I hope you sell it. I agree completely with what your friend said.

I love this route and this road. So much more beautiful here in the rainy season than when we were on it!

Yeah I was astonished at how tough the road was plus the reactions I got. Judging from that I may have been the first, or a rare sight. There was a daily saengthaw I saw also. Overall this was the highlight of the trip

That's the first time I've seen anybody use that road, although several have used the riverside road from Vientiane to the Paklai bridge turnoff. Your route is exactly what Highway 4 was like in 2008, we had to stop and help push the saengthaew through the mud several times, very exciting.

Thanks a ton for this, very helpful

Thanks Steve, enjoying reading this. For donating to organizations within Ukraine, as well as the big humanitarian charities (Save the Children etc) here are three reputable ones I've given to in the past:

- Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/
- United 24 https://u24.gov.ua
- Razom https://www.razomforukraine.org

Your Thai friend is correct. I've also seen this in Cambodia near Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville or what they now call shitville. It also makes me furious to see this happen. Russia and China are the new imperial powers and they 'need' resources to fuel their economies from these less developed countries. Not the kind of world order I want to see develop. Still I think it will get better on the road to Kenethao and the Thai border

Our Thai friend in Chiang Khong astutely put it, "Laos has been eaten by China." And sadly, that seems to be true. Very sadly. I think that there is still plenty of Laos that is off the beaten and extraction industry paths. But I'm not sure where that is exactly. We've taken Highway 4 to Kenethao twice now, once by saengthaew (2008) when it was still unpaved, and once by bike in December 2014. As of 2014 at least, it was still really out there but there was ample evidence of illegal logging in the national parks.

Oh for sure, well I'm going to ask the locals at the Kasi Hotsprings hotel the same question, it seems their business was affected by this policy. If as you say the Huay Kon border allows bicycles again there's a good chance the Kennethao does too as they're in the same province. I'll get more info as the trip goes on, meanwhile it's gonna rock

Nong Khai is a lot of fun and so is the ride along the Mekong (in either direction). Any way, any how, it's going to be great.

This info is really good to know Andrea. I did the Huay Kon border crossing on previous trips and it's pretty wild. Although I ended up folding the bike and putting in a tuktuk. The research I'm doing just isn't turning up many good leads. I might end up going for the easy way out and use the Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai.

A few months ago we inquired about the Huai Kon/Namngeun border crossing and heard that it was open for bicycles. That looks like a real adventure! In Kenethao you would probably have to hitch a ride on a truck to cross for some stupid reason. We were able to ride that in 2014/15 but it's been closed to bicycles since then.

Hot tip for smelly hotel rooms. That's usually from the bathroom floor drains because they often don't have an under-floor trap to keep the sewer gas out. We throw something, a plate, a flip-flop, something over that drain when the shower is not being used.

Thank you for being in Laos, we needed a SE Asia journal to follow! Vientiane has changed a lot in the 21 years since I was first there but it still has that vibe, doesn't it?

Thanks so much, I'm stoked!

This is exactly correct