Raw Meat and Bungalow Shadows

January 5, 2020

Beung Kan to a Bung Khla Bungalow

Beung Kan to Bung Khla

We take the time most mornings to make our papaya/banana/mango/muesli/soymilk breakfasts in our room. We do this mostly because the fruit is incredibly tasty. Coffee mix is easy to make in our room as well. But much tastier is the old style Thai coffee called Cafe Bolan which we can usually find in or near the central markets of each town. Other than some chicory and coffee, Cafe Bolan is a mysterious mixture. The powder is put in a cloth sock and boiling water poured over it. It’s old style and we love it with the added sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of the glass. The Thais have recently taken to Instant Nescafe in a big way because it’s cheap and easy. This makes me nervous that the old style stuff, which is already hard to find, might disappear completely one of these days.

After our breakfast in our room we were going to ride right past the main market in Beung Kan so we popped inside to see if we could find Cafe Bolan. And we did. To make sure we were all on the same page we told the vendor, “Mai ao Nescafe”- we don’t want Nescafe.

Well, we had a vendor who actually lied and gave us Nescafe. Thais don’t often lie to us. We knew it was Nescafe at first sip. I hate Nescafe so I boldly expressed my unhappiness. The woman immediately felt awful and showed us that she was very nearly out of the Cafe Bolan and didn’t want to make another batch for some reason but to try to make things right she poured what she had into our nasty Nescafe and you know what? It tasted great. Everyone was all smiles and she was laughing at herself. Ultimately she charged us very little.

I think we enjoy the interactions with people on our bike trips as much as the cycling itself. It’s infinitely fascinating how simple little incidents can turn into events that will stick with us and them for a long time. And it is in the nature of Thais to always end smiling or laughing. They are a fun-loving, joking people and if you can make them laugh you have won them over.

After making a quick stop at the Mini Big C across the street from the market for a very large bottle of water ($.25) we headed for a small road along the Mekong River. It was to be a day of small roads, the kind we love way out in the country where when farmers look up and see us they are quite surprised but happy.

We passed thousands of rubber trees, a sand extraction operation so large that it even had two spirit houses, a few pineapple fields, squash fields and a marigold farm. Marigolds are used in all sorts of Buddhist ceremonies and we see small plots all over but this was a major marigold farm. A woman tending the marigolds wanted us to come out into the field to have photos taken of her with us by another worker. We always say yes to things like this. Besides, my yellow helmet went well with the whole orange/yellow color scheme!

A sand and gravel operation with its own spirit houses!

At several points the road 3008 went around temples suggesting that the temples either predate the road or were always more important.

Rubber plantations are really boring to ride through but I must say these were very quiet except for a lot of birds singing.

We had to go out to the big road (212) very briefly but then we plunged back into rows upon rows of rubber trees interspersed with small hamlets. It was road 3008. We were rounding the top of the Mekong and slowly turning to the south all day.

An odd accumulation of misproportioned things. The lizard is really big while the elephant is way too small and the sticky rice basket is really out of whack.

More rubber trees. They lose their leaves in the winter.

In one tiny town a bird came flying at me straight as an arrow from the opposite side of the road, through my bike and very nearly went up my shorts. Another inch to its left and there would have been a bird inside my shorts! And there most certainly would have been a crash. The oddest things can happen on a bike but this one I never would have ever even thought up.

Since we were riding right along the beautiful Mekong we saw lots of water being pumped for irrigation which was the reason there were so many other crops besides the rubber. We saw one of the biggest tomato farms I’ve ever seen with piles of full crates waiting in the sun for transport. The entire route for the day was lovely, leisurely and not long. We were heading to Bung Khla, a tiny town a bit inland from the river. Before we saw any indication of a town we came upon a row of bungalows for rent right on the banks of the river.

This made me a bit anxious because it was about 100 degrees in the sun and I wondered how long the tomatoes had been sitting there and how long they would be sitting there until they were picked up.

Tomato plants, a promenade, the Mekong River and on the Lao side the bridge carries their biggest north-south road, Hwy 13. After the bridge it cut over to the east side of the hills which made for no road noise from our bungalow.

You know you are on a small country road that is not used much when it can take a 90 degree turn.

Marigold farm. I like how Andrea coordinates what she is wearing each day with the color of irrigation pipes. So attentive!

It was such a lovely row of bungalows that we pretty much had to stay there. Once again, and it seems the theme for our entire trip, no other tourists were there. We had the place to ourselves. This has been such an odd winter in that regard. Here was an absolutely gorgeous affordable and cute bungalow with an amazing view of a great river and forested hills on the Lao side, but no one else enjoying it.

Once we got settled in our bungalow we rode the half mile into the tiny town of Bung Khla. It was nearing dinner time so there were vendors selling bags of this or that curry or whatever. It’s hard to tell what’s in a plastic bag sometimes. We chose a couple of different ones and some rice to take back to our lovely front porch, dump into our bowls and devour. We also eventually found a huge papaya so we were set for breakfast too.

I very much enjoy all the old teak in Thailand. I want to salvage it when I see a building like this.

When we were eating we realized that the food was rather rough. I mean, we didn’t know if we would get sick from it or not. It was down-home Lao food. There is a dish the Lao make which is minced beef or fish that is eaten raw. It’s combined with various shredded vegetables and cilantro and lots of lime juice but RAW?! I’ve had it before in Laos and didn’t get sick but it’s always quite a gamble. We ate about half of it and decided that it wasn’t worth the risk to finish it. I have learned the more you eat of something that is bound to make you sick the worse the sickness will be. Eating a little might make you more resistant - my theory. And, of course, a papaya a day will help digestion. We enjoyed what we did eat if we did’t think about the potential outcome too much. The view from our porch made us forget the food completely.

We were now on the west bank of the Mekong which meant it had finally started flowing from north to south. Because the sun was setting behind us the row of bungalows cast bungalow shadows onto the wide beach. There were very few houses on the Lao side but still, true to the Lao character, we heard loud music wafting across the river. Some small fires were started over there as well and we settled into our chairs thinking how lucky we were to experience such peace.

lovebruce

Today's ride: 29 miles (47 km)
Total: 906 miles (1,458 km)

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Jen RahnI wonder if that close encounter you had with the bird has happened to anyone else? Seems like one of those one-in-a-milion kind of experiences!

Glad it didn't go up your shorts!!
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