Day One - Udon Thani to Pak Khet

Day One Complete
85.25km - 5hours 47 mins
Only 714.75 to go as we head towards the orphanage in Yasathon

Meandering along the Mekong, the dusty rural roads led us through villages, past temples and endless stalls of bananas, pineapples and durian.  In the villages, glints of the morning sun reflected on the water of the rice paddies, the colour of the new shoots a vivid veridian against the browns and reds of the earth. 

I quickly got used to my bike and am glad for the comfort of my own saddle!  There were 4 legs and I loved every minute even when the rural lanes turned into long 25kms stretches of  straight and dusty highways with thundering trucks and substandard roads.  It was getting very hot and I was getting hungry.
The 3rd leg was the toughest, the hottest and challenging for my novice legs.  But as we pulled into the welcome relief of shade, beautiful food and the sugary rush of ice-cold Pepsi, we were soon revived and ready to start again.

We have learned early to bark at dogs to intimidate them and stop them from causing a swerve.  If we see a snake on the road, the instruction is to run over it, dead or alive.  Same reason.  Most accidents can be caused by us knocking each other off!

Day One ended in Pak Khet, a dirty uneventful small town.  The hotel we were supposed to be staying in gazumped us and some of us were lucky enough to be moved down the road to a very basic motel.
Provided in them was a cold shower, toilet, a bed with no bedding, a hard pillow, a bar of soap, cotton buds and a condom (which had little helmet logos on!)  No internet, of course.  It was not hard to work out that these stark rooms are normally rented by the hour and not by the night by tourists, let alone the cycling elite!

We went out for another exquisite dinner by the Mekong, got serenaded by a Thai Elvis along the way (actually we just appreciated his efforts more than a young Thai girl who was the subject of his song) and by the time we wobbled back to the hotel, the time difference and the 85 km ride had the better of me, and I slept a sound and exhausted sleep, until our 6am start for Day Two.