CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
It goes by way of Site 28, Town of Luang Prabang and back through Site 28. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Imagine hundreds of huge stone jars scattered across a high plateau, some taller than a person, some lying on their sides, some cracked open by time or by bombs. That is the Plain of Jars in Xieng Khouang province, Laos, and nobody knows for certain who made them or why. Archaeologists believe they are about two thousand years old or more, and that they were connected with burial practices; local legend says they were made to brew rice wine to celebrate a great victory. Since 2019 a selection of the jar sites has been listed by UNESCO as the Megalithic Jar Sites in Xiengkhuang. Site 12 is one of the smaller groups, out in the countryside some twenty-five kilometres from the provincial capital, Phonsavan.
Read the complete Site 12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 12 is where the day begins. Next is Site 28.
The Plain of Jars is one of the great archaeological puzzles of Southeast Asia: hundreds of carved stone jars, some taller than a person and weighing several tonnes, scattered across hillsides and meadows of the Xieng Khouang plateau in northern Laos.
Read the complete Site 28 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 28 comes up about 88 km into the recorded legs. Next is Town of Luang Prabang.
Before the sun is properly up, a line of monks in saffron robes walks barefoot along the main street of Luang Prabang, and townspeople kneel on mats to put handfuls of sticky rice into their bowls. The alms round, tak bat, is the daily heartbeat of the town, and it has been going on for centuries. Luang Prabang sits on a peninsula where the Nam Khan river meets the Mekong, ringed by green mountains, and for several hundred years it was the royal capital of the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang. The old town, with its gilded temples, wooden houses and French colonial villas, was listed by UNESCO in 1995, and it is one of the best-preserved towns in Southeast Asia.
Read the complete Town of Luang Prabang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 328 km into the recorded legs you reach Town of Luang Prabang. Next is back through Site 28.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site 28 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Site 28, late in the day. Next is Site 12.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site 12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Site 12. That is the ride.
Site 12 → Site 28 is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Site 28 → Town of Luang Prabang is 240 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Town of Luang Prabang → back through Site 28 is 224 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Site 28 → Site 12 is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.