VIETNAM & LAOS

We meet in Vietnam's capital of Hanoi. You have time to explore the city on your own before we gather for dinner and a trip briefing.

We start the day with a 2 hour transfer to Ninh Binh. On arrive in Ninh Binh, we start out on the bikes to cycle along the Hoang Long River through some impressive landscape. The first 35km are flat and then we'll have some small climbs up to the park, but they are all short. Upon arrival at Cuc Phuong, Vietnam's largest national park, we visit the endangered Primate Rescue Center where a wide variety of native monkeys and gibbons, including critically endangered langurs were saved from wildlife smugglers and are being rehabilitated to return to the wild. After the visit, we continue cycling to the center of the park and then have the option to transfer or cycle the 20 km back to our overnight accommodation in the park.

We start our cycling on a small tarmac road with dramatic mountain scenery and a section along the along the Buoi River. We cycle past local villages of Muong people and their fields of rice, corn, cassava and sugarcane. After a lunch of Pho at a local restaurant we have an uphill to start our afternoon ride with a descent to Mai Chau. There is no better way to enter this rice paddy filled valley than by bicycle.

From Mai Chau we cycle deep inside Pu Luong national reserve. After 20km of flat terrain, be ready to start pushing the pedals as we conquer the biggest hill of the day with a 550 m climb over 17 km But the effort is well worth it for the exhilarating downhill cruise to Dong Tam. We'll have a picnic lunch en route at a stilt house of the ethnic Thai people. Once we reach Dong Tam you can keep riding or we can load up the bikes to avoid construction and transfer 35km to our hotel in Quan Son town.

This morning we'll be met by our Laos guides on the other side of the border and start our ride to Vieng Xay. Our ride will be along streams and through karst landscapes interspersed with rice paddies. Our first destination today is historic Vieng Xai, once the war-time headquarters of Laos’ communists, famous for its remarkable landscape of karst limestone mountains honeycombed with caves that were used as shelter during the relentless bombing raids. Along the way we’ll see a number of historic caves, including the Lao-Cuban Hospital Cave.

We’ll head to the Vieng Xai Caves Visitor Center to get our bearings and get ready to go on the audio tour. Four hundred and eighty of these caves were used by the Communist Party army to shelter from American air raids during the Second Indochina War, also known as the Vietnam War. We’ll use our bikes to get from cave to cave and walk through the caves listing to the commentary and audio effects. After lunch, we’ll get back into the saddle and cycle to Xam Neua, Houaphanh’s provincial capital, passing a number of traditional ethnic villages.

Today we will have a rest and transfer a section of the highway. The day ends at Ban Xang Hot Springs, where we’ll be staying the night in a community lodge.

After a hot spring bath and breakfast we’ll start our traverse of the plateau, which is home to the mysterious Plain of Jars, which is now on Laos’ tentative World Heritage list. We ride through numerous villages and have an overall gradual climb for the first part of the day as we end up at 1100m from our start point of 500m. Once we are up on the plateau the landscape changes to grassy plains. This area was one of the most heavily bombed in Laos and evidence of unexploded ordinances (UXO) are everywhere. Resourceful locals use bomb casings and other remnants and put them to use as fences, tools, vegetable planters, decorations and barbecue fireplaces.

Today we'll cycle to visit the mysterious prehistoric jars and learn the many theories of their existence. We return to town for lunch and you have the afternoon free to visit the MAG Office-UXO Visitor Information Centre and watch their movie for a fascinating insight into the legacy of the second Indochina War, aka the Vietnam War.

No need for an early start today as we head east to to Nong Tang, a large lake surrounded by high limestone cliffs, a relatively flat ride compared to our previous hills.

The day starts with a quick 27 km as the last 14 km are all downhill, on to a nice rest spot on the Nam Chat River. The final 60 km contain a lot of uphill to Phou Khoun. We'll arrive in time for you to enjoy the sunset and stunning view from your guesthouse tonight.

Today we have an overall descent to Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage listed site located on the banks of the Mekong River. For those that want to cycle you ride the first 52km down and up a mountain. Or choose to transfer to start of the ride at the top of a long climb. From here we have a glorious 18 km descent to Ban Khoua Nam Ming, which translates to the bridge over the Ming River. Here we’ll have lunch and then prepare for a 14 km post lunch ascent. We have one more swooping downhill before we are down on the rolling flats. We ride into charming Luang Prabang and to our riverside guesthouse. Tonight we head out to the temple-filled town to have our last dinner together.

The tour ends with a check-out before 10am. Stay on and explore Luang Prabang or if you are heading home there are flights from Luang Prabang Airport to regional centres like Bangkok.