July 2nd, 2016
Saturday July 2nd (back on the road…)
Another day with perfect weather. We are having such great weather! Other than supper time the first day here and a late morning rainstorm today that lasted less than 2 hours, We’ve had gorgeous sun. Certainly can’t complain about that! We trotted back down to the breakfast place for another yummy big breakfast. If it ain’t broke, why fix it. You simply can’t beat this breakfast for flavour or price 😉
As I wandered back from breakfast, I was struck by how beautiful this view of the river is…
This old bridge is now closed, no wonder really, when we crossed it two years ago, it was a death trap. At that time, There were large holes in the metal grating that would have swallowed a tire whole if you weren’t paying attention. So it is gated off and marked closed, but in true SE Asia fashion, the people do what they want. Many just go around the barricades and cross anyway. We even saw a child riding her bike back and forth (for fun I assume?)
As I walked the riverfront, I saw a man out there cleaning a large piece of plastic. I find this fascinating. In my culture, we would just throw it out if it was gross and get a new piece of plastic from Home Depot when we needed it. Here, they clean, reuse, refurbish and recycle, THEN use it for protection against wind and rain on their shelter before it disentigrates and blows away in chunks in the wind. There could be something to this……granted I am not sure what was on that plastic that THIS river water would make it cleaner, but hats off to him for trying!
Landon decided to lay low today but Troy and I decided to go out adventuring on the bikes after the rain let up. So we headed out of town in a direction we had not gone yet. We ended up driving through a salt farming area. Maybe salt harvesting is a better way to describe it. We saw this before when we were here, but it is still kind of neat to think about where salt comes from. The ocean of course. They flood their fields with sea water, then let it evaporate and what is left behind? Salt! Then they collect it, and store it in barns, then bag it up and export it all over the world. Nifty….
What I am learning (although I should already know this) is that the concept of a road here is a very loose thing. Pretty much every time we go out on bikes, we follow a map that indicates roughly where the “roads” are. Sometimes they are paved and decently passable, albeit with potholes and broken up asphalt, other times they are narrow, rutted, flooded dirt paths that a goat would struggle to traverse. Often we end up on these kinds of paths due to the nature of where we want to go. Often pictures do not do these situations justice, you just have to take my word for it…..BUT we do see things and get to go places that others do not, so I don’t take the opportunity for granted. And given the learning that occurred in Laos last year, I am incredibly cautious about where I go.
We pass this playground several times a day when we come and go from the hotel, and I am continually shocked that a metal slide can be useful in a playground here with this sun and these temperatures.
Ended the day with a Pedicure from the same place I went for a foot massage on our first night here. Called Golden hands massage. I may have dozed off right a the end of the pedi….
