laos-p5

Riding through the mountains. This was our first day of serious uphill riding. Although it was a bit of a shock to my system, the views were so breath-taking that all pain was forgotten.

Remember the email I wrote to you about the little pig whose back legs were paralyzed, and who, because of it, always had to surmount great difficulties just to follow his mother around and suckle her milk? Well, here he is. I feel so sad just looking at the picture. I wonder if he's still alive. He had such a hard time getting around, and all the other piglets always beat him to everything. He's the one on the bottom left - much smaller than the rest....I wish we could've made some back wheels for him or something....

We met this nice man in a side-of-the-road hut where we stopped to eat. He seemed very curious about us, but unfortunately we could not communicate too much other than saying America and Canada and pointing to Ed and I respectively. After we left, we rode for 10 to 15 minutes, when he appeared behind us on his moped. He signaled us to stop, and when we did so, he pulled out a bunch of small bananas that he had bought just for us...He was very happy to be giving them to us, so although we had already had a few bananas each that day, and Ed's stomach does not take well to so much fruit, we ate them anyway, right there in front of him, making grunting noises to show our appreciation. He seemed very happy, and then we took some pictures...