Day Nine

Not such and early start this morning, but a very long and tiring day.  We were sheduled to ride 90km today; 65km in the morning before lunch and then another 25km after we got to our final destination for the night, Don Khon Island.  If there is one thing we have learnt from this trip is that Lao people are very lax when it comes to estimating distances as witnessed by the "3km hill" a few days ago.  Today was no exception.  At the 40km mark, we should have had 25km to get to the restaurant we were going to have lunch at before getting on the boat to the island.  35km later, we arrived at the restaurant.  When we left the 40km stop, Finn and Simon had taken off early so by the time I got going with Allan at my side, they were a resonable way down the road.  As is often the case, when you are following someone, you tend to end up trying to catch them and this was no exception.  Allan and I were riding at a fairly fast pace and we were slowly catching them, but after about 10km I have to admit that the pace was starting to get to me.  Did I mention that the weather today was about 42 degrees?  Anyway, I tucked in behind Allan and was able to hold on until we caught Finn and Simon.  We all rode together for a while until we met up with the bus.  They were motioning us to stop, but we didn't really want to.  Allan did however and Finn, Simon and I kept going.  It was a hard slog and as we knocked back the kilometers it seemed that we would never get there.  Every time we turned a corner we were greeted with another stretch of 2-3km with no restaurant in sight.  Once we passed the 25km mark we thought we had to ride for this final leg, it became clear that we duped by the Lao measuring system again.  The other problem was that we were on a time limit and if we didn't reach the restaurant in time, we would have to get on the bus and none of us wanted that.  Finn, Simon and I finally made it and there were high fives for everyone.  It was a big effort.

Being very hot and quite exhausted by now, we sat down to have some lunch and down a lot of water as well.  I was a bit dehydrated as I ran out of water about 15km from the end.  Did I mention the 42 degrees?  After lunch, we loaded the bikes and bags onto the boat and set off for the island.  Once we got there, it was a short cycle to the hotel and then off to the nearby waterfall on the bikes.  It was actually quite spectacular, but there were no pools to swim in and no rope swings.  It was then a cycle back to the hotel, shower and dinner.  Not much else going on tonight, everyone is far too tired.

Pictures below are of the Mekong river from the restaurant we ate at and the victory picture of Finn, Simon and I (right to left).

Tomorrow we leave Laos and cross the border to Cambodia.