Vang Vieng onto Vientiane

After the short bus ride back to Phoukoun, we grabbed the bikes and made a break for Kasi about 50k away, taking advantage of the mid-afternoon clouds and resulting cooler temperatures. The road wound along the ridgeline from Phoukoun before dropping us amid the jagged limestone remains of eons of erosion. We've seen karsts everywhere in Lao, but they never cease to blow me away. Kasi was an unexciting town, but one with spectacular scenery. No karsts, but rolling hills scattered with rice paddies and stilted bamboo huts overlooking it all.

The ride to Vang Vieng the next day took us up a small pass before sending us tumbling down to the Nam Song river, as it sliced through the karsts towering over the road. All the downhill put us into town around 10am, leaving us with plenty of time to wander around and get our bearing for the next few days.

Before we arrived, plenty of people had warned us about the drugged out, tourist party culture that permeates throughout the town; they definitely weren't lying and it is over the top. Walking the main drag your ears are assualted by bars and restaurants running continuous loops of Friends and The Family Guy. Hearing the soundtrack for Friends felt oddly discordant while walking down a street in Lao.

Despite the over-development of some parts of Vang Vieng, it takes only a short trip across the river to leave it all behind and enter a world of jagged karsts, winding networks of limestone caves, and tranquil lagoons of cool clear water. We spent many of our days on the winding dirt roads across the river enjoying the sharp limestone ridgelines or exploring the various networks of narrow caves.
As someone who has always been a bit shy of confined spaces, the cave exploration put my nerves to the test a few times. I persevered when I could, but I was definitely turned back by more than a few narrow crawl spaces. Mentally there was only so much I could handle, plus being 6'5" doesn't really help the situation.
But, out of the caves flowed beautiful springs of cool, clear water; perfect places to take a midday siesta to beat the heat. My favorite location came equipped with a rope swing and oppurtunities to gain some altitude in the trees before entering the water. For the low price of $1.25 it was a relaxing way to kill an afternoon, and wash off all the sweat from the morning rides.

Alas our time in Vang Vieng had to come to an end. After six days in town we tried to leave but my bike wouldn't cooperate, or more accurately my pedals wouldn't cooperate. I tried to pedal up to the road from our hotel, but soon found that while my shoe was still clipped into the pedal, the pedal was no longer attached to the bike; a bit of a perplexing problem. After some careful consideration, we decided that riding wasn't going to be an option until my pedals could be fixed (unlikely) or replaced. I ultimately purchased some cheap replacement pedals at the local market hoping that they would last the final 150k or so into Vientiane.

Unfortunately the next day the pedals managed to make it about 15k out town before breaking. Or more accurately they took me 15k out of town and completely stripped out the threading on one of my crank arms in the process. I went from needing new pedals, to needing new pedals and a new crank arm as well. Joyous day. I wish I could say I maintained a calm relaxed demeanor in the face of my equipment problem, but I didn't. Somethings were thrown (the faulty pedal, possibly a wrench) before I mellowed out a bit.

After my tantrum we faced the more immediate dilemma of whether to head back to town to catch a bus, or try and hail one from the road. As luck would have it (the only lucky moment of the day) a bus rolled up in the midst of our decision making and solved the problem. Two hours later we arrived in Vientiane, broken bike and all. T