What round-the-world trip is complete without at least once ignoring the advice of your embassy? We did consider Mr. Lawless's advice seriously. But we decided that based on what we had read and heard from others, conditions had changed enough to make the ride up route 13 safe for us. Hell, we had played chicken with Javanese bus drivers. Could Route 13 be that much more dangerous?

The danger was bandits, who had haunted a 170-km? stretch of the road between a small town called Kasi, and the ancient capital, Luang Prabang. The bandits are/were reputedly Hmong, who had sided with the Americans during the Vietnam War.

We considered the boat but we read that women and men were separated onboard, and women weren't allowed to ride on the top decks or on front. That would be OK for a few hours, but the ride was four or five days. Besides, we wanted to ride our bikes.

Despite having had eight days in Vientiane, we still had five things to take care of on the morning of our departure: pick up our laundry, go to the bank, pick up photos, swap books and check email. I hate having even one thing to do in the morning before we ride.

The bikes were packed, we finished four of the five items, and all we had left to do to was check email. We went to the Asian Pavilion Hotel, where we had stayed the first night, to use their business center. The manager, a Thai man named Pramook, loved us. He thought it was wonderful that we were riding bicycles across Laos. He had never heard of anyone doing that before. We liked him a lot too. He had been very kind. He had let us spend an hour on the computer offline for just US$3, before charging us the online rate to send everything in 15 or 20 minutes at the normal 50 cents a minute rate.

Pramook had told us during our previous email excursions that he wanted to take a picture of us with our bikes before we left. We obliged him that morning. A photographer was coming (anyway?) to take a shot of him for the local newspaper. By the time that was done it was noon. Then Pramook invited us to be his special guest at the hotel's buffet lunch. We were running way late, but we had to eat anyway, so we agreed. Plus Pramook was good company.

We enjoyed a huge buffet of Lao food and Pramook told us the Lao name for everything and wrote it in Lao for us. This turned out to be really helpful later in small towns. He kept having waitresses bring more and more food. He even had them prepare two versions of spicy papaya salad, Thai and Lao. The Thai version is sweeter and less spicy, the Lao version is fire. Neither one tastes anything like Papaya. I just kept eating and eating.

It turns out Pramook's son lives in San Francisco (where we did before this trip began) and has a restaurant called Thai corner. We plan to find it when we return.

Before we left he introduced us to his "president" (boss) and got a picture of us with the "president" too. Pramook told us he would put the picture in the lobby. If anyone sees it, let us know.

We ended up leaving around 1:30 pm, one of our latest departures ever. Fortunately, the road was entirely flat. After about 10km the shophouses and the colonial buildings thinned out and the rice padis dominated. Though Laos is a poor country it was good to see these farmers had some machinery, mainly the "mechanical water buffalos" (my term: a long-handled tractor with an engine way out front; farmers steer them through the mud) we saw all over Thailand.

We enjoyed the scenery much more than we had on the ride to Vientiane: long views of rice padis dotted with small huts, lines of trees between fields, and small villages.

The kids showed special enthusiasm for waving and yelling. We started hearing more shouts of "Bonjour!" One kid yelled "Ou Allez-Vous?" Instead of the typical "Where you Go?" But as we got further and further north both Bonjour and Hello were replaced with the local hello, Sah-ba-dee.

We stopped at a food stall for a drink where six or eight women sat joking around. An older man rode up on his bike. He had about 20 small sculptures in a box on the back of his bike, and a few more in his front basket. He handed one around. They were about eight inches tall and looked like spindly cactus trunks with shells on each branch. He had painted the trunks orange and red and they vaguely matched the brown and white pattern of the shells. Strange to be selling door-to-door on a bike. We later met several other bike salesmen in Laos.

We reached our destination, Phanhong, shortly before dark. Unfortunately the town didn't have a hotel. It had a sign saying "Restaurant and Hotel" but that was for a hotel 100 miles away, we later learned. A woman pointed us down a side road. We pointed down the same road and asked Hotel? She first shook her head then nodded and said, Hotel Nam Song and pointed again. We tried to ask how far but couldn't. Even though it meant we'd have to backtrack the next morning, we decided to take the side road because our guidebook mentioned places to stay that way, but nothing for another 80km the other way.

The first eight km or so were gorgeous. One of the rewards of riding in the dark is pretty twilight. (But you have to keep your mouth shut, because the bugs get thick and go down your throat). People were out walking on the road and almost all carried machetes. The kids looked like they were getting ready for a snipe hunt, carrying flashlights strapped to their heads, and baskets with nets over the top. An expat later guessed, based on our description, that these kids were fishing for fish or frogs in rice padis.

It was completely dark after about 10km. Over and over we asked for directions. The road turned to dirt and a light rain began to fall. We crossed a long narrow bridge over the Nam Lik river. A short way after we came to the gate house at a large hotel. Inside the gatehouse I saw a barber chair. The guard (and barber?) told us the hotel was full.

The guard directed us to another hotel in the small village (Ban Nampat?) back over the bridge. We wandered through the dark on the mud, dirt and rock roads asking all the way. I was getting discouraged as we approached a dead end. But then we saw a woman walking across a parking area. She worked for the hotel, which was hidden around a corner. She spoke perfect English. What a relief. She set us up with a great little room for 8,000 kip (US$2.30)

Some youngish Lao people were having a good time at the hotel restaurant, drunkenly singing along with the radio. The more I hear Thai and Lao pop music, the less I like it. Hearing these people singing loudly was hilarious but also grating. We laughed and smiled with them, and raised our glasses to them. When their party started breaking up, a young woman approached us and violently pulled out a chair next to Joan. We were surprised but welcomed her. Then she looked at Joan, stopped suddenly, said "Sorry!" and scurried off with her friends, laughing. (Joan: Am I that ugly? I think she had only seen me from the back, and thought I was a man. Which means I must be a cuter man than Eric, since she pulled out the chair next to me and not him).

In the morning we realized the hotel had an amusement park: a train for kids to ride, bumper cars, and a place for a band to play, with huge speakers. I'm glad no band played that night.

Next: The storm that stalked us.

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