I had a rest day in Xayaboury and didn’t do a great deal. I ate well, found an excellent street coffee bar and a nice restaurant but that was about it.
That’s what I call a rest day. I certainly needed it.
I purposely had a late start today as there were only 40kms to Muang Nan with, importantly, no extreme hills. There was no need to rush.
I went to my favourite restaurant for breakfast. Last night, I spoke to a Malaysian guy there, who had moved to Laos. This morning, I spoke to a Filipino guy who worked at the Hydro Power Plant at the nearby dam – I didn’t know there was one on this area.
I looked at a nearby coffee shop but there was no real coffee machinery – grinder, espresso machine etc. and that’s not a good sign. So I went a km or two out of my way to revisit the one I found yesterday – excellent Latte, so I had two.
Lovely people too. The guy was quite chuffed that I came back today, and really surprised that I had 2 coffees.
Then it was over the river and along the back way north. Thanks Komoot, you did well today !
This morning I was thinking, ‘gee this touring thing can be hard work’, but as soon as I was out in the countryside everything was good again and I had to pinch myself to believe I was in the Laos countryside.
The bike frame has ‘This moment’ in the paintwork, and that quote, really brought me back to reality today. I’m so lucky and thankful to be doing this.
The road may have been dodgy in parts, but the villages were interesting. It’s great to see people shocked to see an old white guy with white sunsleeves and a white helmet zipping through their sleepy suburb.
The dogs here are rarely interested. They give me the same looks as the people – what the hell is this thing on the road ?
After the villages there were a few rice fields and then I joined up with the main road which was really not busy at all. I made it to the bridge over the Mekong and took some photos.
I was obviously upstream from the dam, because the river was no longer flowing.
2kms out of Muang Nan, there was a supermarket, and they are few and far between here. It was air-conditioned, so I took my time in getting a fizzy drink.That gave me some time to assess the guesthouses on Google and Maps.me.There wasn’t much information so I rode through the town, decided upon the Sirivong Guesthouse. There was nobody home, so I called and luckily the owner spoke some English. He is from Kunming, China.
It’s clean enough and only 100k kip. I chose it because it’s close to the centre where there was a sit down restaurant that I noticed on the way in. I headed there for some lunch and my daily dose of Pad Kapao Moo.
I’ll be having a sleeping, blog-updating afternoon and venture back to the restaurant for dinner.
To be honest, I’m a little tired of being the novelty human in town. I know I should expect this but everywhere I go people point and talk loudly about the falang. Right, I’ll go put on my big-boy pants and get over it 😁
