Our 21 days in Laos Tour 2023

Heineken

Heineken

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Well ive been home just over a week from an awesome 21 day tour of Laos, this was a tour group with our usual DT Travel from Vietnam and planning the trip was my friend Mike Gagne (Mike Freerider) from Ubon Ratchathani, this was my 3rd tour with this company, previous 2 trips have been riding from Thailand over to Vietnam in 2019/2022 ;)


This trip started on the 11th of November 2023 in Mukdahan Thailand where our group met, the following morning we crossed into Savannakhet Laos and our tour of Laos began :cool:


I have way too many photos to do a detailed trip report, but we do have videos which show our adventures so I will post them ;)


Our group consisted of 10 riders from Thailand, with one hire bike from Laos :

1/ Mike - Honda CRF 300

2/ Bern - Honda CRF 250

3/ Kevin - Honda CRF 300

4/ Terry - Honda CRF 250 (Laos Hire Bike)

5/ Frank - KTM 690

6/ Sam - Kawasaki Versys 300

7/ Roger - Kawasaki Versys 300

8/ Colin - BMW GS 800

9/ Torben - Honda CRF 1000 (Dct)

10/ Heineken - Honda NC750X (Dct)


The following video is a summary of our whole trip, I will also post a more detailed series of videos as they become available, produced by Mike Freerider, please give his videos a like, he spends many hours filming and editing to get the end result ;)


 
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blackb15

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Great video it looks like some really hardcore riding to me,in very difficult conditions on non existing roads
well done to all.
safe riding
 
Heineken

Heineken

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DavidFL said:
If you were to do this trip again, but cut it in half, where would you go first?
What would you leave out & what would be the top 3 highlights?
Click to expand...

You know ive been thinking about this question over the last few days and I cant come up with an answer, as soon as I think of 3 x highlights another one pops into my head :grinning:

I wouldn't want to make this trip any shorter, to me it had the perfect itinerary, That's one of the best things about going on a trip with Mike Gagne's input, I am not a rider that wants just to go from A to B everyday, I like to see what's inbetween, and all of the trips ive done with Mike are similar in design of 2 or 3 days riding, and then a day off for a tour or boat trip.

Years ago Mike was getting questioned over running tours by himself, his answer was this is not the case, just friends riding together, he makes no financial benefit out of these organized trips, purely a hobby for Mike.

To overcome these issues Mike started using the services of Win (Dzung Nguyen) from DT Travel to run the tours, Mike & Win talk about each trip well in advance of the tour start date, and Win does all the logistics, booking Hotels, tours, distances to travel each day etc, he also supplies the back up vehicle, and in the case of this Laos Tour we also had a mini van which was awesome...............................this was my 3rd trip with DT Travel, with a 4th already in the planning for November 2024 :cool:

Win is based in Hanoi Vietnam, but organizes tours in Laos/Cambodia/Burma/Thailand/China and obviously Vietnam.....................................he has his own fleet of Honda CRF250's in Vietnam and can organize big bikes to rent if required, he gets a 10/10 from me ;)
 
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Heineken

Heineken

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Interesting in this video we rode up to Boten on the Chinese Border, lots of Chinese cars/trucks/people and shops, some shops even asked if we could pay in Chinese Yuan, they preferred not to accept Laos Kip, the high speed train goes through this town, from Vientiane to Boten and then continues into China.


Boten–Vientiane railway - Wikipedia


And now for part 6...........................................


 
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DavidFL

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Chiang Khong
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Heineken said:
Interesting in this video we rode up to Boten on the Chinese Border, lots of Chinese cars/trucks/people and shops, some shops even asked if we could pay in Chinese Yuan, they preferred not to accept Laos Kip, the high speed train goes through this town, from Vientiane to Boten and then continues into China.


Boten–Vientiane railway - Wikipedia


And now for part 6...........................................


Click to expand...

Some good roads in there, but sad how the trucks have destroyed so many roads, & now no budget for repairs.
I think there was a time before they started the rail line most of the roads were good if not great.
Laos is an amazing place of contrasts when you compare the new Chinese orientated cities & the poor rural villagers.
Thanks for posting the vdo.
 
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