After a restless nights sleep due to the heat and an early morning wake up from the cicardas we packed up and headed down for breakfast. A very simple one today. Fresh white bread with butter, jam and a banana. We were also offered fried or scrambled eggs. The coffee! Eekk. Drank it anyway due to my addiction.
We left the guest house about 8.30 and rode through Pak Beng township for a few kms, small rustic houses made from wood and straw and the first experience of the children. Sabadii (hello). The families live surprisingly close to the road including their chickens, ducks, dogs, pigs, piglets, goats. At times we were riding around the animals as they wondered across the road. The rule is if you kill the chicken you have to pay!
The countryside is very lush and green as we are now in the rainy season, although it did not rain today. Along side the road is landscape was either growing rice or corn, the main staple food of Laos. A major portion of the corn is exported to Thailand for cornflour. In Laos they mainly grow and eat sticky rice as it does not need as much water to grow, which means it is suitable to grown on the steep slopes of the hillside.
Our guide Chit is covered head to toe in lycra gear. He says the Lao people prefer white skin and not dark so he has chosen to cover up with black leg warmers and skin colored arm warmers. To us he looks so uncomfortable and hot but to him it's important to avoid the sun.
We stop after 20kms for a break all feeling the heat. The road surface is pretty good after we remember to ride on the right hand side. Our 20 km has been undulating with some short hills but the sun is very hot and their is not much shade along the side of the road.
We continue on stopping once for a drink at the top of a reasonable hill. After completing 54km we reach our lunch stop, feeling extremely hot from the sun and heat. The restaurant is very rustic with an open area will plastic tables and chairs fortunately under cover and with a fan blowing at high speed. We order up ice cold cans of coke, ahhhh! They also double as a cooling aid for the face and neck. After almost an hour our lunch of fried rice is served which is very tasty with a bowl of broth soup.
Carole and I elect to jump in the van and not ride, Chris and Sandy decide to ride on a bit further. Once the air con in the van cooled us down, we both had a lovely snooze for 45 mins or so as the van followed the riders close behind. After a further 13kms the others decided to join us in the van.
We all then proceeded onto our stop for the night which was a further 50 or so km down the road Oudomxal. This ride took us about 90 minutes as we travelled at low sped due to the many pot holes and the many many villages we past through along the way.
We arrived and checked into our hotel, which was reasonable. Bigger room than last night, and an air conditioner! They also had wi-fi access.
After a refreshing shower we headed out in search of Beerlao. The local brew and some chips to quench our thirst and review the day as we watched the locals go about their lives andpassing traffic.
A short walk up a series of steps led us to a huge buddist statue at the top of the hill which had a great view over the surrounding area, just as sunset was taking place. Beautiful.
Whilst taking photos of the view we spotted some young monks taking photos of each other with their mobile photos. It seemed strange to see them using the technology given the life they chose to live. I offered to take a photo of the 3 together, which they accepted but the monk indicated he could not hand me the phone, but had to put it on the ground and I could pick it up then take a photo. Monks cannot touch women or stand too close to them, little did I know this at the time!
Dinner was in a local restaurant down the road. When we arrived our meal was all laid out in a private room with air conditioning. a delicious meal of chicken curry, vegetables, soup with pork mince and vegetables and they had made us 2 plates of chips! Our western junk food. All washed down of course with more BeerLao!
We retired back to our room for some blogging, email checking and sleep.
The bed was hard again and thus time the pillow was huge and also rock hard! Made for some interesting sleeping positions! Oh I wish I didn't love my latex pillows so much.
Written by Narelle Beurle. To read more - go to: http://firstpour.blogspot.com/
Location:Laos
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