Hitting the road again: I'm not sure my bike could believe we were really leaving

December 30, 2014

I finally left Nong Khai on the 30th of December. Aside from the thirty kilometres across the border I'd done nothing since I'd arrived into Vientiane with Dea. This quite welcome two week rest was the longest break I'd had from bicycle touring for a year and a half, since I'd set out from Ediburgh in June 2013. But far from feeling revitalised as I made my wobbly way eastwards along the Mekong I felt rather sad. I had used my time somewhat constructively in Nong Khai updating this journal, but perhaps writing about my tearful goodbye with Dea wasn't such a good thing to do just before leaving. With those sad memories fresh in my mind I now felt very alone cycling all by myself, with no one but my own thoughts for company. I missed Dea terribly, and felt quite empty inside.

I missed Robin too of course, in a slightly different way. One wonders just how any movie could recover from the loss of both the primary love interest and the hapless sidekick in such a short space of time. What were the script writers thinking? Now it was just me cycling along on my own again, looking miserable. Who wants to watch that? People are going to walk out of the movie theatres.

Outside the wonderful Klong Siam guesthouse - I don't think my bike could believe we were really leaving!

For a little while I could follow a path along the Mekong before joining the roads

At least Thailand did its very best to cheer me up by providing me with near perfect bicycle touring conditions. The land was completely flat, which meant my legs could be eased gently back into their job of propelling me around the world, and there were a great many good roads to chose from. I started off following the Mekong for a while, then turned south on some smaller roads. There seemed to be roads everywhere through the farmland, and they were all in good condition, and all appeared to join up eventually. I hadn't had such a number of roads to choose from since Europe, and it meant that I could just use the sun to follow a general direction on these lovely little roads, and not worry too much about exactly where I was. I'd also bought a map in Nong Khai, so I knew roughly where I was going and could easily find where I was again whenever I hit a bigger road.

This was just the theory of course. In reality I tried to navigate my way south and east using the sun, but got confused, then checked my map, had no idea where I was, persevered nonetheless, kept going, followed the road around, and finally ended up back where I'd been three hours ago.

I saw a few of these and wonder if anyone can tell me what they're for?

They look like some sort of medeival slingshot, but I suppose common sense dicatates that they are more likely to be for fishing

Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 35,011 km (21,742 miles)

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