So after our 160kms of rural bliss dodging chickens and baby pigs we came into central north laos where tin and cement and plastic have overtaken the local materials and guesthouses and coffee lao were freely available. We started to panic that we hadn’t spent enough time arriving there if the rest of the country is going to be like this. But just in time we have taken a bit of a change of route to go further east and we are amazed at the change of scenery. Huge karst formations pop up from the edge of the river and the rolling jungle of the west is nowhere to be seen. We are now in a small riverside town called Nong Khiew and going further east towards Vietnam. The scenery is stunning and yesterday we had our first bike ride without all our gear to go and trundle around the countryside and some nearby villages on some of the nicest paths we have seen. The villagers are mostly ethnic tribes and all the toddlers have their own machete!
