| hello and oh my god,i couldn't believe all the messages i had when i logged on today! i was so excited to read themall, i was attracting stares from the guy sitting next to me... thank you so much! if i say that alot is because i really mean it, and it really makes me happy to stay in touch and share all thesethings with you.so, let's see, what happened since last time?well, after nakon nayok, we started heading towards a national park that sounded really nice.this was supposed to take us about two days (according to our map). so we left early tuesdaymorning and we purposely tried to take smaller roads because the scenery is much nicer that way,and the traffic much better. the roads so far have been really good, all paved, even the littleones, which makes riding really nice. we also got into riding through the mountains, which makesthings a little more difficult, but still not bad. the scenery for the past few days has beenreally nice, with bright green fields on a background of mountains. on tuesday, in the middle of the day, we witnessed a really bad thing. we were stopped in a littlejoint on the side of the road, drinking and sign-languageing to some local people, when this kidacross the road who was working on a high power tower, got electrocuted. we heard a zap and thenran across the road, and there he was hanging limp at the top of the tower. there were otherpeople around and they got him down eventually, but he seemed to be in and out of consciousnessand had some bad burns. we pulled out our 1st aid kit to try to help, but there was nothing wecould do, so they just drove him to the nearest hospital, ~70km away. the whole rescue operationtook ~half hour, and it really didn't look safe, but they did get him down, adn i really hope he'sok now.witnessing this really shocked me, i was shaking by the end....anyway, we set on our way againafter that, and i felt like i had no right to complain about the hills, the sun, the sweat, myaching legs or anything else.that night we slept in a town called sarabury, which wasn't very nice (too industrial), but that'swhere the hotel was. the hotel we found was actually great, which we needed after the day. thebest thing is that i got a thai massage at night (they had it in the hotel for 3$ an hour), and itwas really nice. my legs were so tense though, but things got much better, so by the end i feltreally relaxed.we set out on our way again the following morning. from the start, i was having all kind of bikeproblems. first the breaks were rubbing, then i got another flat tire (we figured there wassomething in the tire poking holes in my tube, so we fixed that). anyway in the end i was paranoidevery time things got hard riding, thinking that something is wrong with my bike again.fortunately that was the end of my bike problems so far. as for the national park, we never really made it there. we had to ride on a major highway to getthere, and we really hated it, so after about 40km we decided to take some smaller roads and headsomewhere we though we might find a place to sleep (we gage that by the size of the towns on maps,and by asking random people). well, after riding downhill through beautiful country (what a changefrom the highway with all the cement trucks!) we decided that we were lost. we turned around anddid all those beautiful downhills again but in the oposite direction, in scorching sun, so nowwe're having a horrible time, and somehow we ended up on a small dirt road that let to a placecalled vathida valley. this place turned out to be my idea of paradise or close to it. it was arain forest with a few little bungallows intersperced through the trees, with birds chirping,lizzards (big ones) croaking, and all other kinds of sounds going on, beautiful flowers everywherewith amazing scents...the place was ran by 2 old women and a staff of 3, none of which reallyspoke english, but all really kind. and we were the only people there! it was so incredible thatwe decided to take the following day off from riding and just relax at this place. i am very happywe did that - yesterday was great, we just read, relaxed, took tons of pictures, and bathed in thelittle river nearby.sorry this is getting so long, but i want to tell everything. the road kill - very peculiar, there isn't as much road kill here as in the states or in canada,yet there are tons of stray animals of all kinds...the only roadkill there is is snakes. and lotsof them. that means less snakes to bite my butt when i pee on the side of the road, so i am nottoo sad!the people are still incredibly nice, always giving us free fruit (all the fruit here is the peelkind, so it's very safe to eat - multumesc pt sfat mihaita).they want to take pictures with us (since i don't think they see too many western people), andthey fix themselves up to look presentable before doing so - it's really very nice, funny buttouching. well that's it, i'm coming to the end and i'm afraid that email will crash and i will lose thismessage (it happens to ed all the time, and he still gets chased by dogs, sometimes 2 at the time,but they're really not vicious...). ok, please keep writing.cu drag,raluca ps:btw, we are now in chay ba dan, after riding 80km today, and we are heading north east tomorrow. |
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