The road from dong ha to khe Sanh was a bitch, up hill for 40km, but the scenery was nice, the road followed a river before it rose up to khe Sanh. Khe Sanh has a lot of history, it was an important strategic position as it is on the ho chi Minh trail. The Americans had a base there with 6000 marines. One of the biggest battles occurred there. At one point the base was surrounded by 20,000 Viet cong soldiers, attacking with mortars and rocket propelled grenades. In return the US dropped 100,000 tonnes of bombs on the surrounding area, 5 tonnes for each Viet cong soldier!
I crossed the Laos border without any hassles. One of the guards was more interested in English football than checking my passport. Laos is very different to Vietnam and Thailand. Much poorer by the looks of things. The majority of homes are wooden, and there's much less infrastructure. My first stop was a place called xepon. I sat in a bar and had a couple of beers then an Australian guy comes walking past and comes in for a chat. I ended up having a meal with him and a few more beers. He was a bit of a bellend but it was someone to have a conversation with.
Next stop was phalan tai. My uncle Mike has a friend there so I tried to meet up with him. After a few hours of trying to track him down I found some people who said he has passed away. I sat with them for a few hours drinking and eating weird and wonderful food. I tried beetles on skewers and buffalo intestine! There job was to defuse mines left over from the war. They gave me the name of his cousin who is a doctor at the local hospital. I went to find his cousin who confirmed the news.
I went to see the dinosaurs footprints in the dried river bed.
The road across Laos is having some major resurfacing. It was dusty and very hot so I got a bus (back of a small truck with bench seats and canopy) the last 30km to savennakht.
I'm going to head North to Tha Khaek tomorrow, again it will be the morning cycling then bus the rest.
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