And onto Luangprabang

The road works start

Our ride to Luangprabang started off great, it was a beautiful day, the road surfaces were good, our speed was up and the scenery magnificent! until that is, Trev happened to comment on the great roads shortly after that we hit "road works" which lasted for the rest of the day.

Eat DUST or make DUST
That doesn't always work because when you pass one there is
 always something else to catch up to.

At this time of year in both Thailand and Laos there is fires set just like at home to control the forests but here they dont have any firefighters so hopefully they have that figured out - how they will control them?

I just washed the bike and all our gear
look at the dirt on Chenty's face

Eating dirt never a favorite of mine, cant even close the visor as its just too hot, we were black when we got in that night and once again our riding suits filthy.

Nobody goes anywhere with out carrying
something

On and off the dirt for 200 Km/s

How is that bus I passed going to get around that??

On the way into Luangprabang we catch up with fellow
traveler Mark from Aus on his GS.

Its always fun spotting another long distance rider, especially when hes on another GS too, we sped up behind him to try and figure out where he was from and then zoomed past him just so we could wave hi.  We followed each other into town and settled into the same guesthouse for the night to tell our stories.  Mark is out for 6 months and then headed back to Melbourne where we hope to meet up with him again so he can take us and show us around his homeland.

Funny thing is that we were both looking for the same hotel as we both got the name of it from "Ronnie" our South African friend, who had been thru just days before, once again small world out here.

 Mark had just ridden through Myanmar
 and is heading in the same direction as us.

Luang Prabang was a refreshing change, a great little town on the Mekong River to spend a few days just relaxing, turns out Ronnie's recommendation was cheap and really good.  There are usually so many hotels/guesthouses to choose from when you ride into these towns its always nice to have a recommendation.