31st July - the comforts of udom xai

I woke up this morning with my body unwilling to leave the bed. Its that tired. Jason came by at 5.30am to my room and told me that he'd like to sleep in that morning and start off later as well. That's when we both concluded that its time for another rest day. He rode very long and hard into Udom Xai yesterday while I walked for 3 hours before my body gave out from the long ride the day before.

The next time I'm taking up such an expedition, I would definitely train up with the mountain riding part. Geez! I don't want to end up pushing the bicycle everyday...

I woke up officially only at 8am and went off with the nice Chinese guesthouse owner to the market, where I got to change some more USDs. Hopefully, the Lao kip$ I have is enough to last till we reach the borders. Really don't want to change anymore brickloads of money, since none of it can be exchanged out of Laos.

The mangoes here are HUGE. And only SGD1.10 per kg. Quite cheap, but I just didn't want to spend unnecessarily. Well, lets see how long is it before I give into temptation to buy it.

We are on some altitude, approximately 785m above sea level right now. So it is a bit chilly and I need to wear my fleece jacket around at night.

Well, we are moving off from this very comfortable and homely Chinese-runned Xinxin Guesthouse tomorrow. And I would miss them greatly. Its clean and extremely pleasant with all that Chinese cable teevee. The beds are big and pillows fluffy. No smells! The lady boss of this place does a great job making sure its spanking clean.

I had a very good and restful day. Only leaving the room for food. I spent most of my time stretching away and watching television. I guess its just time to relax. Most of my body tensions went away after lots of sleep. I managed to repack my bags as well. Going to try out a new packing formula tomorrow. I only hope it makes the ride easier. Jason thinks that by lowering the centre of gravity, its a lot easier to bike.