and in the end, we ended up buying a whole “line” of “rice” parcels instead of four. Somehow, these didn’t look as if you just cut one of the end; they came in a neat bundle of maybe 20. The whole affair cost us $3 so even if we’d end up with a whole lot of plain rice, not a lot was lost. Instead, the lovely lady handed us two of the white roots that you see everywhere for free.

Happy, we rode on until we found a nice resting spot to see and taste what we got. The white root is surprisingly yummy, tasting like turnip cabbage while having the texture of an apple. The rice in banana leaves turned out to be…something else. Flo opened one of them and we were astonished at the amount of leaves used; the content was rather tiny given the size of the packets. After smelling what it might be (smelled fishy), Flo tried it and confirmed that it was some kind of fish sausage made out of raw fish. Yuck. Not lunch at all.

Not wanting to waste it all by simply throwing it away, Flo went to four locals relaxing in the shade and offered it to them. First, they thought he asked for food but when they understood that we were giving food away, one of the ladies especially, was immensely happy. While we put our gear back on, she started handing out the parcels and cut the second white root for the children. A much better solution. 🙂

Still hunting for lunch, we stopped at a baguette vendor where Flo got the usual grub of pate and salad on bread. I was not quite so lucky and also out of energy to try so I had plain baguettes for once. Unfortunately, I had run out of Nutella, otherwise this would have been amazing lunch. 😉

The afternoon was used for the last 100km. Somehow, while riding smoothly, I got homesick. So we had another break to talk a bit before we finally hit Vientiane. The traffic increased but only to town level. Only about three streets seem to make up the town center which are filled with hostels, cafes and tourists. Not having a plan other than getting to Vientiane, we stopped at a busy street corner, figuring out which hostel still had rooms available and ended up in the least busy of the streets in a small-ish guest house. Prices are back up to $20 a night for a bare room with a bed but at least, we should be able to sleep here considering the noise is less bad than one street over.

Tired, we only got back out for dinner at an Indian place with okay food but delicious naan bread. It finally satisfied my craving for a decent Chai tea as well.