Monday Feb 18 Vang Vieng 6k ride to some caves
Had a great night sleep with the roll mat on top of the mattress. Breakfast at Mama Sababas, pancakes with pineapple, banana, choc syrup for Nickie. Eggs and bacon with salad and baguette for Pete. And great Lao coffee, it’s almost black but tastes rich and nutty, not bitter. Its Nickies favourite and we will think about posting some home for our new coffee machine . Tempting to have 2 cups, but that might be dangerous caffeine overload, for bike riding. We got talking with Stuart, a civil engineer from North Carolina, who can manage his business over the net and do his world travels. He recommended the banana papaya shake that Pete then enjoyed. We had a quick tour of the town, photos at the monastery , rode past the bars and westernised restaurants. Nickie got some voltaren gel and was shocked to see you can buy antibiotics at the supermarket. Pete revisited the bike mechanic and got a stand fitted but we wonder how long it will “stand up”, looks like it’s from a kiddies bike. A very bumpy 4k ride through the fallow paddy fields took us out to caves in which you can swim. See photos. Disappointing that the small well of water deep in the cave looked very uninviting. Of course this is the dry season. Here we met aussie Damien, age 66 and his lovely chinese wife , Eve. Damien shared his disappointment about the Aussie government and politics. Back to our room to do the blog, which can take awhile as we get easily distracted meeting new guests. 2 young ones from Germany are about to cycle to Luang Prabang,I'm not sure they were happy to hear our story about the hills- good luck to them. The sky went black and the wind whipped up.
Within minutes, dark towering clouds thundered down over the hills, the electricity flickered and we stood out on the porch to enjoy the 30 minute rain shower and that wonderful wet earth smell. On average only 1 mil of rain falls in Feb, think that was it. We have just enjoyed falafels and springrolls at Mama Sababas but we were so hungry we ate before thinking to take photos. We have enjoyed this restful time here and hope to make an early start as temps likely to be high 30s for next few days. Hope to take 2-3 days to make 150k to Vientiane. blog you then ;)
