Rain drops and potholes

Finally the day of departure has arrived. We have long been working towards this day, where we just head off north, knowing that we have now got a nine week holiday ahead of us. We are not sure what is to come, we suspect  Rocinante breaks down at some stage, or we get problems at a border crossing. But for sure we have these nine weeks and will be creative enough to improvise the course of our journey if need be. In any case, it we will have fun.

With this attitude we left Vientiane this morning, and we could not have had a better start. After a hearty breakfast at Joma we drove directly to Vang Vieng. The weather was just great, slightly overcast at first and nice and cool.Later on it started to rain, a perfect test for our gear. I had tested my jacket only underneath the water hose in the garden, to test if it is really waterproof.

The part from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang was absolutely beautiful as always. It was just stunning, and riding was so much more fun then taking the stinky "VIP" buses without air-con.  I've never seen this scenery like today before: Covered in thick clouds, drizzling rain, and just perfectly cool. Everything was green and the smell of the grasses and herbs almost made me feel like riding through the Swiss pre-alpine hills.

I've never noticed that there are so many potholes along the way, and Boris had to manage very well not to ride in to them. Is it correlated with the increasing number of hectares of rubber? It seems like every time I drive on this road there are more rubber plantations.

We finally arrived in Luang Prabang at around 6 pm, all of us with sore bums, despite the good seats that we got made. We were all totally tired from the long first day, on which we already got tested for rain and suspensions, but satisfied that nothing went wrong, all bikes are running well, and we can't think of anything we forgot in Vientiane yet.