Much of the Monday tubing was epic, but the rest I had a hard time remembering after too much whiskey when the main event was done. When I did finally come to the next day, the river levels were again three feet higher. This was definitely not looking good, and no explanation could be found except for the storms upriver must have again been vicious. Needless to say there would be no repeat of the tubing and the window I caught was very fortunate. It was time to bounce.

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Progress was slow due to feeling like crap and also yet more rain delays. Finally it looked like a suitable chance to take off and so I did, making inchward progress south. The speed did pick up after awhile as my energy increased, and the weather looked like it was finally clearing. Once over the first batch of hills things kept getting better and better, and I was feeling the cycling groove once more. Now that I was clear out of the mountains, the monsoon effect would not dump continuous rain anymore, and it was back to normal. Over the final mountain pass I spied a sign for Namlik Eco Village which turned out to be a dead end, but it was an interesting adventure in that tons of locals were greeting me and obviously nobody had gone off the main road before here. But I had to turn around as this side road wasn't going where I thought it would.

A few kilometers more and a guesthouse appeared which made for a lovely stop. The owners were right on cue and had the water and blankets all ready to go and it was so easy just to stop in and chill for the night. Now that I was in the flatlands proper and just out of Vientiane I could feel this was back in the swing of things and sleep was just awesome.