TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Well I woke up to the rain and it was heavy, but as time passed it slowed down then just about stopped, so I made my decision to leave, finally 🙂 I said goodbye to Veo and his family who run the Lau Falang Bar and Restaurant [N19.45059 E103.21932 ], we will stay in touch, at least by email anyway 🙂 Nice to have met you 🙂 For those that want budget accommodation he does have dorm beds, he also helps his brother run a tour company, rents bikes and of course has booze and food 🙂

I managed to buy a souvenir of this area, very distinctive, and it will remind me of what is going on here

These are the two halves of a cluster bomblet or ‘bombie’, the half on the left had the fusing access holes in it and the vanes on it that cause it to spin up in the slipstream to arm the fuse. The right hand half has been worn and you can see the myriad of embedded ball bearings which did the actual damage 😦 This will remind me of what is still going on here, not that I could probably forget.

I left around 10am and had just under 300km to ride. This would probably take between 5-6 hours, 50kmh seems to be the average through the hills and villages in Laos. The first stop was the tank cache, which I had incorrectly called a T72, it is actually a PT-76 Russian light amphibious tank, thanks to cousin Ant for that info. Today I just wanted to drop off a Laos copy of the Geocache information sheet that Veo’s wife had translated for me. Basically it is just a description of what a cache is so that if a muggle finds it, who is not already a Geocacher, they may decide to become one, but hopefully they will replace the cache as they found it and not destroy it, which happens often!

Then it was off to backtrack to the west for 140km, it was dry today, unlike when I came in last week so I actually got to see the potholes before I ran into them!

I even stopped for some photos, most of this was cloud covered last week.

Did I mention the road was twisty?

It took me 2.5 hours to cover the first 140km , very slow going and I stopped at the same place to eat at the main junction town of Phouk Houne. I knew they served chicken here but I never knew they served chickens?

After lunch I headed south where it was not long before I found an actual official lookout, with food and drinks available, the view was great.

The roads just got better and for the next few hours as I rode to Vang Vieng, I just had a ball 🙂

Well, except for the bloody cows and dogs and sheep and goats and chickens and ducks and stuff that wander around wherever they feel like it!!!
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But of course I did survive the hazards and around 4pm arrived in a very picturesque town next to a river and some peaked mountains. I had way points for places but in the end I decided on a place with a cheap room and WiFi called the Mesah View Guest House []

The view from the balcony was cool 🙂

I went down to a bar for a beer and was pissed off when I said G’day to the owner, who looked at me then turned his back to continue his conversation without saying a word, ignorant prick. I had already ordered a beer so I drank it, and ended up meeting Bruce and Sheila and chatted with them for a while, but also had a slanging match with the wanker owner, don’t bother going to the Kan Garoo Sunset bar, the Canadian running it is a dipshit, he should not be running a bar with an Aussie name with that attitude! I then went to the Irish bar because Shonny and Fintan were also in town and had texted me, so we had a few beers. But, due to the extremely loud music(showing my age here) we ended up down the street a bit at the Aussie Bar where I sampled a few of the Bundy Rum and cokes, a very salubrious choice 🙂

Next door was a supermarket, can you believe it I bought a 700ml bottle of Bundy for the grand sum of $14, that is half price of what it costs back home and includes freight!!! Bloody tax man is ripping us off, but we knew that I guess 😦 But, while I am here and it is cheap, I will buy it 🙂

Anyway, it was a very late night and I was very under the weather, it looked like tomorrow(or today) will be a write off 😉

Cheers from
TravellingStrom