March 2, 2007
To Uodom Xia: the perfect cycling day
The perfect cycling day.... just enough climbs to make it a little difficult, only 62kms and the last 5-6 or so flat.
We eat at the table outside our room and start out about 7am. After the first 30kms which continued as yesterday, Rachel was very happy that we had done the extra 29kms. The guesthouse was ok, though there was music and talking late and the roosters started crowing early about 430am. Rachel slept very little. The temperature is cooler at night and early morning.
Today we see more women weaving, older women smoking long pipes (not sure what they are smoking, we are getting close to the area where opium is big) water buffalo in the mud, huge pigs, tiny pigs and even more children shouting and waving and naked (some totally, mostly without bottoms). In these villages also some have skipped the hello---and go directly to shouting bye bye; and the sunrise was just like the sunset--a big orange ball.
Muang beng is one of the few villages where women carry water in black buckets each on the end of a stick carried on their shoulders. We had seen this method of carrying baskets with food and all sorts of other stuff, this is the first in carrying water. Each village has a central pump; the woven bamboo and wood huts have satellite dishes, and the electricity poles and lines are being installed along the route. One village has solar panels next to the satellite dish.
We finish one loaf of the multi grain bread from Jo Ma Bakery in Luang Prabang. When we stop at the roadside for a break, we see groups of people walking to work in the fields, most have machetes or other types of farm tools. We also see an irrigation system with bamboo poles supported on forked sticks along the side of the road, emptying into a barrel that drains into a PVC pipe under the road.
The perfect cycling day...62kms arriving to town early and settled into a nice guesthouse with hot showers and BBC on TV. We eat a pho soup and meet a German who stays in Asia 3 months every year. He recommends the sauna and massage. We explore the town looking for the "supermarket" only to find the Chinese market and we shop for milk, water and laundry soap. We are trying to calculate how much kip we need and not end up with too much to exchange at the Chinese border.
On the way back Rachel goes to the red cross for a massage, 30,000kip ($3). There is a big room divided by curtains, Rachel is given a sarong and instructed to lie down on the floor mat. The female masseuse doesn't speak and starts first with the ankles and heels and calves moving up lower thigh, lower back, neck and each arm and hand. Then supine she massages forehead and temples. Rachel thought it wonderful.
We ate fried noodle at a restaurant with no menu, just a friendly woman who spoke good English. We end the evening watching a movie (Beauty Shop 2 with Queen Lativa) and the news.
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Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 6,003 km (3,728 miles)
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