Day 13, Back on a level footing and a meeting with students of English.

November 7, 2024

I had a terrific night's sleep on the concrete at the school; Winston less so.

We were always going to leave early but did find time to devour a papaya and take some photographs of our abode.

A close-up of my spot. I would have loved a sleeping mat.

Anyway, to sleep rough for a night lets one appreciate the plight of many, who won't jump on a bike next day and pedal towards Viang Xai.

They remember who delivered it!

Apart from Vietnam seeming much wealthier than Laos, there seem far more young children and buffalo in Laos. The latter may be due to the Laotian Buffalo Law that maintains the population at 2.37 x the human population. There are even pinkish buffalo with attitude.

There were other things too that we found interesting.

A bamboo fence allows the rotation of crops.

Unfortunately there's the occasional patch like this.

We did the 26 km to Viang Xai by 9.30, which was much earlier than we had even set off yesterday. We needed to straighten things out - figure out our Vietnamese sim cards (will they work?) and get more money. But, before that, we needed to eat last night's dinner and breakfast.

I was first to town and saw a restaurant and they kindly connected me to WiFi and I determined that a Laotian sim was best. I then explained that we were hungry vegetarians.

As we ate, one of the ladies said to us "he is coming". Who, Jesus? A little later, the messiah arrived in the form of a female motorcyclist wearing a Unitel uniform. She sold and installed sims and made sure our phones were working.

Our delightful restaurant ladies who helped us so much.

As we were planning our next move, school children drifted towards us. We soon learnt that they wanted to practise their English.

One of them asked if we had time to visit their school. How could we say no? We walked up the hill with the students and met their teacher, whose name none of us can pronounce and who studied English at university in Vientiane.

With the students of English - well, maybe not the littlest one on the left.

We left the restaurant and headed into the town centre for an ATM, passing terrific art on the way.

We returned to the highway and turned left towards Sam Nuea. It was barely 30 km but an excellent ride with much to look at on the way.

A fine specimen. These are tiny Bos indicus cattle - perfect in the heat and humidity.

There was one brute of a hill that went for 3.5 km and probably averaged 10%.

We easily found a guesthouse and walked around the corner, past the watermelon furniture to a Chinese restaurant where, for the second time in the day, we were hungry vegetarians.

We selected our food from this display. We didn't realize that one mushroom meant one mushroom dish!

Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 617 km (383 miles)

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