Waking up i felt rather good, the weather was perfect though it was too cold for Loony, I had also had some pretty funky dreams during the night. We got rolling and had a good downhill to a breakfast stop. While having breakfast i noticed the hot springs that the Irish cyclist we had met yesterday told us about, later we also found out that they don’t mind you camping there either.
After the 25,000kip breakfast (which is overpriced for rice) we tackled a mother of a climb, it was a big one but more often than not I enjoy the hill climbs. About half way up I stopped to wait for Loon and Athena, where we had a break and made use of the watermelon I was carrying. Just as we were ready to set off, a slow moving put put tractor was grunting up the hill, i hurried and grabbed on for a tow but the hill we were going up was so steep i could feel my arm ripping off, an oncoming truck was the end of my free ride but i was a little closer to the top for minimum effort.
The really good thing about this hill/ mountain was you could see the top where a cafe was strategically placed so it didn’t feel as if it was never ending. Reaching the cafe (which wasn’t quite the summit) i had a good view of the road so could see Loon and Athena struggle up, while waiting i made use of the free hot water and made myself some instant noodles and a cup of tea. When they made it up we had a break but not too far behind another cyclist had made the hard slog up. His name (not his real name but for our benefit he said its what we should call him) was Tom’o and he was from Japan, he didn’t seem to have much luggage but his back wheel was destroyed, spokes had literally ripped through the wheel rim and his front derailleur was missing. I love the bodge and make do attitude, its a lesson to those who spend thousands on buying the best of the best. Tomo rode with us to the next town where as we pulled into the little market square we spotted 4 heavy looking touring bikes propped up, if 8 cycle tourists in one small market wasn’t enough a 9th just happened to be passing through. I think i would struggle to say i have passed this many cycle tourists on the road never mind bumped into so many in one place. The owners of the 4 bikes did show up and they were all from Germany though 2 separate couples who just met each other on the road. Two of them barely even acknowledged us but the other two Mattis and Veronica were heading in the same direction as us so joined us, thought we did lose Tomo as he was unable to camp. Leaving the town in a peloton we passed two more cycle tourist who just looked straight through us, it seemed every cycle tourist was in Laos.
We rode on and i was enjoying the little gang of cyclists we had assembled, the change of pace was and the general relaxed manor we could just cycle along at. Night was beginning to fall and a camping spot was required, hitting a village Athena and Veronica asked a local if we could sleep at the school. At first things seemed OK, they opened up a class room for us to sleep in but a guy who i assume to be the headmaster didn’t seem too happy so we said we would sleep outside and he appeared much happier with this. We had attracted quite a crowed, the whole village i think, but they all eventually did leave but a few kids did hang behind just watching (i felt like me a lot) what we did. We gave them some food but they seemed cautious about eating it, the Germans sang a song to them and i tried to get them to count to 10, but somehow they ended up trying to teach me how to count to 10 in Laos. Suddenly they must have got bored with us and they just ran off.
Its been a great day and i’m enjoying travelling with others finding out different ways of doing things and just taking it easy. Loon at this moment has just moved into my tent without a word i can remember so my peaceful night alone in my own tent seems to have vanished.
No comments:
Post a Comment