Two days ago - The road from Attapeu - Part 2 January 12
I came to one village which had a decent sized river running through it. The section where the road crossed the river was all volcanic rock. Just upstream of the crossing was a bamboo footbridge still well maintained. I took off my shoes and waded across the river carrying my fully-laden bike (not an easy proposition) and then stopped to take a picture of the bridge.
A man cam down from a nearby house, and after some confusing gesturing, finally led me a short distance upstream on the rockflow. He showed me a depression in the rock, which at first I couldn’t figure out. At first I thought it was a huge dinosaur footprint. Turns out I was looking at it upside down. It was the form of a man, carved in bas relief in the rock. It was maybe a foot and a half long, and several inches deep. I took several pictures, and then the man led me down and across the river to a larger one, maybe three feet long.
I asked if he made them, miming scratching at the rock. He said yes, but it’s hard to tell if he made them, or someone else did. I also couldn’t tell how recent they were. I’m guessing that they’re religious objects, and I couldn’t tell if they were still worshipped. It’s definitely possible they are.
I thanked him profusely and continued on my way.
In the same village, I saw the smallest school I’ve sen yet. IT was little more than a three walled thatched hut, with a few benches and a very worn blackboard. I regret not taking a picture.
About lunch time I went through a small village where few people said hello. At the far side was a river crossing, with logs on one side making a sloping ramp for trucks down into it, held together by rusting steel cable. Surely a remanent of the war.
A man and his sone were bathing in the river. They didn’t have any soap. Instead, they were squatting on a stump, and scraping their skin with a strip of bamboo, then diving into the water.
About 2 o’clock, I was going through the umpteen millionth water crossing, having long abandoned my shoes for sandals to speed up the process. Just as I’m pulling myself and the bike out the muck and deep truck ruts, I hear “psssssss…” I have a punture.
I wheeled the bike up a short hill, and set about replacing the tube with my spare, and then painstakingly pumping it up. I took a short break from pumping to hear “pssssss…” Argh! My spare tube also had a hole. I had no puncture kit with me, relying on the roadside mechanics and my spare tube up until then.
A few men on bikes had stopped to watch me at that point, and I asked one where the next village was. One kilometer further. Not wanting to walk that far pushing a fully laden bike unless I absolutely had to, I rummaged through all the stuff I had, as I’ve built up qutite a collection of random stuff travelling.
I thought I had some rubber glue, but instead found some superglue (in my first aid kit, for small wounds, instead of stitches) and a bit of vinyl from a jewelers screwdriver set case. Worth a shot.
I tested the superglue wouldn’t melt the tuge, and then glued a section of vinyl over the hole. It seemed to work ok, though it wouldn’t stretch when the tube was inflated - possibly problematic. I put everything back together, and started pumping the wheel up. “psssssss…” Argh!
Disgusted, I put all the gear back on the bike, and started walking in the direction of the next village. I couldn’t have walked 5 minutes before I heard a logging truck come up behind me. (Mind you, I was in a National Biodiversity Conservation Area, where there isn’t supposed to be any logging. But there is, and everyone knows it.) I asked them for a ride, and they uncerimoniously hauled my bike into the back, and I climbed up behind it. They told me to stay away from the sides, and off we went with a horrible screaching noise coming from the engine.
Soon I understood their warning. Branches whipped into the truck - a serious danger to anyone not in the center of the truck.
We battled through a couple water crossings and up a hill, and arrived in a fairly big village. Not being able to stand another minute of the intense screaching coming from the engine, I asked them to let me off, praying someone in the village had a puncture kit. With hardly a goodbye or a chance for me to thank them, they were off again with a screech and a cloud of dust.
I asked a man at what looked like a village shop cum mechanic shop if he could fix my tire. He said yes, and then went off to get something. I soon had a crowd of 50 around me, including lots of kids in various stages of nakedness.
I tried to start helping with repairing the tires, but before I knew it,I was almost pushed out of the way by people eager to help. Being as there were two tubes to fix, there were probably eight men and boys helping at one point. I gave up, and started taking picttures, and letting kids look through my camera (incidentally a great way to get portraits of kids - you let them take turns with you looking through the camera, only when you look through, you take a picture - instant unposed portraits with short lenses).
I got the best reaction from the zoom lense, which absolutley astonished the few boys I showed it to. They were fish faced, moths agape.
I pulled out my map to try and get directions and distances, but didn’t get very far.
The tires were fixed in record time, having patched a total of 4 holes. As I was readjusting brakes and reloading gear, a guy on a motorbike rode up, selling popsicles out of a cool box on the back. A feww kids bouht popsicles and so I bought one as well.
Right as the man was about to leave, various people came up with money and hurridly bought a few more popsicles. I figured out they had bought the last few popsicles the guy had, aso that he’d five them the ice in the bottom of the cool box. There was a huge unorganized crowd around the motorbike, men running up with buckets, and kids running off sucking on chuncks of ice. Clearly a big treat.