A Boat on the River

S7, f1.7, 1/11300, ISO 50, RAW

Canggu Beach

After arriving in Depnasar last night, the first things to do were to get a motorbike and a hotel that's not near the airport.

Bali has a few tourist areas near Depnasar, with the most obvious and worst of all being Kuta, then the high end Seminak and Canggu, a more hipster and surfer area.

I decided to stay in Canggu since a friend stayed there and it seemed the best out of the available choices.

It also has a few bars with cheaper beer prices and some decent restaurants and local food stalls. The beach is not the best to be honest, no comparison with the beach in Da Nang but for surfing it's better.

The Thakek Loop in a Day

Warning, this post contains plenty (too many?) photos of my Honda Wave so be warned.

The day started, as so many other days when I'm on a road trip, with a flat rear tire which needed fixing before I could set out to do the Thakek Loop.

The Thakek Loop, or simply 'The Loop', is one of the more famous roads and main things to do in Laos. It's a 330-420km circular loop (depending if you do the back and forth to the famous Konglor cave).

Most people do it in 3-4 days and get to visit plenty of caves, some waterfalls and swimming spots along the way.

Not really having 3 days at my disposal but still wanting to do the loop, I figured I'll just do it in one day and skip some of the caves and waterfalls. After all, I've seen plenty of caves and waterfalls before so after a while I don't feel the need to stop at all of them anymore. I rather enjoy the ride on my bike and scenery.

The route is in one word breathtaking, the scenery is great, the road makes for a fun ride with the ups and downs and nice corners. So I can fully recommend you do it but maybe taken 2-3 days instead of 1 days for it.

While the distance wasn't that long, plenty of stops for photography and some to top up the air in my tire, meant the drive took quite a bit longer than expected.

Now, you might have heard or read about terrible road conditions on the Loop but the road is in pretty good condition and is mostly new so don't worry about any mud filed paths you might have heard about.

There are places with some massive potholes though, which can swallow you and your bike up if you're not careful (more on that later) but for the most part it's a smooth ride.

I've been to Laos a few times now and have done a few different loops, took some scenic and some challenging roads but none were as much fun as the Thakek Loop and I wish I would have had 2 days for it to do it in a more laid back way.

Still, if you're in Laos you have to do the Loop on a motorbike, it's worth it.

The initial plan was to either get back to Thakek before it got dark or stay somewhere overnight. Things changed when I kept stopping for photos and had to drive slow to find an open petrol station before running out of gas.

Things took a turn for the worse though when I hit a big pothole at about 65km/h and it managed to break some spokes off my rear wheel and bend the rim, too.

This meant the 40km drive back to Thakek ended up taking quite a bit longer and was more difficult than planned.

It will also mean I will have to replace the rear wheel in the morning (photos of the damage in the next post).

To Thakek Again

I've been to Laos too many times already but it's close and convenient for a visa run so here I was heading back to Thakek.

The last days have seen a lot of rain so I was worried it would be a wet drive to Laos, but aside from a few scattered showers it stayed mostly dry.

Not wanting to risk the rain, I decided to take the short route to the border and from there it's been nice and sunny.

The drive from Densavanh at the border to Thakek is pretty boring and uneventful, a bit dusty in palaces where they are working on the road but it's mostly straight.

I arrived in Thakek around dinner time for a nice curry and a beer Lao.

Han River Fishing

X Play, f2.0, 1/287, ISO 50, JPG

Sunset over the City Gate

X Play, f2.0, 1/2439, ISO 50, JPG

Dragon Bridge Sunset

X Play, f2.0, 1/40, ISO 64, JPG

Boats

TG-4, f2.4, 1/60, ISO 800, RAW, 32mm

My Wave

X Play, f2.0, 1/379, ISO 50, JPG

Phitsanulok to Nan

After following driving directions on which roads to take up to now, we decided to just start and follow waking directions today.

This was in the hope of getting a more scenic route and stop getting re-routed to the highway most of the times. And it worked great, giving us the best drive and scenery during this trip.

We drove through rice fields, small roads, a national park, had to cross a lake by ferry and got to see an amazing sunset from the top of the mountains.

The photos speak for themselves but this route is definitely great and at the end of the day we were thinking of going back and doing it again tomorrow.

But not only the landscape and views were great, also the people we met along the way were nice and friendly and it reminded us more of Laos or Vietnam than Thailand.

So in short, if you have time and don't mind driving on some small dirt roads across rice fields, definitely use the walking directions on maps as it will be a more scenic route and definitely more fun.