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Published: February 7th 2016
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So Bali is HINDU, not Buddhist (thanks, Tex), but the ambience is samesame.
We had a really lovely day. Went out for delicious breakfast. Sam was super-excited to get bargain boiled eggs (3 of them) and slightly strange bread, and I had rice soup with vegetables. Sam: vegetables are not a breakfast food. Rice is not a breakfast food. I hate dill, and there is shedloads of it in your soup. I can smell it from here.Therefore your breakfast is composed entirely of unacceptable food items! It was really delicious! To me, at least…….. I do not require an opinion of my breakfast in order to enjoy it. Great view of the river crossing ferry, which looks like a floating bungalow cut in half with cars in the middle.
We went to a travel agent and booked our VIP bus to Vientiane on Wednesday, toilet, lunch included, 160,000. We paid a bit more as the guy was helpful and had useful information. Also booked a half day zip line experience for tomorrow, for Sam’s birthday, avoiding the elephant experience. Although they call it a sanctuary we are sceptical. And if you ride an elephant you can be pretty sure
it has been badly treated to get into such a compliant state (thanks, Sue). Then we packed up our stuff as we are moving to a better room upstairs.
The place we were going to hire bikes from had run out, so we found another. He wanted a passport as security, but they were both locked in our luggage, so Sam volunteered her ONLY bank card. I would rather have gone back and dug out out my passport. We pulled 2 bikes with baskets out and the other two promptly fell over on the guy. Oopsie! We rode off, telling him no shopping with Sam’s card, or cloning (we thought to ourselves).
We cycled down the one way street, after asking which way, and eventually found the Utopia Bar, on the river, pyramid beds to lounge on, drinks, great views, bumped into a girl and her father we'd met in the visa queue yesterday and her boyfriend, who was a day late as he’d had Passport Difficulties. Lunch was interesting. Fried river weed with sesame and Laotian style KFC chicken poppers. Then some quite annoying people turned up and sat right next to us, so we hopped on
bikes again and hopped off at the bamboo bridge. It's 5000 (41p) to go over it, payable to the people who build it in the dry season (now) and take it down before the rains. It had a structure covered in rocks in the fast-flowing section which stops it washing away. It was VERY BOUNCY and we scurried over when we saw a big group about to cross. On the other side there is a sort-of beach and we paddled, water not too cold. Then cycled back along the rest of the peninsula road, checking out prices for the Pak Ou caves. 100.000 each. We are not too bothered about the caves but I really want to do a boat trip on the beautiful Mekong, even if it’s just a few hours. And we get to stop at a village in the way. No doubt very touristy, but hopefully we can buy a few things, proceeds going to the local people.
Back to check out our new room. Still smallish, but lovely wood floor and nicer bathroom. At the back, seems quiet. Drinks now on the river bank in the sun, reading and watching the sun going down.
Plan for tomorrow: breakfast, checking out the morning food market, zip line ( hoping my back will cope with it, but going to do it anyway!), waterfalls ( but not so much water as it’s dry season), back at 5, drinks and night market. Not too shabby!
For dinner we went to the night market for the vegetarian buffet. Before that we passed yesterday's pharmacy. same lady, but this time no toddler to terrify and no one to throw her slipper at. She was in a proper good mood, so we gave it another go. Showed her my notebook with sleeping tablet name in. No. Tried zopiclone. No. Then passed notebook to Chilean girl. She wrote hers. No! Managed to get an emergency course of antibiotics for stash at home. Back to the food, we chose our bowl of food and sat down to eat. Ok, but stone cold. Then someone else sat down and hers was steaming. Hmmmmm! Then we saw another person's being put into a wok and heated up. Damn! We should have chosen and handed it over.
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