I was looking forward to the breakfast here. The owner had really built it up yesterday, so my hopes were high.
It was fantastic – noodle soup, toast, juice and coffee. Baan Tuek Homestay comes highly recommended.
This was a nice easy short and flat ride except for a few bumps towards the end. Those “bumps” turned out to be really really steep. In fact on the ensuing downhill, I hit 80km/hr. That’s the fastest this bike has been and a speed I rarely hit on my road bike.
There were villages nearly the whole way. I loosely followed the Ruak river and met the Mekong at the Golden Triangle. I can only imagine the skullduggery of 40 and 50 years ago with the drug trade around here.
The Mekong river is really wide here, and I’ll follow it until I cross the Friendship bridge, south of Chiang Khong. There were certainly some different ethnic faces today. I guess that’s to be expected at confluence of rivers and at least three cultures.
There were also a number of christian churches which is something I haven’t noticed anywhere, except for a small are in north western Malaysia. Those missionaries must have been busy up here in drug trade central 😁.
I met a Dutch father and daughter at the golden triangle. There seem to be more Dutch tourists here than any other nationality by far. I know that I recognise the Dutch more readily than any others, but they seem to have flooded the place in parts.
After saying goodbye, it was a rush to get to the hotel, the very nice Pak Ping Rim Khong, and luckily there was a room available early – the AFL grand final kicked off at 11:30 here. I wish I hadn’t hurried, as my beloved Sydney Swans were demolished. A sad ending to an unbelievable season that I thoroughly enjoyed.
After that I went for a walk down to the night market. The first van did smoothies, and my footy disappointment disappeared immediately I tasted a mango smoothie. I sat and had a long chat to the lady whose van it was.
She spoke excellent English from years working in a hotel, but left that job and bought the van about 6 months before Covid hit. She’s very optimistic for the coming tourist season. Interesting that she said the two things she didn’t like about running the fruit drink van was the money and the fact that her skin is getting darker from being outside all day – not what I was expecting.
I continued on to the night market but didn’t see anything of interest and so went to a restaurant on the way home. The whole town seemed to be sitting by the river having dinner – such a great atmosphere.
