On this day of food we said farewell to a comfortable guesthouse in Kampot with one last Western breakfast, stopped for a snack just before 12pm which made do for lunch, cycled almost 150km when we’d intended to do 100km and ate dinner in near darkness. As you do.

The below documents what two hungry cyclists ate in one day in Cambodia.

Breakfast

Two banana pancakes each (sold at a bargain US$1.75) and we figured that we also needed the omelette and potatoes (Justin) and peanut butter and toast (Emma).

Drinks

Sugar cane juice in crushed ice, and iced coffees – typical of our on the road fuelling in Cambodia’s heat.

Lunch

Fried rice with pork and vegetables with both brown and chilli sauce.

Snack

Sour mango and plain muffins (pictured half devoured).

Dinner

Sour fish soup (tastes better than it looks), chilli and fish sauce dipping sauce and steamed rice plus remaining muffin and packet of wafers. Dessert consisted of shaved ice, condensed milk and random jelly stuff not pictured as it melted too quickly!

Heading south from Siem Reap there are just over 300km of almost completely flat riding which we start with a tough but manageable 150km day (our longest day of the trip so far). The towns along the route are small and dusty but always filled with smiling faces and shouts of “Hello” from the children. For one of the country’s main highways the road is narrow and the often heavy traffic gives us good reason to cover the distance quickly. The cold water bucket showers on offer at the guesthouses we find en-route provide a welcome relief from the road dust and heat.

In Kampong Thom we store our bikes overnight next to an ice factory which roars day and night to produce the ingredient vital for refrigeration in a country without reliable electricity. In Skuon we pass a vendor balancing a plate of deep fried spiders (a local delicacy) on her head. With her back towards us we are not quite quick enough to attract her attention to sample a few. “Oh well, maybe next time” I tell Emma. Overnight we wake to the sound of rain hammering on the tin roof outside our room. It is the first rain I have heard in around three months. The sound lulls me to sleep.

Approaching Phnom Penh on a narrowing road with no hard shoulder I cycle behind and slightly to the traffic side of Emma. With our wide fully laden bikes we occupy well over half a lane giving cars no room to squeeze by us. Surprisingly drivers who previously raced past us tooting and flashing their lights, now wait patiently behind us and pass slowly when I move aside to give them space. My opinion of Cambodian drivers as maybe the most dangerous we have encountered on our trip to date is slightly improved.

Following advice from Dutch cyclists Bauke and Elske we head to a cheap hotel near the centre of town. The next day we meet with them for lunch at their regular haunt, a vegetarian cafe with a truly mouth-watering menu. Outside is an impressive array of touring bicycles while inside a throng of cyclists sit eating and chatting. With the conversation and food flowing freely we feel transported into a busy social scene that seems a world away from how we spent our morning.

Before lunch we had visited the Tuol Sleng or S-21 Museum with a Dutch cycling couple and their backpacker friends from a neighbouring hotel. The museum courtyards were filled with sunshine and birdsong as visitors walked sombrely along passageways all too recently filled with horror. From the detention rooms you catch incongruous glimpses of bustling city streets and colourful flower filled balconies. The details of the inmates were meticulously recorded by the Khmer Rouge regime and looking at row after row of their photographs is almost too much to absorb. Its easy to forget that each face bears its own individual story of suffering and yet remains largely a mystery to me.

The following day we visit the Choeung Ek memorial site the best known of a number of sites collectively known as The Killing Fields. The grassy site surrounds a tranquil pond with views across rice paddies in stark contrast to the sombre concentration displayed by the visitors. Proceeding between small numbered markers the excellent audio guide provides an insight into the events that took place. With personal commentary from inmates, their family members and former Khmer Rouge soldiers, the emotion behind how the regime impacted the lives of the Cambodian people can be forcibly felt.

Our neighbouring cyclists, Martje and Frank are heading northwards and while I enthusiastically talk through our Laos and China cycling route, Emma spends her day on a cooking course learning the secrets of Cambodian cuisine (thanks to a kind donation from reader Gayle). Between adding Pumpkin Custard, Banana Leaf Fish Sausages and Fish Amok to her repertoire, she chats with the tutor and fellow students about Cambodian life. Emma ends the day feeling a little under the weather and despite her firm protestations, I lay the blame with a full day of eating and cooking.

Heading south to Kampot via national route two then switching to route three the roads continue to be narrow and busy with traffic. We are again racing through the flat coconut palm-strewn countryside and realise that with an earlier start we could have been in Kampot in just a single day. A fellow cyclist had told us that rooms in Kampot could be hard to find thanks to what he described as their “we don’t know who is checking out today non-system”. Finding a decent room at our early arrival time of 9:30am, we grab it and settle in for internet chores and a selection from their fine breakfast menu.

At 5:30am we’re at the Angkor Wat Archaeological Park ticket office, blurry-eyed as we’re directed where to stand to get our obligatory mug shot snapped by the incredibly bright-eyed early morning staff. We opt for a three day ticket which we can use over a seven day period. Its still pitch black as we take the left fork towards Angkor Wat. The traffic has picked up with motorcycle drawn tuk-tuks and buses heading the same direction as us while a steady street of Cambodian commuters pedal bicycles in the opposite direction. Most tourists are racing towards Angkor Wat for sunrise but we pass without even a glimpse of its famous silhouette as it is still shroud in darkness.

We’re on a mission to climb the only hill in the area for what promises to be a quieter sunrise over ancient Khmer architecture. Two kilometres later we arrive at the gates to Angkor Thom meaning we missed our temple. Another cyclist. from Spain, hails us in the dark and joins our Indiana Jones-inspired temple hunting. We return the way we’d arrived and peer into the dark forest on the side of the road, wishing for such tourist amenities as information boards.

Spying a promising dark shape in the distance we lock up bicycles and follow a forest trail, climbing up a short steep stairs to the top with only head torches to light our way. Swarmed immediately by mosquitoes, we look out from our precarious view point as the sky slowly lightens. A canopy of trees towers us on all sides and we’re clearly not on a hill. Its becoming very apparent that we’re in the wrong place.

Back on the road we cut our losses and enjoy watching colour enter the sky at the gates to Angkor Thom, one of the most impressive cities of the ancient world. Dawn is still breaking as we pass through the middle of Angkor Thom, leaving our Spanish companion to explore the central ruins of the city while we continue in the still absurdly early morning to the city’s Northern gate.

Our first temple stop is Preah Khan, where we resist the enticements from a row of breakfast vendors in order to make the most of the early morning cool. A few minutes walk across a moat and into the temple complex we’re the only visitors in a maze of corridors seemingly made for shorter people than us. I try to imagine Kings of diminutive stature striding through the rooms, wearing down the uneven slabs of stone beneath our feet. We’re absorbed by small details in carvings still visible on walls, stains of colour growing on rock faces and a state of disrepair which makes me think of a giant’s Lego set. Its only as we’re leaving that other tourists begin to arrive.

We continue clockwise around what is known as Angkor Wat’s “big circuit”, stopping in front of each temple to read up on what’s in front of us and invariably deciding that each is worth a visit. The huge towers of the Eastern Mebon, a Hindu temple made of red bricks with elephant statues at each corner is an unexpected highlight.

At the top of Eastern Mebon we peer into the dim of each tower. At one, a guardian catches us unaware and beckons us into one adorned with a Buddhist shrine. He shows us the echo that sounds if you thump your heart and directs Justin to take a photo of the sky through the hole in the ceiling. We’re offered incense sticks, which we place into a pit of ash and told this is for luck in Cambodia. He indicates where we should make a donation for this service and, charmed by his sales technique, I pull a few small notes out of my wallet.

Its great having the bikes out with us, as the temple grounds are well shaded for cycling and traffic is fairly slow moving. It only gets busy as we turn back towards the centre to visit a well-known temple called Ta Prohm which the jungle had once almost completely reclaimed. Just before lunch it appears we’ve timed our visit with the tour buses, coming across a car park swarming with traffic and wily restaurant owners making us promise to visit them at their numbered cafes.

We do our best to give Ta Prohm a chance to woo us but our eyes are a little glazed over as we sit in the shade to eat peanuts halfway through our visit. Its not long before the hordes of visitors disappear to their waiting transport and we tackle the slightly quieter main buildings with just a few independent travellers. We have managed to wander around six temples in just as many hours so it is clearly time for lunch ourselves. Two hours and one monkey watching episode later we head out of the temple complex having visited at total of 8 temples in 10 hours.

Unfortunately we head back into the park that evening somewhat sooner than planned, as I’d lost my ticket on the way out. We retrace our steps until Justin spots it along the side of the road. I suspect that finding the ticket was the extent of our good fortune purchased from the temple guardian. We wisely take the next day off.

We planned to see best bits last, visiting Angkor Thom and the surrounding buildings on one day and and the main attraction, Angkor Wat, on another. Our Ankgor Thom morning doesn’t start so early, but visitors are still light on the ground as we climb up into the many-faced temple of Bayon. On the lower levels bas-relief fatigue quickly sets in, but while I could kill for a coffee, I struggle around the entire 1.2km of carvings looking for oddities such as men juggling monkeys and picking nits out of each other’s hair.

Justin climbs the steep steps to a library room while I quickly get bored of the low levels and climb to the top of the central temple, losing him for half an hour in the process. Reunited we find a place to sit and contemplate the oddity of carving the same giant face 214 times in one building. Continuing our tour of the ancient city, we avoid the tour group crowds by following well-trodden forest paths between less popular sites, including Baphoun and Phimeanakas temples.

After coffee, exploring the well-named Terrace of the Leper King and Terrace of Elephants doesn’t take long as we had already seen them from the road. We pick up our bicycles to head East. After an unplanned detour to the little used East gate (which featured in the movie Tomb Raider) we rejoin the main road for a few final sites. Most of these we find underwhelming and over-run by trinket sellers. The last temple, Ta Keo, is impressive solely because of how high you can scramble up without any real protection and how high you suddenly feel when you’re about to climb down.

The next day we’re eating a late lunch in a cafe in Siem Reap township when a Dutch cyclist starts chatting to us. As we wrap up and pay we apologise for excusing ourselves rapidly. We’re on our way to Angkor Wat. He gives us a second look as we wave goodbye, clearly thinking that we’re mad to enter the park with just three hours until closing.

After two full days of temple gazing, a time limit at the top attraction is just right for us. Its predictably crowded with tour groups and photographers almost everywhere, but we sneak in a little education listening to English-speaking guides before we take a close up parade around the inner courtyard.  We muster enough excitement to pull ourselves up one last staircase to the mother of all towers and look at those incredibly carved turrets from all angles. We old temple-hands can’t help but think that the view is a little lessoned by the scaffolding covering some of the front and the size of the main building is hard to grasp, but regardless it is a beautiful piece of history.

Having read that when Angkor Wat was ‘discovered’ in the 1860s there was a working monastery inside, we’re not surprised when we turn a corner to find a young monk silhouetted against a doorway opening to a steep outdoor staircase. We join him to catch the breeze which has cooled the afternoon significantly and chat idly for a few minutes about our respective journeys. Its here I kind of get the point of building a temple on such a huge scale, as even with the huge volume of visitors, there is still room for quiet contemplation.

Leaving Laos we avoided the spurious stamp fees the officials asked for and simply ducked under the barrier into no-mans land. I was expecting the hounds to be unleashed, sirens to blare and machine gun fire to strafe the ground at my feet, alas not even a flicker of interest from the Laos border officials.

With Emma feeling off colour after a night spent largely in the bathroom, we were surprised that the obligatory Cambodian temperature test came back all clear and she wasn’t sent back to Laos. We quickly moved on to being taught the Cambodian for “thank you” (aw khun) and negotiating reductions for more spurious “stamp fees” with the Cambodian officials. Its amazing how two dirty cyclists bargaining over a few dollars quickly gets old when a bus full of tourists with shiny new backpacks arrives. We were swiftly waved on.

The road to Stung Treng is sparsely populated and has little shade making for hot cycling. The sizzling temperatures aren’t helped as we pass stretches where the fields either side of the road have been deliberately set alight to clear them for agriculture. With a stiff wind blowing hot ash across the sky and not a soul in sight we wonder how controlled the fires really are.

From Stung Treng we planned to cross the Mekong by ferry, head west on route 214 towards the Koh Ker temple complex then drop south past Beng Mealea and join the main route 6 into Siem Reap. Discussing this plan with a local at our guesthouse, he advises that the 214 road is in very bad condition and we will need to cycle 150km to reach the first guesthouse. With the first ferry leaving at 7am the next morning, we head to bed with our sense of adventure restored.

Timetables, signs and any sense of safety are all absent from the ferry the next morning. As a man signals at us not to board, we insistently push our bikes past him onto the barge. With a grader, numerous motos and foot passengers already on board, we don’t see how our touring bikes will tip the balance. A short while later we watch in amazement as the grader shuffles forward to allow a lorry and a smaller truck to squeeze in. The barge lowers noticeably in the water and I ponder if in a pinch my panniers could double as flotation devices.

The ferry is pushed by a small tug that has seen better days from the Tonle San river into the fast flowing Mekong where the water noticeably muddies and the tug’s engine pitch goes up a few notches. With careful precision the tug captain guides the barge into the far shore where a mad scramble to exit ensues.

We are following some notes about cycling route 214 from cyclists Kate + Jason we met in China containing ominous warnings of construction crews cutting a new road across the old jungle track. Its not long until we see Chinese surveyors dressed in immaculate light blue boiler suits and white hard hats. They stand incongruously amongst pecking chickens and children playing games in the dust as they take sightings for the new road. I wonder if they have a full laundry service at their camp.

Although we find small sections of the original jungle track it has largely been bulldozed out of sight in preparation for construction of what seems to be a dual carriageway. Over the next few hours of cycling we witness road building Cambodian-style. Heavy machinery pushes and pulls the earth apart, workers escape the midday sun in hammocks and small fires slowly nibble away at the jungle under the watchful gaze of guardians whose main fire control tool seems to be a stick. There is no traffic, save the occasional moto, and with few villages along the route which terminates at the Mekong, we wonder who will use the new road when it is finished.

Following a moto equipped with bell, chiller, ice-shaver and vividly coloured flavour jars (the local version of an ice-cream truck) for most of the afternoon, we drink our water supply dry and refill from a gleaming new water pump. The environmental cost of road progress seems to be partially paid for by the installation of these new pumps in most villages we pass.

In almost total darkness after 138km of dusty, hot riding we reach Tbeng Meanchey’s strip of street lights and a guesthouse. The security guard asks where we came from and when I say Stung Treng he looks at me seriously and says “That’s a long way”. Wearily cleaning and oiling our bike chains, I nod my head in agreement.

In our hotel room, we strip off to find the exposed parts of our bodies have been coloured in deep earth tones by the pervasive brown road dust clinging to our skin. The shower water runs brown for a good long while as we both rinse off and soak under a rare hot shower.

A quick morning of cycling with a tailwind gives way to brutal heat as the sun climbs the sky and although we arrive at the Koh Ker temple complex by lunchtime we are already drained. The only room available is a little pricey but we take it, dump our bags and jump back on the bikes for the 6km ride into the park. Other than two dirt bike riding tourists we wave to in one temple, we have the place to ourselves and spend four exciting hours clambering over ruins and feeling like regular explorers.

The jungle while cleared from the ruins is never far away and it is easy to imagine the buildings falling into disrepair to be slowly consumed by trees and forgotten by local villagers. The thrill of ducking through partially collapsed passages and peering at moss covered inscriptions is hard to beat for its sheer childish pleasure. However forming an impression of how the vast temple complex may have been used in day-to-day life is more difficult with little information available at the site about their historical roles.

With rumbling stomachs we decide to forgo a visit to the main temple and instead eat at a small restaurant where the owner rocks her baby to sleep in a hammock. The hammock is swung with an almost dangerous level of force but whenever the motion stops the baby wakes. As a result all available adults are kept busy making sure the hammock is kept in full swing. The stall owner seems sad as so few tourists visit these ruins and we wonder if her business and family are struggling.

The next morning we breakfast in a small local village on instant noodles (the only dish available) and drink thick strong iced coffee. We are amazed at how widely basic English is spoken even in rural Cambodia as we talk with the cafe owner about our trip and first impressions of the country.

Cycling along a mixture of dirt and paved roads we stop for regular fluid top-ups with fresh coconut juice being our favourite. After around 40km we reach the temple site of Beng Mealea where Emma befriends a stall holder in order to park our bikes under her watchful eye. We later repay the favour by drinking more coconut juice from her stall.

The site is a huge overgrown maze of ruins where you can climb and clamber to your heart’s content. We follow a string of children winding their way through the ruins as they chatter and chase each other pausing only for breath or to sell snacks to less energetic foreign tourists. I think this must be the best local playground in the world.

With this being a single site (and by eavesdropping on a few tour guides), its easier to get a sense of the place Beng Mealea would have held in an ancient society. As the sun climbs higher in the sky most tourists are whisked off to lunch by their waiting buses. The few remaining visitors sit scattered around the ruins in quiet contemplation while the laughter of the playing children drifts through the air.

We stay overnight in the junction town of Dam Dek, cycling the last 35km to Siem Reap the following day. Arriving in this tourist mecca early, we are surprised that many guesthouses are fully booked but after an hour on foot, Emma has found us a hotel. Over dinner that night we plan our approach to visiting the Angkor Wat temple complex and hope that our previous days have not laid the ground for a dose of temple fatigue.

The camera’s self-timer produced a few extra snaps including the second photo below where we were thanking the guy for his help.

Here are some facts and figures from our time cycle touring in Laos:

• 1992 km cycled (longest day 125km, several short 8km days on Don Det)
• 48 nights in hotel beds, 5 nights in a apartment, 1 night free-camping
• 30 “rest days” from 54 total days in Laos (that’s a lot of resting!)
• 27 international cycle tourists met (four of them cycled with)
• 10 words of Laos learnt
• 10 Western style meals enjoyed among many days of sticky rice
• 8 domestic elephants spotted and 1 ridden
• 5 caves explored (including a 7km boat ride through Kong Lor cave)
• 4 waterfalls visited
• 4 cups of single estate espresso drunk during our Paksong coffee tour
• 3 vomiting instances (Emma’s last night in Laos wasn’t so fun)
• 2 days wearing socks and sandals (to prevent sunburn, not as fashion)
• 1 cheap Chinese tablet computer purchased (then 3 days to get it working)
• 1 troop of monkeys spotted by Justin
• 1 motorbike ridden (by Justin with no previous experience)
• 1 communal breakfast shared with a rice farmer and friends
• 1 punctured inner tube (a failed patch in Emma’s £4 Chinese tyre)

Justin’s most exciting cave: The 7km boat ride in the pitch black through Kong Lor cave rates as one of the most exciting experiences of my trip. Exiting the cave on the far side to find a German tourist playing a set of Scottish bagpipes to the bemusement of the Laos villagers made it extra memorable.

Emma’s best ice coffee: On a warm day heading south from Xeno I followed the local trend of getting my drink to go, carefully carrying a carrier bag of ice, condensed milk and coffee on my handlebars until the ice had diluted the super sweet concoction. Possibly the best cyclist fuel I’ve come across.

At the bottom of Laos, the wide arm of the Mekong  becomes many fingers sifting through clumps of earth, aptly named Si Phan Don (or 4000 islands). Many of these islands are barely big enough to support a single tree and disappear completely in the wet season. The close proximity of land and water supports a healthy ecosystem, with frogs and lizards making regular appearances around our bungalow, more birds than we’ve seen in the rest of Laos in the trees and the biggest population of bugs we’ve encountered since Mongolia. Watching the world go by is easier when it literally floats past.

Don Det is the most touristic of three populated islands in the Si Phan Don archipelago. After a long haul down from Xi Pian National Park, we transported ourselves and bikes by boat to the main village of Ban Hua Det and started down ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (really little more than a dirt track) looking for a bungalow we could call our own. Passing rickety shacks crowded along the waterfront, with grim-looking shared toilet blocks and not much in terms of shade, we stubbornly cycled on until we reached the much less developed southern tip of the island. There a hand-painted sign pointed along a wooden bridge to Cindy’s Guesthouse. The place had been open for less than a month, was cheap, down a dirt path far from the road, and with only four separate bungalows in a vast paddock, as far from the madding crowds as we could want to be.

Most days we only moved from our base for meals, with lots of cheap eats available within walking distance. Some mornings we cycled the 8km loop of dirt roads to the main village where proper English breakfast staples were available and other days we picked up vegetables to cook on our private deck. Some of the best Laos food we’ve tasted was at Mekong Dream, a restaurant even more memorable because of the warm welcome from the proprietors who are fond of topping up guests glasses and sitting down for a chat.

It was at Mekong Dream that we learnt about an upcoming boat race between neighbouring Don Det and Don Khon islands. The race seemed to be an excuse for two days of partying and our host, Mr Home had clearly been at the pre-race party for most of the day. That night live music floated across the water and we regretted that we were too tired to cross the nearby bridge to investigate.

We went to watch the boat race, amazed about the transformation of a small dusty strip of restaurants into something close to a festival site complete with huge sound system. Typical of other small town events we have attended, not much happened for a long while. When the race was finally underway, the boats disappeared from our start point view in minutes and we were left with no idea which team won.

That same day we caught a glimpse of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins from the southern tip of Don Khon. At 7am we’re clearly the boat company’s first customers of the day and once a boatman was roused for us we had the privilege of being the only people out on the water. We spent an hour watching these shy animals as they peeked out of the water to breathe.

The New Year creeps up on us, and could have snuck by unannounced if we weren’t determined to see it in appropriately. Gathering two sets of couples from bungalows next to ours, we headed to the bright lights of Ban Hua Det where a strip of pubs would surely be throbbing with NYE mayhem. Errr… or not. Arriving at 11pm we came across almost empty streets and sparsely populated bars. Whatever mayhem once earned Don Det its reputation as a Vang Vieng-style party place had clearly long drifted off. We backtracked rapidly to the one place we’d heard good music emitting from and joined the small throng in time to count down to 2012.

It was refreshing to talk with our German neighbours Victor and Sabrina who are two months through a six month backpacking trip, and had dedicated two weeks of that time to island life. Sabrina offers just one complaint – her feet get sandy. She says its necessary to complain about this because when you are somewhere like Don Det there really is little else to complain about.

I have always been less of a coffee aficionado than Emma (being easily satisfied with a sacrilegious ‘3n1’ Nescafe sachet) who on the road carries a Turkish cezve, a Vietnamese coffee maker, single cup coffee filters and will only in the direst circumstances submit to a cup of anything instant. Bearing all this in mind I thought it wise to agree to a visit to the town of Paksong where we would find an enigmatic Dutch expat known as “Koffie” to educate us about his specialist topic.

Between Thakhek and Paksong there were three days of 100km+ riding preceded by three days off the bike in Thakhek. Not such a bad ratio and one that we are growing more accustomed to as we make our way through South East Asia at a snails pace.

Thakhek is the main stopping off point for people traversing “The Loop” and being located on the main North/South highway also sees its fair share of cycle tourists passing through. One evening we got chatting with Matthew, a British cyclist on his way to Singapore. He had spent the last ten years living in China and until recently was running the GoKunming website that we found useful for planning our cycling in Southern Yunnan.

Leaving Thakhek we hit the road a few hours ahead of Matthew, but he easily caught us in time to enjoy lunch together before he disappeared into the horizon at racing speed. We laughed that he would probably get to Singapore before we get to Bangkok!

Its hot riding. The landscape undulates gently but offers little in the way of shade. In the sky above a relentless sun bleaches the empty rice paddies a dun-brown and burns any exposed skin in minutes. We resort to wearing socks and sandals to save our feet from getting burnt and seek shelter in roadside shacks for drinks and shade.

One village we pass through has a large Christian church and no wat, which is unusual in this Buddhist-dominated country. Each household has a small altar outside which the residents sit solemnly beside. While they smile and wave as we pass there is no indication of what they are waiting for, creating a strange atmosphere that makes us feel like interlopers on the busy main highway. Outside the town is a large bustling fair where avoiding pedestrians stumbling drunkenly towards their motorbikes gives Emma a reason to cycle extra cautiously for the next few kilometres.

The night before Pakse we were hoping for a guesthouse but had also heard reports that this stretch was devoid of any. Pushing on into twilight we finally found one around the 545km marker complete with an almost empty but still ear-piercingly loud karaoke bar serving food a few doors down.

We make Pakse by early afternoon and find a big room complete with balcony and fridge. Opening the door of the empty fridge I hold my feet in the stream of cold air that emerges and think I could spend the next four days doing only this.

There are four proper western style cafes in town and over the next few days we make a point of visiting each one to try the house brew. One evening we stroll by the Mekong and as the colours of the sky fade towards dark and the waters gently lap below us we watch the patrons of the simple riverside beer shacks ebb and flow. Pakse is an easy town to pass time in with few sites to visit, a steady stream of tourists flowing through the town and a good variety of food with Indian and a Laos fusion joint being our firm favourites.

We decide not to cycle the largely uphill 40km to Paksong (note: we are sticking religiously to the new lazy cycling regime mentioned above) in favour of a day trip by public bus. After spending an hour on the bus collecting passengers from all over Pakse the freedom of our bikes makes us reconsider. The town of Paksong is a single row of dusty shops and in the distance we see a faded sign reading “Coffee”. It is here that we meet Koffie.

We set off with our guide on what proves to be an informative and highly enjoyable stroll around his neighbourhood. We wander through coffee farms seeing plants in various states of growth while he enthusiastically explains aspects of the plants themselves, the local coffee economy and what separates a coffee farm from a plantation. Koffie’s enthusiasm for his topic (maybe fuelled by the multiple cups of    freshly ground Bolaven Plateau Espresso drunk before the tour) is infectious and I quickly find myself engrossed in his stories.

Post tour we down a few more espresso shots, managing to miss flagging down our bus, although the mad scramble Koffee does attempting to catch the drivers eye makes us all laugh. Finding a backup bus we farewell Paksong but not before loading the roof of our already groaning vehicle with a few hundred cabbages on their way to market.

A short half day ride from Pakse is the Xi Pian National Park and the Kingfisher Ecolodge where as a Christmas treat we have reserved a bungalow for two nights. Our bungalow overlooks a wetland area where a large herd of buffalo noisily squelch through the mud and munch grass, flocks of ibis swoop low across the ground using their long beaks to skewer the occasional small fish. One evening we spot a few of the local domesticated elephants wandering the horizon.

The sight of the elephants convinces us to use a donation (thanks Emma’s dad) to take an elephant ride around the wetland area on Christmas day. The ride is great with our elephant named Kona being guided carefully through the village while children scamper around her feet and wave Sabaidee.

At one point the mahout trades places with me and I’m in ‘control’ of Kona. Using my feet to nudge behind her ears I manage to guide her towards a small opening between fields but I cant quite coax her through the gap. Handing the front seat back to the mahout, I decide that driving an elephant is much harder than riding a bicycle, though maybe if we took Kona with us she could carry our luggage.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday period whether that’s relaxing on a warm New Zealand day, tucked up inside a warm British house or where ever else in the world you happen to be.

After another amazing year of travel, we wanted to post a big thank you to everyone who has helped us out, read the blog and cheered us on. Reality returns in mid-February upon our return to New Zealand.

The wind started on our second day heading south from Vientiane, seeming to hit us head on no matter which direction we cycled. We wish we had a thermometer as we couldn’t tell if was really cold, or just relatively cold compared to the mid-30s days we’d become accustomed too. Having just witnessed a bunch of local fishermen (and woman) load up a boat and disappear into the river, it doesn’t take me long to reconsider. I’m seriously doubting that this blustery day will be a good day to travel upstream by tiny outboard motor.

We had started south on Route 13, the highway which links Vientiane to Pakse and the Cambodian border to the south, but at Vieng Kham planned to veer off to the east to pick up ‘The Loop’, an off-the-beaten path track popular with travellers on rented motorcycles. This would take us past several tourist-friendly caves, to the edges of four national parks and within spitting distance of Vietnam, before turning back West to rejoin the main road at Thakhek.

With the waterfall still not located after our detour to the ferry departure point, and another unsuccessful attempt following a dirt road that led into the same national park (stuck this time with fully loaded touring bikes on a yet to be completed road hewn out of raw rock bed) we ended up at the crossroad settlement of Vieng Kham at 3pm, both with sunburnt feet and fed up with the wind.

That afternoon our goals were at odds, as were our moods. While Justin wanted to push through the dark to make it to the next big town (which he thought was between 20 and 30km away) I refused to agree to cycle in the dark, but also didn’t fancy sticking around in another dusty crossroads for the night. I refuelled with a bowl of noodles, bought a couple of handfuls of sticky rice and some flossed meat as emergency dinner supplies and agreed to cycle on. We left town with barely two hours of daylight remaining, but still carrying our tent we knew we would find somewhere to sleep.

As the light dropped, so did the wind, and in the early evening we were blessed with a cool stillness. We pedalled with greater urgency towards Nahin, hoping to come across a friendly temple complex or a welcoming village where we could find somewhere to pitch the tent. As dusk started to fall around us we were still winding up and down jungle-clad hills, lit magically by the evening sky. Night in Laos falls like the flick of a light switch. Just as it was getting properly dark, we found a track leading off the side of the road with a sandy area just big enough for our needs. With practiced familiarity we pitched our trusty tent as the already risen full moon shone down on us.

The Nahin tourism office was funded by the French as thanks for the locals who helped find some lost French citizens. I’d recommend a stop inside to anyone passing for the comedy value of your exchange with the young girl manning it. We were enticed in by a sign pointing to the front door of the simple building, claiming this was the way to the waterfall, but offering no obvious trails into the jungle beyond. Turns out the sign just points to the tourism office and the waterfall path is further down the road.

After being shown an A2 full colour picture of the waterfall and a map in Lao script which she told us didn’t have any relevance to the waterfall, we eventually paid a dubious national park fee, got vague directions, and headed off on our speculative adventure. This was despite warnings from the tourist office that a guide would be advisable and suspicions that this is where the French adventurers may have gotten lost. We found it an enchanting walk, with only us and a few hunters out on the trails, badly signed and maintained paths that do indeed peter out into nothing, and a final scramble up steep boulders for a view of the waterfall, spectacular at over 100m high, even in the dry season.

The next morning I found myself on the back of a motorcycle, having delegated learning to ride to Justin. Fifty pancake flat kilometres away, our destination was Kong Lor, a 7km long cave, which visitors can take a boat ride through. Its well worth visiting, but not one we fancied cycling 100km to see.

Justin was offered a crash course in motorcycle handling by the lady running our guesthouse. She was still in her pyjama’s and with feet clad only in socks as she jumped on the rental to show us how to ride with the confidence of someone who has been riding motorbikes since their pre-teens. Her instruction seemed to consist of continual stream of “1…. 2….. 3…. 4….” as she shifted through the gears, then she nervously handled over the controls and watched Justin take a test ride. She warned us to drive slowly through villages and ‘look, look’ so as not to hit chickens or children, then waved us off with a very worried sounding ‘good luck’.

We arrived at Kong Lor cave with hair swept back, ‘Born to be Wild’ still looping through our heads and jumped onto a boat manned by two young men, which would take us through the cave system. Our own headlights dimmed quickly, and we were glad that our guides were better prepared, as our boat weaved in and out of tunnels for a nearly hour long ride to an opening on the other side of the mountain.

Riding through the pitch black with occasional glimpses of boats headed in the other direction reminded me of the underworlds pictured in Lord of the Rings, with a little bit of the adrenalin of the Willy Wonka pitch black boat ride thrown in.

On the return journey, our guides seemed to race a little faster, and before we knew it we’d emerged back into bright sunshine. We spent an hour or so with our feet dangling in a clear natural lagoon near the entrance, marvelling at how many people are moved through the system, but how alone you feel in the middle of the cave complex.

Despite a fair number of tourists travelling on the same roads as us, some of the villages we passed through over the next few days seemed poorer than any we had seen so far in Lao. It took us most of a day to traverse a 70km stretch of dirt road, where we passed a dozen tourists on motorcycles all headed the opposite direction.

Many local people had been relocated from the Nam Theun 2 dam site which dominated stretches of the road with its vast expanses of waterlogged tree stumps. While still friendly as ever, their kids were a little less well dressed than those we’d seen further north and there was very little available in roadside stalls. We wondered how the dam had affected the wildlife, noting that even when cycling the jungle corridor between two national parks, we saw and heard very few birds, though Justin briefly saw a troupe of monkeys swinging away from roadside trees.

Subsisting mostly on rice, whether sticky with sausage meat, fried with egg and vegetables or in the form of noodles, we had what was possibly our worst few days of food in Laos. With mysterious meats and unidentified dumpling-type things making their way into my noodles in Lak Sao, I tried not to recall the stench of the dog trucks we’d seen passing us on their way to dinner tables and restaurants of Vietnam.

Something in our diet made us both feel pretty bad, and for the first time in our trip I longed for a kitchen where rice wouldn’t be the only thing on the menu. Forgoing more cave exploration we raced the last few kilometres to Thakhek where our decision to stay at Thakhek Travel Lodge was solely based on the extensive repertoire of the kitchen staff.