(written by Nancy)

Quiet night in our pondside bungalow.  We kept hearing some strange noises and it took us a little while to figure out that what we were hearing was fish jump in the pond  – the bungalow hangs right over the water.  But other than that, we didn’t hear a sound.  The water in the bungalow was out again by the time we got back from dinner.  Luckily we had filled the garbage bin in the bathroom with water while it was working so we had the makings of a traditional Asian toilet.  By now, we know how to work the bucket sink and toilet.  Who needs running water when a pail will do the trick?  More points accumulated in the “I get a nice room down the road” column last night for sure.

Assuming our options for breakfast would be slim and knowing we had a relatively long day ahead we made oatmeal for breakfast in our room.  Thank goodness we bought several bottles of water yesterday before we headed to the resort.  Dave and I always seem to have a ‘discussion’ about how many bottles of water we should get – my number is always higher than his as I like to be prepared.  No matter what number I say he always repeats it to me with a shocked tone in his voice.  (editor’s note: 5, 1.5 litre bottles, you’d be shocked also)  So I am starting to behave like you do when bargaining – start well off your desired number so you get to the right number in the end.  Of course now I have disclosed the secret so I will have to really pump up that number…

We hit the road before 6:30 and it was actually pretty cool – almost goosebump cool.  It’s Sunday, which seems to be burn the trash day so almost every house had a fire nearby, burning trash and all sorts of things.  Kids are all up early, singing out to us as we go by.  I’m not sure you could pay kids in Australia or the US enough to get up that early and be so excited about seeing people- on the weekend no less.

Today’s ride passed through many small little villages.  Actually, while there were signs for villages they were really more of small groups of houses – very, very small settlements.  There were not even very many little housefront shops, which seems unusual for what we have seen in Laos.  We did finally see a store and stopped to get something cold to drink, though unfortunately the cooler was not turned very low so the drinks were pretty warm.  At least they were wet.

At about the 75k mark for us we saw in the distance two cyclists coming toward us and it looked like they had panniers on their bikes.  We pulled over quickly to the other side of the road and met Erin and Peter, Aussies from Adelaide doing a 6-week tour of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.  It was great fun to meet them and chat a bit about where they had been and their trip.  It’s always a shame to have to say goodbye to cyclists going the other direction but they had only done 20k after leaving Don Det (one of the islands) and needed to make tracks to see if they could get to Champasak.  We gave them the info on the town where we had stayed and waved goodbye.  We hope they have a great tour – here’s a link to their journal on Crazyguyonabike (Erin & Peter’s Sort of Mekong Tour) if you want to follow along with them.

There were no guesthouses or hotels until just before we reached the junction to a town called Nakasang, where the boats leave to take people to one of the islands that form part of what is called the 4000 islands.  About 4k before the junction we came upon a relatively big hotel on the left hand side of Hwy 13.  We had almost 90k by that time and it looked nice from the outside so we stopped to take a look at the rooms.  The rooms actually looked decent and the price wasn’t too bad – 100,000k for ensuite, A/C and hot water.  There was a restaurant at the hotel and another one across the road so no issue getting food.  I would have been ready to stop but Dave wanted to ride on to the junction, having visions that there would be more accommodation and food options there.

We rode to the junction to find …. nothing but two little shacks serving food.  Hmm, what to do?  It was lunch time and we were hungry so we pulled over to one of the shacks and sat down to have a bowl of noodle soup.  There was a friendly gentleman who spoke a little bit of English and we gleaned from him that there was another hotel near a waterfall about 6k down the road.  We pulled out the Lonely Planet book and it noted a resort near the Khone Phapheng falls.  These falls are supposed to be one of the most scenic spots in Laos.  So, we figured what the heck, we’d ride down that way and see what we could find.  It was in the direction of the border anyway so we were just cutting mileage off of tomorrow – assuming we did not have to turn around and come back.

We rode on for another 6k or so and came to the sign for the Khonephapheng Resort and Golf Club.  We pulled in and came down to take a look.  The resort is right on the banks of the Mekong River – which seem to be flowing very fast here.  The place seems a bit deserted but the rooms are quite nice.  It is a bit spendy but I do have those accumulated points and we have excess kip that we need to spend (thanks to my slight anxiety about running out of money – or paranoia, as Dave says – I just call it being prepared) so we decided what the heck, let’s splurge on our last night in Laos.  There is actually no golf course yet – perhaps that is a bit aspirational.

We checked in, got cleaned up and headed up to the restaurant to have a Laos coffee.  We stepped out of our room onto a shared balcony and lo and behold there sat two more touring bikes!  We had actually seen these bikes (both Roberts bikes) at Champasak the day we were touring the temple area but we had not seen the owners.  We headed over for a Laos coffee, leaving a note on the door step for the bicycle owners.  Later, Henry and Sandra joined us on the restaurant deck where we shared cycling stories.  They are from just south west of London and have travelled many places on bicycles.  What luck we’ve had today running into two cycling couples.  Later we shared a lovely dinner at the hotel restaurant.  There are no other options for eating but the food was great.  We both had our old standard, Thai basil and chicken and enjoyed more time with Henry and Sandra.

Tomorrow we’ll have a hotel brekkie then stop at the waterfall before heading for the border.  We are only 11k from Cambodia and our 6th county of the trip.  We’ve certainly enjoyed Laos.  We’re probably a little behind on the croissant count (we only found them in Vientiane and Pakse) but we’ve found some pretty good Laos coffee.  More than anything in Laos, we’ll remember the daily sabaidees from the roadside.  Especially the kids and how excited they get.

We’ll post from Cambodia when we get the phone SIM sorted, hopefully in the first day.

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