After an uneventful ride over the Kasi new road and then Luang Prabang for the night i wanted to see what progress had been made on the 4B so it was decided.
Most people have written off the 4B as it will eventually be paved, but in the meantime its still a great or if not a better trail than before with the roadworks making some parts pretty challenging and the 8 or so water crossing remain as before.
Still only 135km end to end.
Boarding the ferry in Luang Prabang.
Once across it’s perfectly graded so we expected to fly along.
Glimpse of the Mekong as we turn inland.
Bunch of ferries standing idle.
New tourist spot some zip line attraction.
Still a super fast surface.
The first of the water crossings not to be taken lightly so are pretty deep still.
Then quickly another.
Some parts looked like they have never changed.
Then this.
Clearly a lot of money is being spent running this road through.
Total of eight crossings still to be enjoyed.
Des cursing i never told him about these, almost lost it in this one.
Rock clearance the hard way.
Never seen so many backhoe’s counted over 80 along the way.
Now having to navigate past them every 500 m or so.
Still making good progress despite the construction works.
Until we reached this point, the workers told us 4 hours !!!
No way to squeeze past so we had to wait.
We broke out the camping gear and made breakfast and relaxed.
Finally.
Then another.
Then more water, Des saving this one.
Back on nice stuff.
More waiting.
Squeezing by.
A real choke point this spot.
Back on parts of the old trail.
Time to lose the last of my sweets for these kid’s.
Almost out.
Lending a helping hand.
Tiptoe through.
Hopefully the last hold up.
Des, his patience wearing thin.
Major works.
Some new temporary trails to avoid the construction.
Some very wide sections not sure how wide they plan it to be.
Finally on the paved road, Des has a new friend.
Into town we grab some pork and rice and a few beers and check into the A Nee Gh, great very clean rooms and 100k kip a night no wifi.
N19.70601° E101.33741°
Being the penultimate night of the trip it was to the Nook and some great food and more beers.
All in all a great days riding, luck of the draw with the construction traffic but still well worth a ride, but sad to see this very popular trail disappear like so many in Laos.
No comments:
Post a Comment