If you can’t wait until Thursday then here’s a little taster from Vang Vieng in Laos to wet that whistle of yours… Mucho Mucho Love… Come Join In…

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

If you can’t wait until Thursday then here’s a little taster from Vang Vieng in Laos to wet that whistle of yours… Mucho Mucho Love… Come Join In…

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Here for your enjoyment is our article “The Long Way Laos” in full, as featured in the online travel magazine HipCompass Escapes. It’s about our 550km motorcycle trip from Vang Vieng through one of the most stunning countries I’ve ever seen, to Luang Probang and back again…

Adventure travel has always been one of those things that seems to be on my list of things I said I’d do tomorrow, its not for lack of trying but more a lack of having the balls to ignore the negative practicalities and get on with it, but that’s exactly the attitude you need for it… Less thinking and more doing!

A few months ago while travelling through Laos that was exactly what I did, we were staying in the small and stunning town of Vang Vieng, over shadowed by the towering limestone peaks and blinded by the natural beauty around every corner something in me burst to the surface. Every traveler’s done it – during a long but air-conditioned bus ride to some picture postcard beach, pulled out their adventure travel book from their bag for a spot of inspiration on an otherwise uninspiring journey… Been duly inspired but never taken it further. But this time I was determined to do it, my inspiration came in the form of two monstrous looking dirt bikes, the mental image of the bikes sat inside my head rattling around for a few days as I got down to some serious tubing (if you’ve ever been to Vang Vieng you will know exactly what I mean by that and if not… Go see!) Then out of the blue during a rare moment of sobriety the idea, the adventure was born…
To my left the dirt bikes… To my right cloud-topped limestone peaks leading off northwards over mountains and hills and on to Luang Probang.

A day’s planning had informed me we would be looking at 135 km each way and we had a time frame of two days in which to do it…
Our party consisted of three – myself, my fiancee Georgie and our good friend Toby. Toby owned his own dirt bike back in the UK and was no stranger to off-road biking,  Georgie was a very eager passenger which just left me – with limited motor-biking experience, but what’s an adventure without a challenge? The sun was blazing down on the sleepy streets of Vang Vieng and it seemed to be roasting us alive so we bought a map, saddled up and set off with a roar.

We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.

The journey wound up mountains and back down again, we stayed a night in a tiny town called Phou Khoun far away from anywhere. We woke at 5 am and drove through clouds and we stopped at countless villages along the way. I could write about the hard bits, about the miles, the hills and sore bums but it doesn’t really seem fair. Not when we passed so many warm and friendly people who desperately wanted to go out of their way to make us feel welcome, who call that terrain home and who’s everyday lives make our adventure seem like a walk in the park. The hardships that made it an “adventure” were also the things that pushed us on when we were exhausted. The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road well travelled, except mostly on a bus behind glass, reading books as they go – but we really “traveled” it, we felt every mile and every bump and the people we met and the places we stopped at would’ve been missed if we’d taken the bus. A motorbike has the power to connect you to your environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is the most charming country we’ve ever been to, the people and landscape are truly beautiful and those few days were some of the most interesting, fun, hard and rewarding of our whole travels. What it taught me was – the only thing that ever stands between a person and an adventure is the person themselves.

Below is a full length video of the trip so you can pretend you were right there with us, Mucho Mucho Love… Come Join In.

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Here for your enjoyment is our article “The Long Way Laos” in full, as featured in the online travel magazine HipCompass Escapes. It’s about our 550km motorcycle trip from Vang Vieng through one of the most stunning countries I’ve ever seen, to Luang Probang and back again…

Adventure travel has always been one of those things that seems to be on my list of things I said I’d do tomorrow, its not for lack of trying but more a lack of having the balls to ignore the negative practicalities and get on with it, but that’s exactly the attitude you need for it… Less thinking and more doing!

A few months ago while travelling through Laos that was exactly what I did, we were staying in the small and stunning town of Vang Vieng, over shadowed by the towering limestone peaks and blinded by the natural beauty around every corner something in me burst to the surface. Every traveler’s done it – during a long but air-conditioned bus ride to some picture postcard beach, pulled out their adventure travel book from their bag for a spot of inspiration on an otherwise uninspiring journey… Been duly inspired but never taken it further. But this time I was determined to do it, my inspiration came in the form of two monstrous looking dirt bikes, the mental image of the bikes sat inside my head rattling around for a few days as I got down to some serious tubing (if you’ve ever been to Vang Vieng you will know exactly what I mean by that and if not… Go see!) Then out of the blue during a rare moment of sobriety the idea, the adventure was born…
To my left the dirt bikes… To my right cloud-topped limestone peaks leading off northwards over mountains and hills and on to Luang Probang.

A day’s planning had informed me we would be looking at 135 km each way and we had a time frame of two days in which to do it…
Our party consisted of three – myself, my fiancee Georgie and our good friend Toby. Toby owned his own dirt bike back in the UK and was no stranger to off-road biking,  Georgie was a very eager passenger which just left me – with limited motor-biking experience, but what’s an adventure without a challenge? The sun was blazing down on the sleepy streets of Vang Vieng and it seemed to be roasting us alive so we bought a map, saddled up and set off with a roar.

We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.

The journey wound up mountains and back down again, we stayed a night in a tiny town called Phou Khoun far away from anywhere. We woke at 5 am and drove through clouds and we stopped at countless villages along the way. I could write about the hard bits, about the miles, the hills and sore bums but it doesn’t really seem fair. Not when we passed so many warm and friendly people who desperately wanted to go out of their way to make us feel welcome, who call that terrain home and who’s everyday lives make our adventure seem like a walk in the park. The hardships that made it an “adventure” were also the things that pushed us on when we were exhausted. The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road well travelled, except mostly on a bus behind glass, reading books as they go – but we really “traveled” it, we felt every mile and every bump and the people we met and the places we stopped at would’ve been missed if we’d taken the bus. A motorbike has the power to connect you to your environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is the most charming country we’ve ever been to, the people and landscape are truly beautiful and those few days were some of the most interesting, fun, hard and rewarding of our whole travels. What it taught me was – the only thing that ever stands between a person and an adventure is the person themselves.

Below is a full length video of the trip so you can pretend you were right there with us, Mucho Mucho Love… Come Join In.

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Hot off the presses is the new HipCompass Escapes fall edition with our featured article about Adventure travel in Laos… Get it while it’s hot, heres a taster to wet your whistles:

“We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.”

Enjoy.

Hot off the presses is the new HipCompass Escapes fall edition with our featured article about Adventure travel in Laos… Get it while it’s hot, heres a taster to wet your whistles:

“We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.”

Enjoy.

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]]> http://happytimeblog.co.uk/desktop-wallpaper/august-desktop-wallpaper-now-yours/feed/ 4 http://happytimeblog.co.uk/travel-videos/the-long-way-laos-feature-length-video/ http://happytimeblog.co.uk/travel-videos/the-long-way-laos-feature-length-video/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:37:20 +0000 Aaron Bradford | HappytimeBlog.co.uk http://happytimeblog.co.uk/2009/09/19/the-long-way-laos-feature-length-video/ Watch The Long Way Laos now – Our motorbike adventure 550km from Vang Vieng to Luang Probang. The ups and downs through one of the most stunning countries in south-east Asia… As featured in the on-line travel magazine – Hip Compass Escapes.

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Seeing as we had to have our beautiful bikes back by 9am or pay for a whole extra day – and we still had about 90km to go it was an early start… 5:30am early to be exact! I didn’t manage a descent nights sleep and after I had woken the other it seemed like they hadn’t either, don’t know why though because although our rooms were “simple” the were very comfortable, maybe we were just over tired. As I staggered out of our room, down the hall to to the toilet I caught a peek of the sunrise out of a small grubby window and it was breathtaking – the hills rolled up and down all the way to the horizon and a heavy mist hung low, the sun coming up had turned the sky bright pink and the mist was just as brightly tainted by the beautiful morning sun.

We got ourselves together and got downstairs to our bikes, the lady who ran the guest house was up and making the first fire of the day to boil the kettle and get breakfast for all the truckers who had stopped over the night. We tried to get ourselves some hot coffee but the water was taking forever and as we all know a watched pot never boils. I rolled the bikes out into the street and checked my oil which was getting pretty low again and Georgie sorted some coffee (we were going nowhere until after some coffee). As soon as everyone and the bikes were topped up respectively we set off into the morning mist.

As we passed through town and along the winding roads they were all buzzing with activity as people went about their business before the sun got too hot. As usual the people we passed waved and smiled, so friendly and so welcoming. The roads were just as fun to drive as the day before and with the cool morning air our bike was running like a dream… Accelerate – change up – ease off – brake – change down – and accelerate… That was how it went for the next 15 km and as we swept around one bend that was completely whited out on one side it became clear that it wasn’t in fact morning mist but low lying clouds and they swept right across the road revealing sneaks of blue sky.

We pulled over again at the amazing viewpoint rest stop that we stopped at on the way up but this time there was no view, it was just white everywhere, even inside the building because they aren’t finished building it yet and where there’s no glass the clouds blew threw as we finally knocked up some hot coffee’s.

Still looking at a good 70km to go we didn’t hang around, coffee down we carried on our way through the clouds. The roads were still lined with friendly people making there way to wherever it was they were going and as we slowly dropped down the hill we started to drop below the cloud and the landscape once again opened right up.

Sadly the ride back only seemed to take half as long and by 8 am we were out of the hills and down onto the flat straight roads again, we opened up the bikes and made some serious headway. We passed a couple of places where we stopped on the way through and they all waved and shouted of course but we didn’t stop again until we got to the little coffee shack on the river, there was a spit of rain in the air but now we were down from the hills things had warmed right up. We stripped off the extra layers had a smoke or two then made the final push back into Vang Vieng, Georgie was loving it from the second we got up but now she was desperate for a wee so we had to burn some rubber and get through the last 15km in record time. We rolled into Vang Vieng at 8:50 and pulled up at our guest house where our bags were stowed in blazing sunshine. We unloaded all our crap and Georgie’s comfort modifications while she tented to her urgent loo call and then we had to return the bikes… Needless to say I really didn’t want to, it was my first real bike and my first real bike ride and what a ride it had been, hard at times and we were all exhausted but I’m hooked… The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road that just about every Laos tourist travels at some point except they’re on a bus, behind glass, reading books but we actually travelled it, we felt every mile and we felt every bump. The people we met and the places we stopped would never have been possible if we were on the bus and there is something about a bike that makes you feel connected to the environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is by far the most charming country we have been to, the people are so warm and welcoming and those few days have been some of the most interesting, fun, hard and enjoyable of my whole time away.

Watch more of our Travel Videos.