Moving on now...

So, I fell out of love with my bicycle when making an unsuccessful attempt at leaving Vientiane--flat tire and busted cable within 15 minute time span. Apparently, in some respects, I am not particularly resilient. I need to work on this.

So, yesterday's plan was to rekindle the romance with the bike by taking a tour. Easy ride, 30 km roundtrip to Tad Sae Falls.

Well...

Before I begin writing about the tour, I'm going to make a sweeping generalization about Lao people. There are cultures where its considered uncouth to disagree with someone, or tell them they're wrong. When I signed up for the tour, I informed the guide that I had my own bike, not a mountain bike, but a touring bike, and I wanted to use my bike instead of paying to rent one. He didn't tell me that this was an idiotic idea, although he would have been TOTALLY justified in doing so. 

We were to meet at Delilah Restaurant at 8:30 AM. There were three of us on the tour: Fabrizio, an Italian whose hairline, beard, and eyebrows grew together in a disturbing way (if ever there was a man who needed a Dominican barber, it's Fabrizio), his giggly Asian flip-flop wearing girlfriend and myself. Fabrizio and I talked about the ride a bit--he thought it would be paved and easy, I thought it would be pretty muddy. He insisted, "Oh, no! They told me the road was paved!"

Six kilometers into the trip, we hit the mud. And, seven kilometers into the trip, we hit the road construction. Good times!  We rode through mud, across rocks, walked our bikes through deep puddles, looked at the ugly orange mud gashes in the "country-side." I slid, sweated, fell over, and cursed the guide who didn't tell me I was an idiot for not renting a mountain bike.  

We all got filthy (I, at least, had fenders, which needed to be cleaned out every ten minutes or so).

At one point, I looked over, and noticed Fabrizio taking pictures of me. I approached him.
"You taking pictures or me?"
"Uh, yes."
"Did you ask me before you took them?"
"No."
"It's generally considered rude to take pictures of someone without asking their permission. Delete them."
"(Gulp) All of them?"
"Yes. ALL of them."

I have no idea if he actually did. I'm pretty sure he didn't take any more pictures of me, though. About thirty seconds after he "deleted" the pictures, I asked our guide to take one of me. Here I am, tres sportif and tres sale.

Rocks, rocks, rocks, mud, mud, mud, hills, hills, hills. We finally made it to the Nam Khan River, where we were to put our bikes on a boat and head up to Tad Sae Falls. I dumped my bike in the river to clean some of the mud off, and sort of wanted to leave it there.

Six people, five bikes, heading up the river on a tiny speedboat. Kind of scary. Tad Sae Falls were meh. The Italians ziplined and fed elephants. I read the New York Times.

I forgot to mention! It was raining!! The whole day!!!  Better than hot and sunny, I guess.

Yay!!! The ride back was almost entirely paved!! Boo!! There was a five km incline that almost killed me! I wanted to cry and vomit, but kept it to a pathetic whimper.

My big takeaway: I do not like riding in Laos, and may not actually like bike touring. Live and learn, as my brother would say. I'll do some riding in Thailand--through the rice paddies between Chiang Khong and Chiang Rai. But in Laos, no. Because really, when I think about it, I don't really want to ride 90 km of rolling hills in 80% humidity, to spend the night in a $4 guesthouse with a squat toilet, a cold bucket shower, and a mosquito infestation.

I'm getting soft in my old age. Maybe I'll try another bike tour next summer, but in Europe.

Heading out of Luang Prabang tomorrow--up to Nong Khiaw (sp?) for two days, then coming back down here, and taking a two-day luxury slowboat (cheap price: normally $465, doing for $190) down the Mekong, to the border.

In non-bike related news: Today for lunch, I went to one of the nicer restaurants in LP. I'd seen so many frogs for sale at the markets, I thought I should eat some. So, I ordered the "bone-in stir-fried frog with chilis and onions." It was almost all chili and onion, and very little, very bony, frog. Here's a picture of  little frog feet sticking out of my lunch. They're towards the center, resting on a bit of onion.

And, just to end with a picture of something cool, because it's not all mud, rocks, and insufficient portions of frog: Yesteday I visited, via slow boat, the Pak Ou Caves, a Buddhist shrine about 25 km out of Luang Prabang. Basically, thousands of Buddha figures in a cave. Very atmospheric.