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I spent today in be, mainly, reading and sleeping, trying to rid myself of whatever I managed to pick up.

When I’m sick is when I get the most homesick. It’s hard to put into words, but somehw the physical sensations of being ill are comforting in a way, making me want to curl up in bed snuggled under the covers.

I started the cipro last night, and it seems to be doing some good. My nose is no longer plugged, and I’m excreting a lot less multi-colored ooze from my head.

I read an entire junk novel from cover to cover today, and had a dish of ice cream for dessert. Luxury.

I’m still feeling sick, though. Prehaps I’ll stay another day, seeing as I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping the first night or two after hitting the road. I want to explore the area a bit, as well.

I definitely have some sort of ear-nose-throat-sinus infection. And I’m feeling it. I’ve got bright green snot, though I can’t find any more traces of blood. Seriously considering starting the Cipro I’ve got. Really wishing I’d brought all the various medications I left behind in my first aid kit in Bangkok.

This afternoon the nice pavement turned to some of the worst, rockiest, killiest dirt road I’ve seen yet. Thankfully, I had zero pannier rubbing problems, which is very exciting, and the dirt only lasted about 10km or so. I’ve never been happier to see pavement.

The villages today seem the poorest I’ve seen. The women walk around topless for the most part, wearing only bras. I wonder if they use to go around barbreasted, or if there was previously another solution. Either way, it’s a little strange. [I don’t mean to imply poverty and toplessness hav ea connection - just seperate two things I noticed]

Simple kids toys I’ve seen on this trip:

• Wheels on a lnog stick which you drive around making motorcycle noises, sometimes with various things or young siblings hanging from the stick (Laos - varios places)
• Plastic bags on a long string tied to a pole which you wave in the wind (Laos - outside Savanakhet)
• Tops, which have a string tied to a short stick which you have to throw with a ahwipping motion to make spin (Laos - Udomxai)
• Tiny wooden boats on a string tied to a stick, which you drag through the water (Borneo - Kota Kinabalu)
• String of rubber bands, which you tie between two objects, and use like a skipping rope - (Laos - various places)

I talked to someone recently who saw some bicycles of a sort (you couldn’t pedal them, only coast) made out of bamboo, somewhere in a remote village in Cambodia. What cool simple childrens toys have you seen on your travels (or even at home)?

I saw about five to six men this morning sitting in the shade of a telephone pole. They were all in a line, their knees drawn up to their chest, facing away from the pole. It looked very odd.

The motorcycle stunt show had come to Sekong this week. Next week they go to Attapeu. last night after dinner I went to the carnival outside the stunt show. Many of the same people were there - the balloon darts stands, the woman with the rocket ship roulette wheel for children. I had thought they were all local Salavane people, but I guess they tour with the show. Somehow, knowing that makes it a little less magical.

I met a local school teacher, about my age, who spoke some english, and seemed to have a prediliction for touching me on the ass as much as possible. Not being one for making a scene, I finally feigned sleepiness, and retreated to my hotel room for the night.

I woke up at 4 o’clock the next morning with an unbearable sore thrat, and bloody mucus. I took some panadol, and went back to sleep. This morning I was able to get rid of a lot of the mucus, and almost immediately my throat felt better. Stupidly, I decided to continue on to Attapeu today instead of resting for a day in Sekong, simply because there is exactly nothing to do (besides the motorcycle stunt show) in Sekong. Fortunately, so far it’s a fairly flat and often downhill ride, on a well sealed road.

A frustratrating past several days. I ‘ve stayed in overpriced accomodation all 3 nights, two of which were downright disgusting.

I decided after some coercion on the behalf of the bicycle gang to go toPakxe for New Years with them and got out to a nightclub. It ended up being a decision I regretted, though through no fault of anyone’s.

The place I’m at now, despite all my efforts to convince myself otherwise, I’m pertty sure is a whorehouse. At 30,000 kip for a shitty room in part of a bungalow, dirty, with condom wrappers in the dirt outside the door, and filty bathrooms, and being woken up by rythmic thumping at 9pm through thin bamboo thatch from the other half of the bungalow, it’s hard to think anything else. It’s very clear to me that the staff here have exactly zero interest in providing a pleasant place to stay. They simply couldn’t care less.

I’ve pretty much decided to go with “the bicycle gang” to Pakxe to celebrate New Years. And for visa extensions and email.

I dropped one of my journal pens through a crack in the floorboards, and now it’s lost forever. Bugger.

I really, really want to see a blacksmith, and as there’s some between Pakxe and Paksong, and possibly some between here and Pakxe, it’s another added reason to go.

Plus I’ve really been enjoying the bicycle gang’s company.

I had a lie in hammock day yesterday, till mid-afternoon, when I rode my bike up to the next waterfall.

I found two boys from the village fishing. Or rather, one was catching fish, and the other was unhooknig the fish, and putting them on a stick for safe keeping. Which meant one was fishing, and one was lying on the bank, waiting for the other to catch fish.

When he’s catch a fish (usually only a few inches long), he’d vigorously swing it around in a circle over his head, so it wouldn’t come off the hook. Only sometimes it did anyway, and went flying across the river. Which they both found extremely funny.

When I came along, it was my job to unhook the dizzy fish, and Paets job to put it on the stick, which only added to the labor inequality.

Then later, I got out the frisbee, and played a rousing game of ultamite frisbee with a bunch of the villages kids and Medde, one of the Swedes. We couldn’t really explain the rules due to language barrier, but I explained them to Medde, and then we simply correct when they did something wrong. We didn’t have to correct much after 5-10 minutes. It was amazing how quickly they picked it up. Even when we were playing catch, the girls were not into it. They’d run screaming when you threw it to them, and the few that would give it a go seemed to be under big social pressue to stop. Plus, while the boys had it down in usually about 5-10 throws, the girls had a much harder time conceptually with how to throw it. It would be really interesting to study child development here.

Apparently, ever decreasing size of handwriting is a sign of Parkinsons.

I think someone managed to take a US $100 bill out of my money belt sometime between now and the morning I left Khongsedone. Which sucks. But there’s not a whole lot I can do about it, as it’s cash, and I’m not sure whether it disappeared here or in Salavan. hell. Oh well. There’s nothing I can do but accept it. I keep wanting to think it fell out, and is lying in a bag or something, but that’s really not true.

I’m at Tad Lo waterfall, after a light morning cycle yesterday. It’s gorgeous here, and I chose a beautiful little thatch bungalow which has a view of the walls, and a hammock.

When I first arrived, I ran in to Ruth, who was also on a bike, with a fiddle over one shoulder, and a daypack over the other. She had red cloth plaits in her hair, and a hankerchief on. And she’s a doctor. I had a great time hanging out and debating and talking with her, and the two swedes I ran into on the bus to Khongsedone who I ran into again here, and the two danes Ruth met who also were on rented bikes out of Pakse. I had a small glass of lao lao last night, which was ok, but very similar to rice wine in Malaysia and as such, was too salty.

All the women were laughing at me at the market yesterday, because I had to duck so much to get under all the various tarps and roofs.

Going shopping here is very different from the western world. The hassle is not in going to the market, but rather in actually finding and purchasing the item. And I usually have strange shopping lists, like: rice, bananas, degreaser, zipper, bike pedal (left). So the basic tactic is to wander around until you find what you’re looking for, or at least the right section, as stalls are clustered by type of item. So all the tabacco sellers are togetehr, adn the meat sellers are together, and the hardware sellers are together.

Then, once you’ve found what you’re looking for, you have to agree on a fair price. Which is neccesitates knowing how much a particular item is worth, in the local currency. So you can stand there thinking, “How much are zippers worth?” or “how much is a big bunch of bananas worth?” Which is particularlly hard if you’ve just arrived in a place, or you’re buying an item you haven’t bought before. Fortunately, most Lao people offer a fair, or close to fair price, and bargining often involves simply rounding off the last bit of the price that they’ve clearly tacked on to bargin off again, say 2500 instead of 2000.

Then, invariably, you get whatever you’ve bought in a plastic bag, regardless of what it is. From drinks to rice to bananas to fish to puppies, it all goes straight in the bag, no other packaging. You end up with a fistful of plastic bags by the time you’re done.

I was supposed to continue to Sekong today,but I’m very tempted to stick around here and relax for another day.

Last night I went out for a bit of a wander after a wonderful dinner from a buffet style place - which was a nice break from the few things I know how to ask for. I wandered down through the market, and then saw what looked like a stage with flashing lights and music. I decided it was a concert, and that I’d better investigate.

It turned out to be that some sort of motorcycle stunt show was in town, and the rest of the town had built up a bit of a carnival around it with food and games and gambling and the like. There was the obligatory Lao pop-the-balloons-with-darts-win-drinks game, in full force, and food of all sorts, from candy to crushed ice to boiled eggs to tubes of sticky rice with coconut cream to sugar cane to grilled chicken.

And then there were the groups of kids gathered around the homemade roulette wheels, fists full of small notes, slapping their bets down expertly. Invariably an older, matronly figure was overseeing it all, taking and paying bets and keeping young overeager hands away from the spinning wheel. The wheels were simply, a wheel of fortune design, with pegs and a “clicker,” painted with various fanciful pictures - ladybugs and fish, or rocket ships, showing the odds. One had a hand carved rocket shop as a spinning pointer.

Each stand had some sort of lightbulb, be it the head end of a miners headlamp on a stick, a bare lightbulb, or some homemade battery powered conraption, which lead a mystical aura to the place amoung the smoke of the grilled chicken fires.

But, looming in the back, rock music blaring from the speakers, was the motorcycle stunt show. It was a tall structure, covered in falshing lights, with a double staircase leading up the middle, to what looked like a circular balcony at the top. Below was what looked like a wooden water tank. On either side were billboards, hand-painted, shoing people on motorcycles, riding sideways, doing ricks.

My guess, which turned out pretty correct, was that they were going to ride motorcycles on the inside of this water tank, and people were going to pay to watch from the balcony.

I bought some sugar cane, and waited for things to start. I squatted in the dirt, and watched people setting up their stands.

As invariably happens when I’m in any place with lots of people, someone came up to me who wanted to practise their english. As Lao people tend to be pretty shy , so if they want to practise their english, it’s usually pretty enjoyable, as they are fairly fluent. This man was studying to be a teacher in Pakxe, but had come home to Salavan for the weekend. After a while, we hear the rev of motorcycle engines, and he said he had to go, and left me to my sugarcane.

Soon, an announcer came on over the speakers, adn people started to jion the group of kids hanging on the railings around the entrance. They were ready to start.

I wandered over, and saw the guy I just met sitting in a chair behin the speakers. Putting his hand over the microphone, he said with a grin, “I’m the announcer”.

I walked around to the front, where they were selling ticket. Now, Asian people as a whiole don’t stand in lines. It’s not a concept they understand, or much care for. So they simply push and shove and jostle their way to the front. I eventually made my way forward, bought my 5,000 kip ticket, and made it past the bouncer (literally, due to the pushing and shoving) and up to the stairs, like the entrance way to an Aztec ruin.

The whole structure was certainly built to carnival standards - bolted together, but swaying slightly, as though it oculd fall over, if anyone gave it a a chance. I reached the circular railing at the top, lined with kids faces - awestruck and quiet with anticipation. They hung over the railing, staring down into the water tank, eyes drawn to three men in pepsi shirts (clearly the sponsor) and a motorcycle, white, with blue and red stripes and stars. At the center was a pole with four clourescent tubes, lighting the inside, and incense sticks, an offering to the gods. Once guy mounted the bike, roaring it into life, and raised an arm with a flourish, to light applause.

Then he was off, riding around the floor, and then up onto a curved 45 degree ramp where the floor met the wall. And then, with a collective gasp from the audience, he was up on the wall.

We could feel the whole structure sway with his weight as he raced around and around. The cildrens heads went around and around, in unison, watching him. He rased around a bit and then came down, to applause, and a second man mounted the bike.

He was off, and soon up the wall. He proceeded to ride with no hands, put on a t-shirt and took it off, and even put it over his face, all while speeding around this rickety vertical barrel. He finished by racing up to the top edge, mere feet from us, making everyone scream.

All too soon it was over, everyone pouring down the staircase, back to the relative tranquility of the carnival, while another group eagerly waited to climb the stairs and see the guys who could ride a motorocycle on the wall.

The whole experience was like something put together in the deep south, by someone named Bubba, who’d been to Barnum and Bailey’s circus one too many times.

I went roughly 70-80km today, depending on who you talk to. The whole way, people had vastly differing estimates of how much farther I had to go, often differing by 20km.

I’ve decided if I’m going to get in an accident, I’d rather it be with a car, or god forbid, a bus, rather than a rock or a ree. Because a tree can’t take you to the hospital.

I traded some bananas with some boys with slingshots for some tamrind. They conned me a bit, as not all were ripe, but they were still really good. It reminded me of Savoy and snow and Katie and Stephanie, which made me really happy.

At first one of the boys simply asked if I would give him a banana. And I was about to, but decided he had to ask “May I have a banana, please?”, which he refused to do, even repeating after me.

Then one of his friends offered me a tamrind pod, so I traded each of them a banana for three tamrind pods. Which they seemed to think was a great deal, as did I, because I had some tamrind, and got rid of some of my huge bunch of bananas.

Does that count as a century ride? :)

So I did about 102km, and then took the bus to Khongsedone, another 60_ km. I would have simply stopped and found a place to stay in a village for the night, or set up my hammock, but I really wanted to get here so I can head towards Salavan tomorrow, as I’m worried about running out of time on my visa. The bus cost me 20,000 kip, which is too much, but we started at 30,000…

I took some pictures of some really cute kids coming back from the fields with their moms. They were carrying some sort of pole for digging, with a very small scooped end sacks filled with something. Still haven’t figured out what they were digging for.

There was a vicious headwind all day, which sucked.

I went to the market in Seno today for breakfast. I wished I knew how to say, “Do you have anything other than grilled chicken feet?” I’m normally pretty adventurous when it comes to food, but not that early in the morning. And they were chicken feet. On a stick. However, I do consider my ambivalence about what food I eat a serious asset when travelling. I never have to worry about finding food, or worry about ordering the wrong thing.