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Published: August 12th 2010
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Monday, 02/01/10
The plan for this day: Get up at 8:30am. Have breakfast then rent bikes and cycle to Poukhem Cave before the hot part of the day.
What really happened: We got up at 8:30am but didn’t leave the guesthouse until 9:30am. It was already really hot outside. We went to Z bar again for breakfast (and to look at the cute waiters) then walked over to the bike rental place across the street. Neither of us had our passports on us or the US$200 for a deposit required if no passport was present so we trudged back to the hostel around 11am. We were so full of muesli and eggs that we laid down and crashed for a couple of hours. We went back out, rented the bikes, and set out. I still wasn’t feeling very well, but I really wanted to go. We ran into Swati and Smita and they joined us. They were on the way to the same cave. The sun was absolutely blazing. The dirt road was very rocky and rutted. We saw a sign for another cave on the way and decided to check it out. We rode through some dry rice
Looks promising...
but it was nothing paddies, parked our bikes at the entrance, and walked around a mountain only to find one tiny cave covered in mud graffiti. We traipsed through the tall grass back to the entrance and the guard there told us there had been a larger cave another three kilometers away. Screw that.
We got back onto our bikes and urged them through the rice paddies, past a small herd of ponies, and back to the road. The heat started to bear down on me. I felt like I had an elephant riding on the back of my bicycle. I felt nauseous and dizzy. Spots started popping in front of my eyes. I had to dismount and walk along side my bike. Every step felt like a monumental effort. When Kim noticed I had fallen behind she waited for me and we walked to a roadside café to stop for some water and rest. After some time in the shade and nearly a liter of water, I felt marginally better but did not fully enjoy the rest of the trip. The rocky dirt road offered so much resistance that my muscles were shaking with the effort of cycling. Now, I know I’m
not in the best shape, but I’m not that bad. It must have been the heat. The scenery during the ride was very beautiful. Mountains sprang out of the fields like rocky giants upon whose shoulders grew scrubby grasses and trees. We rode through a couple of small villages where children chased after us called out “Sabaidee!” They were so cute. At one point something unpleasant occurred to me and I called out to Kim, “Hey, if that cave is halfway up a mountain, I’m not going!” Kim told me to shut up or I’d jinx it.
Finally we arrived at the Poukhem Cave and the Blue Lagoon Park. And there was Poukhem yawning superciliously at me from exactly half way up the mountain. Kim and I laughed. Even though I knew I didn’t have the strength to make that hike we paid the entrance anyway to have a look around. At the bottom of the mountain we saw Swati and Smita coming down. They had gone ahead when Kim and I stopped for a rest. We asked them how the cave was. They said they didn’t know. They didn’t make it up. They said that they had climbed,
in some places like Spiderman, for 15 or 20 minutes straight up the mountain and didn’t have the oomph to reach the cave. If they didn’t have the oomph, then I certainly didn’t. We looked at the abnormally blue water for a few minutes and then plodded back to our bikes. I was dreading the ride back and looked longingly at the strange tractor contraption with a cart that was parked near the entrance. I looked at Kim, raised my eyebrows and nodded towards it. She also thought it was a pretty good idea. We had to have our bikes back within the hour. The man with the tractor agreed to take us back to town for about $5. That was pretty steep but I didn’t care. We had dinner before returning to the hostel where we needed to pack and get ready for our trip to Vientienne the following day.
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Trish
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I love the countryside picture. I think I'll use that one when I'm stressed to just relax my mind. It looks so peaceful!