Biking and Kayaking

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I had booked a three day hike but when I showed up in the morning the hike was cancelled do to sick folks. So... the company had a bicycle-kayaking combo with an overnight in a small village that was about to leave, so I did that. It was very good.

First day biking. Bikes were newish, nice mountain bikes. We rode a dirt road, infrequent cars. Stopped at a few villages. Hot. Dusty. Some ups some downs. Support van stayed more or less with us the whole day. Some folks dropped out. I thought it was just enough of a workout to be tiring but not exhausting.

Spent the night in the second story of a bamboo walled 'house' in a Lao village. Walked around, kids playing tops with the string tied to a stick for additional leverage; other kids with a 3 in circular pit, pebbles and lots of hand work; lots of women weaving, see Laos Weaving blog.

Next day kayaking. Mostly class one and occasional class 2, but the two hundred twenty pound hockey player in the front of our two person sit-on-top caused the boat to react rather badly to the rocks and trees we hit. Managed to flip twice. Once ended with a 5 minute bob through the rapids. Lots of rocks but nothing serious. We got better with practice... Below the take out was a rapids the guide called the Tiger Rapid. He quit the previous company he worked for after suffering a flip and swim in the Tiger rapid that nearly drown some of the tourists and left him still nervous about just talking about it. No thanks.

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Photos

The river Nam Xuang
We kayaked this the next day.

Power for one house, maybe two
The little dam funnels the water to the generator. I think this was a tributary to the Nam Xuang next to the village, not the Nam Xuang.

Hops
This woman was threshing 'hops'. Similar to the motion of alluvial diamond miners on the Moa River in Sierra Leone.