The Loop is a 4 day motor bike road trip based out of Thakek, or at least it should be. I arrived in Thakek at the guest house which was meant to have the most travellers. Joined up with 4 other people heading out the following day so all going to plan. We set off at 9:00 the following morning on the only bikes available; 110cc Chinese step through semi automatics, with which according to the LP would most likely suffer a blow out or need the shocks replacing while on route. Before I go any further I just want everyone to know I am 100% ok. So we headed out slowly as most of the group had very little or no previous experience riding. A couple of hours in and every ones confidence was up as we drove in tight formation riding down the empty roads, all was going well until a pice of the bike two in front of me fell of and one of the girls (Karen) in front of me put on her breaks to pick it up with out checking her mirrors, traveling a little two close behind I slammed on the breaks and managed to slow down a fair bit before I rear ended her (all happened within 3 seconds). As I said I am fine, Karen came off with a couple of cuts on her legs, I came off with a graze on my shoulder and one on my ankle, my bike came off worse and had to be taken to the next village for an oil change and a bit of straightening up. Two hours later after we had patched our selves up with our first aid kits and had some lunch we were back on the road.
We headed north and then east until we came to a 40km dirt road which lead to a the village we were heading for, with our slow progress on the very rocky road and the 2 hour delay from the crash it soon became dark two people dropped there bikes but no injuries just a few busted wing mirrors. We arrived at the village at 20:00 and managed to find two home stays, had our dinner an joined the locals at what appeared to be mobile disco off the back of a cart. The following morning we walked down to a cave that stretched 7km through a mountain to the other side (the reason we visited the village in first place) we spent 3-hours going through the cave and back by boat and returned to our home stays for lunch. After which the plan being to head back up the hard road and then on east to the next stop, unfortunately Karen had lost her key! It was decided that we would give her a lift to the top of the dirt road where we herd she could arrange a pick up truck to take he and the bike back to Thakek for only 15$, on arriving back at the main road we found it would cost a lot more than that. Getting late we found a guest house and me Jasper and Jason (all three of us had had to share a bed due to cost) set out early the following morning on two bikes to collect Karen’s bike. We managed to get down to the village and back with me hot wiring the bike in under three hours, not bad!!
Back at the main road we had a new lock fitted for only 3.50$. As we were all including our bikes a little broken (I failed to mention the front break just fell off Jason’s bike) we decided to head for home, saving a couple days bike hire to pay for the repairs. Had a nearly ok ride home with some amazing view, with the only problems being running out of gas.
We arrived home safe a little after dark. The following day we went to see some cave south of Thakek we would have seen at the end of the loop, by tuck tuck (much safer).
After lunch we split with 2 going south and me Karen and Jasper heading north to Vientiane. Second photo byJasper Wolleswinkel, Third photo by unknown Dutch girl.
