We leave Vientiane after a few relaxing days and after completing the numerous bureaucratic extension of the visa and obtain the Lao cambodian. The direction is always the same, drawn from the slow flow of the Mekong to Cambodia from there to outline the border between Laos and Thailand. We go down immediately on its banks, led initially to the East. Soon the road becomes dirt and traffic, almost completely diverted its main drag, becomes negligible. We adapt our pace to that of the river and, without haste, pedal to the south.

Buddha statues scattered on the esplanade overlooking the banks of the Mekong, lie side by side everywhere to those of Hindu deities that can not be interpreted by our ignorant eyes. The first stop on our journey, the Buddha is in this park even though we had already made ​​an attempt to more secular works of the brewery was Beerlao, receiving a polite refusal.

The track is lost in sleepy fishing villages and we also lost the right path in the maze of streets and paths that lead to nothing. We meet in the park in Phu Khao Khuay, walking through the jungle with the nose in the vain hope of seeing some gibbon. We spend the day with his feet soaking in the river just downstream form the Tad Leuk waterfall.

Natl we wake up with a thought to home and a salute to Matthew, known in Vientiane globetrotting biker and rediscovered in a remote village in the suburbs on the eve. We spend the holidays with two punctures in bicycle and a strong wind in your face as a gift that makes us turn away from rising in karst region of Khammouane. Effort to reach the village of Kong Lor, famous only because just a few steps from the homonym cave, a marvel that takes their breath for 8 km of darkness and emotion into the tunnel dug under the mountain peaks from Hin Bun river.

Only in 2008 a French NGO has designed and built a path of light of 200 meters in the heart of the caves, where stalactites and stalagmites chase playing hide and seek with their own shadows. We go up the bank of the river bottom, after having gone down to bare feet, the spear that a skilled helmsman and navigator with an even more alert led rapids and shoals, illuminating the way with two dim lamps. The curtain opens when, being the first and only visitors of the day (this is the great beauty of this place!), our guide-navigator turns the switch turning a thousand shades of the gothic rock. Captured as children of this country as we passed, and we wait to fix the stucco work of the genial nature and only when a roar echoes in the once rock, descend to the river: some boats are oncoming and leaving to others the joy and pleasure to see what it was just "our" for a few minutes.

Back in the saddle, over the pass between the karst peaks to lull us back to the sweet flow of true master of this part of the world.

A day in the eternal (150km!!) allows us to reach Thakhek when the sunset colors the river rose over the following days as we venture back vitta between the vegetation along the Mekong. The street is often collapsed where small streams of water through it and despite efforts, we can not imagine the destructive power of these streams turned into raging river during the rainy season. We unload the luggage rack several times, bringing back the bikes on the opposite side to rearrange your luggage and return to cycling. After a night spent in the office of the Forestry Department to Saybuli Genil where we were allowed to fix the tent, yet we go along the river on a road ghost after a few kilometers into the path. Before you find it, turn the trees for a while ', but when we take it we just won, having fun in the sand and small river crossings. Savannakhet is not far and its streets deserted us in the warm welcome and relaxed, languid afternoon in the tropics.