The two weeks of holidays in Vietnam with my (Jonas') parents, my brother and my sister-in-law were amazing but once Vroni had her root canal treatment finished in Hanoi, we left this bustling and crazy city for some more serene countryside. Within the first day we got out of the metropolitan area and into the rural area West of Hanoi. We were heading straight for the border with Laos as our visa was about to run out and we were looking forward to tackling the challenge of cycling through the very mountainous region of Northern Laos.
The terain got steeper and more hilly in Vietnam already but the sweat was worth the amaing scenery we earned in return. One day we took a small alternative road to the highway and found ourselves invited for some tea at a local family's house. They would keep refilling our glasses and ended up inviting us for lunch. While eating they got out a large jar of what looked like dried fruit with some liquid covering them. The content turned out to be dead bees and they started pouring drinks out of the jar - what else. In the end we had to drink about eight shots of bee booze over lunch with these Vietnamese farmers before we felt that we should really be going. Being quite tipsy did not make cycling any easier but it was still a fun experience with them.
Our last night in Vietnam we spent right next to the border and celebrated Vroni's birthday a little. The next morning we were hoping to start early, cross the border and get some hills and distance covered before it would get very hot again. When we reached the Vietnamese border gate, we were in for a surprise. A very strict looking officer showed us a little sign that said that they are not processing any electronic visa at this border gate (Na Meo border gate) and that we would have to go to a different border to leave the country. Being in the middle of the mountains and on our last day of our visa left us quite shocked and we started begging the officers to understand our situation and that we could not just easily get to a different border gate with our bikes. In the end it took four different officers, a few phone calls and a wait of about 90 minutes looking miserable for them to somehow manage to get our passports stamped. That was a close call and luckily we managed to wriggle through!
Once in Laos the road conditions got much worse and the hills got even steeper, making it really hard to cycle in the heat and humidity. It took us the whole day to get to the city of Vieng Xai and we decided to take a day off from cycling there. This is also the area where the communist founding fathers of modern Laos hid and operated from during the war with the US. The natural caves were used as shelter from the massive bombing the US unleashed on Laos in order to stop communism from spreading. We took a guided tour to see how they managed to live, survive and lead a revolution from said caves with death from above looming over their heads every day. In the end, the US dropped about two tons of bombs for each of the two million citizens of Laos of the time over the duration of nine years. This makes Laos the most heavily bombed country in history in perspective to their population and they still managed to come out on top. Experiencing this history was very impressive and made us feel with this country and the people.
All the best wishes from this crazy country,
Keep cycling,
Vroni, Droni and Joni
