Laos: Motorbike chronicles

Laos is a full of stunning scenery and the best to enjoy them is by motorcycle. Although I was an absolute novice I had a fast learning curve because I rented a bike 3 days and rode 400 kms (much more than the 120 kms in my whole life before).

For me, the difficulties on the bike are many:
first the bike itself, when it is not Japanese, can be dodgy. It seems that each time I rent one, the quality is going down. The one before last had barely any brakes, the mirrors would swing inside as soon as I had speed and the "tenue de route" was more than questionable (maman, quand tu liras ca, ne t inquiete pas car j adapte ma conduite et je fais tres attention).

The roads: honestly they are on average good and definitively better than what is written in travel guides. But as soon as you leave the main roads the quality drops: so far I have ridden on good roads, average roads with small stones (graviers), dirt road, dirt road full of wholes and stony roads.
the driver is not experienced; and that shows when I took my first real curve the day I had decided to start a big loop of 350 kms by myself, I tried to gear down when I was already in the curve and the bike decided to lie. Nothing serious, a good warning and some scratches on both palms. I then changed my plans and stayed instead with Emma and Philip with who we rode the following two days.

The animals; well, I really wonder why they cannot do it in another way but many animals (dogs, chickens, cows, goats and even pigs) try to commit suicide by running at the last minute in front of my bike; actually one chicken even hit my bike and luckily I did not see it coming (otherwise I would probably have felt trying to avoid it) and just hit my bike instead of me over running it. Beginner's luck I guess. Anyway I elect the chicken the most stupid animals on earth, here they are even more ridiculous because they miss many feathers.
all unforeseen events like: riding by night when we came out too late of the 7kms long cave (which we went through on a boat, that was really cool and kind of mystic); the funny thing in here is that animals stay outside and sometimes they decide to sleep on the road and when it is combined with poor lights on the bikes (actually the one of the Swedish couple was not even working they used my lamp fiets to be seen) the 10 kms we had to do in the dark felt much more to us than 10 kms. another foreseen even is a flat tyre (still with the Swedish couple) so I rode the bike a couple of kms on a dirt rode with my back tyre flat


But overall I really love it, this is both thrilling and fun and the locals are really helpful when the bike breaks down (the flat tyre was a good example, we were surrounded by the local kids of the small village and workers on the way stopped to help us). If I go back to Laos (I want to but if I say it for each country I go to, I also have so many more to visit) I will go through it on a bike.