102 km

The advice we got from the cyclists yesterday really helped for today. We knew where to expect a guest house, otherwise we might have spent much of the ride worrying about where we could stop. There is no guest house for 100 km from Khong Sedon, and we stopped at the second one we saw. We were still 3 km from Ban Paksan, though we didn’t know how far it was at the time. We were just hot and tired and ready for a room. The owner was smiling and welcoming us to his new, five-day-old business. He even said his daughter could drive us into town to a restaurant so we wouldn’t have to ride in the heat. We settled into our room and took that most-inviting cold shower that we so look forward to every day.

Later, we took the owner’s daughter up on the offer for a ride into town–not only because it was still hot at 5:00, but also because we could use the help finding a good place to eat. We’re so glad we did, because we got to spend time talking with Koung, a 21-year-old Lao girl who was really sweet and open and who gave us a different perspective on the Lao culture. Koung spent three years in Vientiane at university studying English, among other things, but prefers to be back home in her small town of Ban Paksan where her friends and family are. She’ll probably continue to help her father with his guest house, but other than that we got no clues of her goals or aspirations. She’s got a busy social life, though, and she made plans with her friends at the next table to go to a “night club” later–this means a karaoke bar, which usually takes the form of a small, dark, concrete building with speakers made for a room three times the size. We were invited, but we declined, seeing as we go to bed at the geriatric time of 8:00.

Koung’s nickname means shrimp, which we had on top of our vegetable fried rice for dinner. Koung said Laos is gearing up for the Lao New Year in two days, a three-day celebration much like the Thai New Year during the same time, when everyone throws water on everyone else, drinks lots of Beer Lao, and goes to the temple to pray to Buddha. We had already had water thrown at us by some kids the day before. We were told to get ready for more.