Pak Mong to Luang Prabang

Sat 14/12/13, 110km

May have overdone it on the Beer Laos the previous evening as I started the day with a slight hangover. In my defence there wasn't much else to do but watch Thai TV and drink beer.

Breakfast was an instant Nescafe 3 in 1 and a handful of Laotian custard creams, I couldn't really face trying to get vegetarian noodles. So with the breakfast of champions under my belt it was as early start under leaden skies. It'd been raining heavily during the night and once more I vowed to never ever leave my mudguards off again as both the bike and I got covered by a layer of mud.

The slow accretion of mud was helped by the various sections where a perfectly good section of asphalt would be interspersed with 10 meter  muddy patches. Probably pot holes that looked bigger due to the rain and mire.

Picked up a hand of apple bananas for 2000 kip to supplement the custard creams and just pushed on, making quite good time. At first I was just hoping to beat any more rain storms but after a bit the skies cleared and I started to look for a place for lunch. Found a place by the Nam Ou river around the 80km mark where I got a lacklustre fried veg and rice with a coke for 40000 kip (yes, that's quite a lot relatively). Still, it filled a hole and let me get to Luang Prabang.

In town it was time to find a cheap hotel, have a wander around to orientate myself, eat a proper meal, enjoy the night market and get another early night: conked out before 9 with nary a Beer Laos in sight that evening!