The guesthouse here in Phonhong, is quite nice and run by lovely people. That’s a universal truth about every guesthouse owner that I’ve met on this trip.
As I left and rolled down to the main road, I could have turned left and got breakfast for certain, but I took a punt and turned right. There was meant to be a nice restaurant about 1km up the road. It was closed for good, so I had a similar decision to make.
In the end, I left town , then there were some shops and a restaurant on the very outskirts where I thought I’d better stop and get some breakfast. Riding too far on an empty stomach and with no coffee would irritate grumpy John too much 😁 So, I stopped and had the worst noodle soup of the trip 😁 Note to self – be conservative with breakfast before a 70km ride. (Yes Claire and Miles, I know I could get oats and make muesli and stuff, but I didn’t ok 😂😂😂)
And the rest of the ride just happened. The road was new-ish concrete for most of the way except for the bridges which were still in their dilapidated original condition. Never seen so much dirt on a bridge before. Hopefully, they sort it out and finish the nice road off. Then it’ll be completely boring.
That’s the road. The people on the road were interesting. I caught up to a procession of 4 vehicles with a monk sitting in the back of the second ute, sheltered by a beach umbrella held up by two guys. When they sped up, the umbrella nearly flew away.
I got waves and cheers from everyone including the monk. Lots of fun and laughter. The lead car was competitive though. As I went past him, he’d speed up and get in front of me. Then after a while, he’d realise that he was way in front of the others and drop back. That is, until I passed him again. He couldn’t allow that and would speed up again. In the end we were more than 500m In front of the others before he finally had to slow down and do his job.
I think the GPS woke me up and I made the appropriate turns and arrived at the Family Boutique Hotel – a really nice place with staff who insisted on parking my bike downstairs. The bike was locked already, so they had to carry the very dirty Green Machine and wouldn’t let me do it – so generous.
Then I got a message from Tony Limpus, telling me that Kerry Burke is in Laos. Turns out that we had both arrived in the same town at about the same time. So, that was dinner sorted for the next two nights. I can’t tell you how good it was to see a familiar face. Thanks Kerry. Loved catching up !
On my rest day, I didn’t do much. I went to a bike shop and as is often the case, the mechanics think they know all about my type of bike, but everything they start to do, demonstrates that they know very little. Thankfully, I stopped any further work, reassembled it and got out of there before any damage was done.
In a bike shop’s defence, my bike is a little specialised and I can’t expect everyone to know everything about every intricate little part of it. They are always good people who work at local bike shops.
I went to the COPE centre which was interesting and shocking, went and got a much needed massage, did washing and generally hung out for the day. I always enjoy my days off.
I had dinner with Mr. Burke at the French restaurant in town and it was superb.
I can’t say I’m ready to head out tomorrow but it’s about time I headed to Vietnam. It’s also about time I did some research. Its alarming what little I know about the place.