Vang Vieng to Thinkeo: 5km of unpaved road, beware!!

Sunday October 29, 2017, 63 miles (101 km) - Total so far: 1,268 miles

(2,041 km)

Today was a bit of a slog. The scenery isn't a patch on what we've become accustomed to. The road is much busier, and it isn't as flat as you might think. And it was hot. Mostly all attitude problems ;)

We had lunch at a noodle place in Hin Heup. There were quite a few options. There are guesthouses there, and also a steady stream along the entire route.

We were surprised to find dirt road for the last 5km to Thinkeo. Basically, where you turn at the roadabout just before the bus station on maps.me, it turns to red dirt. I haven't read this in other accounts. It was actually fine to ride on (and we have road wheels, albeit with fairly fat tyres) but it was bone dry.

Arriving in Thinkeo (or possibly Thalat, hard to tell which is which!) is a bit of a shock to the system as it's pretty run down and all dirt road. Crossing the bridge is like crossing into another country though. We are staying at the huge guesthouse right after the bridge, Keungeum or something. It's on both sides of the road but the part on the left seems to be closed. Huge double room with air con for 80,000. Clean but the shower is cold - can't have it all!

We did walk back across the bridge which was quite fun - there's a market to look around and people generally seemed quite pleased to see a couple of Falang faces. We had dinner at our guesthouse restaurant which was a bit surreal, as it's huge but we were the only customers. Hardly any of the menu is in English and zero English is spoken (fair enough, obviously!) so we had to rely on google translate to order our veggie fried rice. Very tasty indeed

• and no meat crept in, bonus! 40,000 kip for both of us, including a large BeerLao.