Ledong

February 1, 2006

After a couple of hours where the trucks were having problems keeping up with the bikes (and occasionally had to stop and check for tire tracks to figure out which way to go) we pulled ahead and ended up getting to our town about 30 minutes ahead of the bicycles. As we passed the faster cluster of bikes navigating their way across a washout one of the leaders stuck his head in my window and yelled "你们太舒服!" You are TOO comfortable! at us. We weren't particularly comfortable but it didn't seem wise to respond.

On the original itinerary this was a late lunch for day 3, instead of dinner for day 2. I'm not entirely sure what a resteraunt is doing here but there is one. Singular. A resteraunt. And not a very big one at that. I'd been in the truck the afternoon before when the boss phoned to order dinner. It's one of the few times I've been out with them that the bike club has made reservations. But if we hadn't they wouldn't have had enough food on hand to feed us.

There is a big big road map of the island on the wall but even with the help of the route sheet I can't find us. When I am finally shown where we are I discover the reason I can't find us is because we're more than two kilometers off the closest road.

There aren't any hotels, proper or otherwise, but somehow the club has managed to finagle rooms in the guesthouse attached to the hydroelectric dam. These sort of things are usually built for visiting dignitaries but either the dignitaries who come out to this place aren't very dignified or aren't very bothered by roughing it.

It has the obligatory partially dried up ornamental lake with dying flowers and the lobby has a marble tile floor but the rooms are in a pretty sad shape. A number of the bathrooms have no gas for hot water and there are more than a few burnt out lightbulbs. By the time a steady stream of men have come and borrowed the shower in the room I'm sharing with Ah Qiao and the other two ladies I end up running out of hot water halfway through my own shower in the dark. We have a bathtub but the faucet isn't connected, not even to the cold water feed.

I'll give you three guesses (and the first two don't count) as to what will be a primary feature of tomorrow's ride.

I'm not entirely sure what this large yellow piece of machinery *does* but whatever it is it requires being moved often enough that there were rails running the entire length of the dam.

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