Today didn't quite work out as planned.

We left our fancy room in Mukdahan, bought some tuna pocket sandwiches from the 7-11 and cycled slowly down to Chanuman, stopping for an iced coffee about 15 kms along the way. I managed to get the lady from the roadside coffee stall pose with bike - she was wearing a "Bike for Dad" T-shirt (https://www.bikefordad2015.com/).

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Soon afterwards I noticed that Leigh was dropping back. Her bike's back tyre had a puncture, the first we have had since we replaced her back tyre with the Chinese made tubed tyre in Petchaburi at the start of the trip when I couldn't find slime to top up the UST tyre that was on when we arrived in Thailand. We have also unbeknown to us had a few punctures in the other other tyres but being UST tyres with slime, they self-heal if they have sufficient slime. I re-slimed my front tyre in Luang Prabang after it had eventually lost too much slime and was slowly losing pressure. Swopping tubes created a bit of a side-show for the locals because I had waited until we had a nice shady spot to do the repair and of course that attracted a good audience. We seem to inadvertently bring smiles and laughter into a lot of lives on the Isaan.

The headwind was still there to pester us but the road was more undulating than yesterday and so it was less apparant.

Once in Chanuman we had Krapao Moo (pork with basil on rice) for second breakfast. This is very much a standard for us now and we need to get more adventurous or learn some more Thai food phrases.

Then we went down towards the river where, on maps.google.com, we had spotted a resort, Ban Rie Rim Kong, that looked OK (Leigh had a look at their YouTube clip and gave it the thumbs up). After ride first down and then up the river, we eventually found it but the contents didn't really match the picture on the box so we went back down the river to another resort, Kiang Kong, that looked a lot better.

There wasn't anyone at reception nor any response to shouts of Hello and Sawardee so we decided to just wait it out. Someone would surely turn up soon. There was a car and a motorcycle parked at one of the chalets with signs of life inside - we felt that since they seem to have arrived separately they might not want to be disturbed. We settled down in the outdoor dining room, turned on the fan and helped ourselves to the WiFi (which has no password) and the cold water in the dispenser. There was quite a lot of birdlife so out came the binoculars and a new lifer, Temminck's Sunbird, was in the bag and there was a Shikra trying to catch the smaller birds that kept me entertained.

After a three hour wait we finally threw in the towel and went back to Ban Rie Rim Kong. It was tired, dirty and not worth the 450 baht but it was now three o'clock and as hot as hell so we folded meekly.

After the great value we have enjoyed with our accomodation we were bound to come up short at some point.