Mayan Prophecy Countdown

29th November, Thursday

A slow day today, but it started out with breakfast, which turns out to be the only meal they serve here at this hotel. A small choice, this is the American Breakfast, fruit, bread and eggs and stuff with tea or coffee.

Personally I was not too fond of the ‘meat’ bits, so I will probably forgo this in future and the so called soft eggs were hard, but I am only here a day or so. Mucked around with blogs for a while and then that is when I found out they don’t do lunch, even though they were cooking in the kitchen. It turns out it is a cooking school during the day, but considering they have no cook or chef, I am unsure who teaches? Anyway, I went for a stroll and in the end found the Beijing Restaurant [ N17 58.070 E102 35.795 ] where I grabbed a quick Chow Fan, or fried rice 🙂 I was being looked at rather funnily by the staff, and as it was gone 2pm I thought maybe it was out of lunch hours? When I had paid the bill all of them escorted me to the door which they held open, very helpful I thought!

I have since found out from a chap called Eric that the reason this is so, is because the Asians are a family oriented people. Seeing a single person come in and eat by themselves is not the done thing and either I am strange or looking for someone? They do not understand the concept of a single traveller or aloneness, so there you go 🙂

Later in the afternoon I headed down to the big bike shop(as compared to shops that only deal with scooters etc), which is run by a chap called Fuark [ N17 58.505 E102 35.425 ]. Here I did an oil change which was due, and should be good to take me back home, which gives me another 8,000km or so and as it is my last filter, probably for the best.

It is a very small shop and is stacked full of bikes, but they seem to manage OK, although the cleanliness of the place leaves a bit to be desired, but I had been warned that he is the ONLY big bike mechanic in this country, so there is no other choice. And as I needed specific oil, 10W-40 semi synth, he is the only one who stocks it. He does all the Falang expats and other big bikes so he must be good 🙂

Dinner was back down at the Spirit House Bar and Restaurant [ N17 57.969 E102 35.731 ] on the river front near the sand bar. Today I chose the Garlic Bread again with Chicken Cajunes, which seemed to be just strips of deep fried crumbed chook, not too bad 🙂

After a few beers here I headed back and finished off the beer that was in the fridge, while sitting in the back yard relaxing 🙂 There were a few other guests here, mainly French as it seems to be a French style town, but in a few days a bunch of Ozzie bikers were turning up to do a 2 week dirt bike ride around Laos. I had been contacted by Pounce, the leader and if I am still here then I will have a beer or two with them 🙂

Cheers from
TravellingStrom