A dark and bumpy road

Distance: 113km

We awoke to the sound of a cockerel, so we got up early to front the media that had surrounded our small room. How did you do it they asked me in chorus, all throwing micropohones in my face at once. Well, a lot of grit and determination I explained, winning the worlds most grueling sporting event wasn't easy, and without the fans I couldn't have done it.... 'Sam, Sam, your alarm is going off,' and with that that dream had ended and I was back in the real world, a little less than 200 kms from the Thai/Lao Friendship bridge.

Even at 6am it was hot but it was much better than the heat at 11am when we stopped for a few hours to eat and have a short kip on the side of the road whilst the trucks roared by.

Before we knew it, it was almost 3pm and time to get a move on so we picked up the pace in order to get to Udon Thani before it got dark. But just as we thought we where making good time out runs three men in red shirts with huge machetes whose blades glistened in the light of the evening sun. They said we were mongrel falangs supporting the currupt military backed dictatorship and decided to take us hostage... At ths point I was feeling a little delirious and my mind was imagining some fascinating scenarios, as you can see.

So for what really happened. Well Shanna got another flat tyre (her seventh so far to my nil), a slow leak caused by a piece of glass lodged in her tyre. We fixed that but now we were running a little behind and realised that it was going to get dark before we made it to the next town. Pulling out the lights we got them ready and got going again.

Rght as the darkness was approaching things were going well and we only had another 30 kms to go. But then the road dramatically changed into a minefield, no lines with huge bumps and divisions everywhere caused by the road being previously ripped up for re-surfacing. Generally in the past this had only lasted a few kilometres, but today was a different story, as the mess just went on and on.

With just under ten kilometres to go to the town we (Shanna) noticed a sign on the other side of the road saying there was a resort down the road. Hmmm, that sounds expensive but the sign was in English so we thought maybe they'd know where a budget hotel was. Riding down backstreets in the darkness with a whole lot of frothing, ravanous dogs and finally, after havng ridden past it twice, we found it.

Out came an English man with no shirt on, he told us the price 400 baht, about $14 and took us past the pool to our little room. His very nice Thai wife made us some Chicken and vegetable noodles and so while he drank spirits we polished off the food, politely excused ourselves and went to bed.