RIDE DAY: Bor Nam Oon to Vang Vieng

1/16/09
Day: 87.79km
Cume: 962.0km
Avg: 15.7 kph
Max: 52.0kph
Time: 5h33m
Highs: AMAZING, BREATHTAKING, scenary, quiet landscapes, villages in high mountain gorges, a small escort of kids biking home from school for about 10km, Karst vallies, unbelieveable beauty the whole day
Lows: Fresh tar gravel!, GRRRRR, TAR GRAVEL!, Inconsistent road surface, fever returned at lunch (though 2IBU made the last 30km amazing!)

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a single cow bell
in the valley made of stone
echoing

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This day requires a video BUT I'm simply unable to upload to either Blogger or YouTube, so this will have to wait until I find a really decent computer somewhere in the world. May have to wait until April when I get home. Will keep you posted.

What can I say, this was one of the best rides of my life! I have no idea how many times I said outloud or to myself "WOW" on this day of cycling. Even though I wasn't feeling my best, this day was simply amazing. A little bit of up and down, but mostly flat. I said farewell to the Lao tourers who began their 30km ascent up to Muang Phu Khun after breakfast. I told them how worth it the ride was beyond there to give them a spurt of hope for that insanely long uphill. I said hello to an Aussy couple (who the Lao had spoken of, oddly enough...I knew they were going to be so surprised and delighted that the Aussies were riding right behind them and going to spend the night at the same place as them!) who blessed me with some GREAT road information and warned me of the upcoming tar on the road. I was thankful because it was really bad. YUCK! Tar gravel: a mixture of 1inch road gravel sprayed with tar to make it stick together and then sprayed again once it's been rolled out on the surface. YUCK! Tar gravel!

At some point, I somehow joined a long column of boys riding their bikes home from school. Mr. Sam immediately introduced himself to me with decent English, asked me where I was going, where I came from, where I live. He had very kind eyes and looked over my bike really well. He joined me and rode next to me. Soon, a small crowd of boys was riding alongside and, from their body language, I could tell they liked or respected Mr. Sam. At the top of a long, hot uphill, he stopped along with about ten other boys and they rested in the shade. When I got there, I did the same, and they waited until I felt rested and mounted my bike before they got back on theirs. We rode down the next hill together, the boys hooting and hollering in the descent. We entered a wide, green valley, outlined with steep karst buttes. One other boy, whose name I forgot, pointed ahead and said "My village." These boys rode with me for over 10km up and over several hills before we all arrived at a small bamboo hut village on the side of the road, overlooking vast rice fields and towering karst mountains. Mr. Sam bid me "sabaidee," looked me kindly in the eyes and rode off down the dusty, rocky road across a small bamboo bridge over the creek at the side of the road. ''These boys live in such an amazingly lovely place,'' I remember thinking to msyelf, half way hoping they'd invite me to visit their homes. No such event occurred. We simply shared a portion of the afternoon on this, their daily ride, with them kindly waiting for me several times as I stopped to cool off in the roadside creek. They thought me quite silly to ride the extremely thin and rocky shoulder so near to the edge around each of the tar gravel patches. When finally I crashed in this endeavor, the remaining boys continued on without me, riding over each and every sticky-gooey patch. I cleaned myself up as they rode off into the distance, ocassionally looking back over their shoulders.

I finally broke for lunch at a small roadside vender in a small village buried in the shaddow of the karst valley. I had a decent bowl of soup, 2 ibuprofen and rested a bit until the meds kicked in. When I finally set out on the last 30km to Vang Vieng, I was feeling pretty good. Even though I knew I wasn't feeling well, I couldn't pass on a quick stop at a set of caves I read was about 15km before Vang Vieng and which the Aussies told me was worth the visit. There were three caves, each a little different. The first was small with a splendid reclining Buddha statue inside, the other two required a guide to find and explore and the guide who came with me was very nice and even spoke a little English. Of the other two caves, one was very very deep and filled with brilliant sparkeling stalagtite/mite structures and the other was very broad and steamy inside and contained a Buddha statue on a natural rock pedestal at the back of the cave. The guide, the stop and the various fees I paid (5000k for the bridge, 5000k for the flashlight I didn't need and 3000k to park my bike) were, in the end, worth it, as I had not really ever explored caves, even in the states! (I know, I know, California has some amazing caves, but I have never really explored them!)

I pedalled on and went straight to the Organic Farm Guesthouse to find out they had no vacancy and rode across the street to the Green View cottages to acquire a bungalow (with an amazing view of the mountains). I settled my gear and set out for the remaining 4km into Vang Vieng proper to see the doctor. I was lucky the doc spoke at least a little English. I was able to convey all the symptoms I could gather over the past three days and her final prognosis was an infection in my throat. When I remembered and told her about my ear infection, she said that I still had it, but it was in my throat (or something to that affect). I was happy I didn't have Denge or Malaria or some other jungle illness, to say the least!!! She set me out on Penicilin for seven days and I decided I'd probably have to rest while the medicine worked and I'd stay in Vang Vieng a bit. This was, at first, very disagreeable and later turned out to be quite pleasant, once I figured out how to do Vang Vieng (for me).