Long distance buses in Laos don't offer much in the way of decent food. The bus stations offer the same fare of boiled eggs on skewers and fried chickens which the masked sellers, always women, hold up on sticks and wave in the dusty air, trying to attract the attention of the seated passengers through the bus windows. The chicken looks tempting until you realise just how much diesel exhaust fumes and red dust grit must add to the flavour. If it's not that it's stopping at some miscellaneous covered market in the middle of butt-f*** nowhere with stalls selling fried insects, dead birds with their feathers unplucked, buckets of eels, caged hamsters, and various other culinary surprises. After walking around one such market, tired and hungry, where the only recognisable food was finger bananas, we ambled back to the bus where the driver was leaned up against the door munching away at a bag of crickets like they were Twisties. A word of advice: bring your own food.

Next on the itinerary was Khong Lor, home to one of Southeast Asia's natural wonders, a 7.5km river cave that tunnels its way under towering limestone cliffs, winding through pitch dark caverns up to 100m tall and just as wide in some places. After more than half an hour in the subterranean dark, you finally emerge on the other side, dumbfounded, back into natural daylight. There are no lights installed in the cave yet; the only way to get an idea of the dimensions of this otherworldly place is with the headlamps they give you to wear. You cram into a leaky dugout with two other people and two guides, and your journey into the subterranean night begins. 7.5km is a long, long way to go in the dark in a small boat beneath solid rock. We could just as easily have been in space, the meagre beams of light from our headlamps intersecting with each other, bouncing off the limestone walls and lazering off into the darkness. No life, just cavernous walls, calcium deposits, flowing water, and the roar of the boat's small engine reverberated and amplified in such an enclosed space. Tre cool.

The town of Khong Lor was almost as spectacular, set in a long valley bordered by precipitous limestone karsts. The town is very small, a village really, fields of rice paddies dotted by wooden stilt houses, with just one or two restaurant bars for the travellers to congregate at night, and given the effort it takes to get out here, there aren't all that many. The food and accommodation are also some of the best bang-for-your-buck value in the country. And the sunset from the balcony of the guesthouse was just something else. I should have stayed for a week.

Another thing about Laos: apart from potholes, the Dutch, and relapsing alcoholics (but really, what part of SE Asia isn't), every other traveller you meet in this country, it seems, is in the middle of an epic bicycle tour: from London to Australia, or across Central Asia, or even just within Laos itself. Seems to be the new craze. Or maybe it always has been and it just didn't register until now. The English, the Koreans, everyone's in on it. I want in on it. All you need is a bicycle, some waterproof saddlebags, a headlight, and steel-capped boots for kicking at the stray dogs that give chase out on the open road. That, a bunch of money, and a whole lot of time. And patience.