NB * – it was only 91kms because I can’t navigate to save my life.
The old guy who runs the guesthouse is a great guy. As I mentioned, he has been telling me about his trips to Laos and urging me to visit the north of the country.
He promised to cook breakfast at 7am and he talked about Laos again. Then he brought me an extra plate of fruit with some very mini bananas and other things.
On the way out, he gave me the rest of the bunch. They were fantastic. How nice is that ! Again, a great host makes the difference.
He had also warned me about 30km of roadwork starting after kilometre 20, so I got Komoot to plan a route so I could avoid that.
Well, I was well and truly Komooted today. It mapped a route of quiet roads, avoiding the main road until after the roadworks alright. The start was fantastic – small villages, quiet roads, not too many dogs. Then the quiet roads became country lanes (still concreted), then they became narrow country lanes, then hard packed dirt roads – still easy riding.
Then the GPS told me to turn down a track between canefields. Nope. I’m not doing this again, so I continued on my dirt road and eventually did a few extra kilometres but made it back to some decent secondary roads.
I navigated my way towards the main road then when when I was within a couple of kms of getting out of the mess, I made a wrong turn, thinking I was at a different intersection
At this stage the GPS was telling me that I was 45kms off route – no help at all. I ended up doing 3 sides of a rectangle before joining the main road for 10kms of roadworks. Somehow, I turned an 85km day into a 92km slog.
And as a result, there aren’t many photos !
When you are riding in the middle of the day, people usually give you a wave, a thumbs up or some other encouragement, along with a smile or smirk. Without fail, the look on their face always says – YOU IDIOT
I found a Cafe Amazon for some aircon and a smoothie. That cooled me down before the last 20kms. When I made it to the hotel, I was sooo hot.
As luck would have it, I went through the slowest check-in process ever, as they were training this young guy who simply wouldn’t just give me the key and let me go. We went through the whole rigmarole – please choose your breakfast, we have wifi, do you smoke … “Can we do this later please ? I’d like to take a shower” confused look and continue – there is a pool. This is where the breakfast is served. What time will you have breakfast ? No durian is allowed in the room … All the while, I was dripping sweat over their otherwise spotless floor.
Nice place though. Looking around later, there’s lots to see just in the Historical Park nearby, but I’ll save that until tomorrow.