Two years ago when I rode from Vang Vieng towards Vientiane I made a detour to Nam Ngum dam, the artificial lake created as a water shed for Vientiane. There I found a lovely guest house to stay at. It was rather expensive but worth every penny. I had a bungalow looking like a Swiss chalet with a great terrace overlooking the lake and many islands in it. As I left Vientiane this morning I thought to go back there again. It had been a 95 km ride.
But riding from the sticks into the city is one thing. Finding the way back is quite another. I had a waypoint in my Gps and thought if I only headed towards it I would eventually get there. Not quite so easy though, in a land with few road signs and with no map in the Gps. At first all went well but after some 35 kms I could no longer head straight North as I should. The road went from tarmac to dirt, but still wide and quite promising. After passing through a town of sorts it split in a Y and I took the larger one, heading a bit too much off towards NW. After some 10-12 kms in that direction, by a bridge, there were some men doing measuring and stuff. I stopped and asked if this was a good road for going to Nam Ngum. First one man said yes, then someone else said no. And eventually they agreed that I should go back a bit and take the other road. So I turned around and cycled back abt 10 kms to the Y-crossing. But quite soon on that other leg that one turned ever more off too much towards East, and eventually SE and then due South. And it became ever narrower. At about 1230 I gave up on that and turned back once again. I had seen a guest house some 33 kms from Vientiane and decided to go back to it, spend the night, load my Gps tracks so far into Garmins Mapsource and have a look.
That is where I am now. At Sy Tan guest house in somevillage. I have found food and the guest house is fine. When I fed my track into Mapsource I realized I should have gone yet another bit before turning off the road I was on. Or I could probably have continued on the first one, maybe not actually reaching Nam Ngum, but at least headed more or less in a Northerly direction. That is now my plan for tomorrow. I don't necessarily have to go to Nam Ngum. But I do want to go towards Vang Vieng. It will probably take me another two days, and then from there take a bus to Luang Prabang. Well, we'll see how it goes.
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