Vientiane

Lotus Blossoms

A couple more mere blips of hills, and we are now in the valley of the Mekong, for the next week, before turning toward Vietnam. We arrived in the Capitol, Vientiane yesterday and applied for our Vietnamese visa. Claire got a bit of the last day of the Full Moon festival on video, and we will enjoy this small city for a day, possibly two. She’s over his gastro-intestinal episode, and ready to pedal. She finally found her French Toast! Unfortunately the only syrup they had on offer, was honey. Maple syrup comes from Quebec, for the French, and there are few French to be seen in the former colony, though we do see some of the language, Lao and English appear to be dominant. I can imagine that upsets the French.

Wahoo!

We saw a single cyclist on the way into the city, met a couple just beginning their tour last night, and another this morning, heading south ahead of us. All are European and speak English. It was enjoyable to converse about our shared passion, places we have been, and share information about the road ahead. The single male, has cycle toured 100,000 kilometers.

Cemetery in Laos

Steve Wilson just passed 100,000 miles bicycling; congratulations Steve! So there is your new goal Steve. He was probably about your age, but started many years ago. But, it’s only 62,000 miles.

I don’t believe I have the desire for another 40,000 kilometers. Claire said we could do two more loops of Australia. We’ve been talking a lot about Australia on this trip. I think it may be our favorite, though North America still has some unexplored, by us, wonderful places.

We’ll post pictures of the last few days below. We have scheduled some short videos, one from back in China over the next few days. John Hoyle pointed out that I can schedule posts ahead, so you hear from us, even while we are out there pedaling the Internet-less countryside.