1/13/09
Day: 59.96 km
Cume: 780.8 km
Avg: 12.9 kph
Max: 53 kph
Time: 4h37m
Time: 4h37m
Highs: Good road quality, grage was manageable, high fives from village kids, babies waving wildly and saying hello as I rolled by, small villages clinging to ridge top with steep drop off, stellar views!
Lows: Valleys full of haze due to warming fires, so the scenary was muted and my camera couldn't pick it up, late start, very very chilly parts of the ride, even during mid day
I was sad to leave my friends in Luang Probang. Some had departed for towns up the road and others were staying for more days. Perhaps I'd see them down the road. All I knew on this morning was I needed to depart early because I'd have the first of several long climbs up into the mountains. I ended up meeting another cyclist on my way out and talking a little bit too long and ended up leaving about an hour and a half late. This affected me a little later, but I'm always happy to meet and talk with other (friendly) cyclists.
Not far out of town, the scenary already began to change and I began a series of of climbs and descents into beautiful river and/or creek valleys. Skies were hazy, so it was impo
ssible to capture the grandeur of any of the high mountain regions I visited. The lines of hills extending on into the horizon, fading a few shades lighter with each passing range until the most distant was so faint, my eyes could nearly not see it. My camera could see almost none of them, so you'll have to trust me, the mountains went on for quite some ways! In the first valley, the creek was lines again with small gardens surrounded by small picket fences to keep the animals out. Passing through villages, I must have repeated "sabaidee" in the tens of times per village, which was often quite sweet, because mostly very young children would stand up and/or run down to the road very excitedly to say hello as I passed through. I'd often hear faint greetings far above me in the trees and be unable to find the origin, young children in a hut buried in the jungle hillside.
ssible to capture the grandeur of any of the high mountain regions I visited. The lines of hills extending on into the horizon, fading a few shades lighter with each passing range until the most distant was so faint, my eyes could nearly not see it. My camera could see almost none of them, so you'll have to trust me, the mountains went on for quite some ways! In the first valley, the creek was lines again with small gardens surrounded by small picket fences to keep the animals out. Passing through villages, I must have repeated "sabaidee" in the tens of times per village, which was often quite sweet, because mostly very young children would stand up and/or run down to the road very excitedly to say hello as I passed through. I'd often hear faint greetings far above me in the trees and be unable to find the origin, young children in a hut buried in the jungle hillside.The climbs were tough this day, but not aweful! The road grades were so pleasant, it made climbing not too bad, but still exhausting in the hot sun. Then, I'd ride into the shade and start shiverring because it was so cold. Quite strange. As I climbed higher toward my eventual max elevation at 1400 meters (about 4000 feet), this became even more pronounced.
This did end up being a tough and long day for me, though, so I stopped for a rest on the roadside at some point. It was fine because the traffic was almost nill, I was impressed! I thought I'd make it the whole way to the top, but due to the slightly late start, I only made it up 5k of the 20k climb at the end of the day before calling it a day. Found a place to camp and stayed the night.
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