Dirt & Secrets

Six nights of off-road riding across northern Laos, guided, from Vientiane to Luang Prabang on light enduro bikes.

Vientiane sits on the Mekong and is the start. The route climbs to around two thousand metres through karst limestone, the sort of country that stands up in towers and spires out of the forest, with hill tribe villages along the way and river crossings on bamboo bridges and through forest streams.

The Plain of Jars comes next, a megalithic site of stone jars whose purpose is still argued about, then Long Chieng, which was a CIA airbase during the Laotian civil war and was once described as the most secret place on earth: a runway in a valley with a town built round it that appeared on no map. A barbecue on the old runway is part of the itinerary, subject to travel advice at the time. The Cold War history along this route is largely unmarked and almost entirely unvisited.

Bike hire is included, on a Kawasaki KLX 250, with a discount for anyone bringing their own. Seven days is short for this much ground and the riding is the point rather than the destinations: dirt, mud, water and some technical climbing, so off-road experience is assumed. Luang Prabang at the end is a world heritage town at the meeting of two rivers, and worth a day once the bike is parked. The dry season from November to March is the window. Laos is also the quietest country in the region to ride in, with very little traffic outside the two cities and roads that have not yet been improved out of interest.