Day Two - Pak Khet to Beung Kan

65kms

3 hours 47 mins

 

The quiet morning of the local Thai villagers was interrupted as a swarm of blue-shirted bicycles buzzed through village after village.

It feels like the Tour de Thailand as locals bring out their kids to line the stretches, call off their dogs and watch us buzzing by.  The leading pack of stronger riders has served to get everyone up and alert to our impending arrival.  Continual cries of hello or Sawadee-ka, smiling waving connects us with these delightful people. Their lives are simple but community sense strong as young and old, able-bodied and less fortunate live side by side.  They seem to look after each other well, there are lots of men with children and I have seen 2 Downs Syndrome children in the last 2 days, looked after by what may be grandparents.

 

We gave away some Sticky Hands that Trevor had brought to kids who love the stretchy sticky colourful toys.  But we generally only slow down and rarely stop.  Most of the photos taken here are on fast shutter speed whilst keeping out for pot holes at the same time!

 

Our ride through the rural areas on Day two took us through rubber plantations, the trees carefully cut and their weeping wounds caught by the vessels tied at the base. Apparently it is always the landowners that make the money.  

Workers can lease land but the fruits of their labour apparently quickly dry up after all additional costs, even after their hard work. 

Occasionally you see a huge modern house with gates and garden.  I asked our guide if these are the landowners' properties but they are apparently equally like to be the result of a young girl or lady-boy sending home money to the family from their dubious work in Bangkok.  

The chilly start to the morning soon turned to heat, drier than I expected which makes it a very hot ride as we head for our welcome oases of water and fruit stops.  We are mainly following the fertile lands of the Mekong which divides Laos and Thailand in this area.   It is beautiful and abundant for the people that live around it.  The Mighty Mekong then stretches down through Thailand, Laos to its delta in Vietnam. I heard the Chinese talk of building more dams which would dry up the livelihoods of millions of people.  

 

The hotel was very modern and nice with a big sign outside to greet us.  Most went on the afternoon excursion to a temple with  stunning views which involved climbing high up dubious scaffolded platforms.  Knowing that I would not be able to make that, I opted to go for a massage.  Unfortunately, their trip turned to tragedy when a monk collapsed and died in front of them.  Peter and some others stayed and performed CPR and mouth to mouth until a medical team arrived, but he did not make it. It seems the poor monk died in a the temple that represents the circle of life, which went some way to  appeasing the shaken and shocked nerves of some of the group that emerged for dinner that evening.  

We had a short ride today which means 110km tomorrow and some even longer ones after that.