The last two days have been great and character building at the same time. Yesterday full of confidence I joined a cycling tour with Thee from Luang Prabang.
The morning started well, meeting him for coffee and then helping him prepare everything as we left town. Due to the geography, the cycling doesn't actually start until about 70km outside of Luang Prabang, so there was a long scenic ride through the mountain before we finally got on our wheels.
But by 12:00 we were on our bike riding gleefully down the hill. Thee had put me on duties as an extra man on the road, so I kept an eye on the eight others and made sure they were all right. About 2 hours into the ride I descended down at a reasonable speed in order to catch up with one of the cyclist who was ahead of me. At various point there was water across the road and I new not to turn when going through them to avoid falling over. However eventually I came to one which was my undoing and my front wheel cam out from underneath me and I hit the ground probably doing 15-20 kilometers an hour. Being the cowboy that I also wasn't wearing a helmet.
Well, I was shocked as I have had a serious bicycling incident in a long time and at first I was worried about my state. I had hit my head on the road so my first concern was whether my head was okay and was pleased to find that there was not blood coming from my skull. So the head was fine. A day later I don't really even have a bruise. SO then I checked the rest of my body and I was lucky to get away with a few scratches on different parts of my body, but nothing to serious. I also have some muscle damage in my should that bore the brunt of the fall. So we weren't off to a good start.
From there I rode to the bottom of the hill to clean myself and wait to get my bag from the support car to access my first aid kit. About 5 min later Thee arrived in the car and I told him what happened and that I needed my first aid kit. I went to the car to look for the bag that had some band aids and my passport and much to my surprise and horror, I couldn't find it.
I was then that I realised I had left my passport back in Luang Prabang and now needed to call people, but I had no reception. So there wasn't much I could do other than push on.
As a group we rode further and about an hour later arrived at a build up of traffic. Being cyclist we rode right up to the front to find that a landslide had covered the road and there was only one way traffic going through and every fourth truck was getting stuck. So we ended up waiting as a group for about 1 hour before we could get through. Mean while it was starting to rain so everything was getting wet an dirty.
I continued through the mountains supporting one of the cyclists that was coming up behind and we were doing really well until the rain really started coming down, at which point I jumped in Thee's car a wet, a little cold, annoyed and distracted about my passport. We arrived in the next town were the rest of the group was sheltering in a shop. There we had lunch were I continued to try to make calls but not having any success.
Eventually I enlisted the assistance of Thee who phoned a friend who owned a guesthouse down the road from where I stayed and got him to walk up the road to the guesthouse where I was staying. Luckily enough the bag was there and no-one had taken it. I took a while to confirm that it was my bag and what was in it. But eventually the bag was handed over to Thee friend has arranged for transport of the passport to where I am. I should receive the passport in the next hour. This all took a process of two hours to arrange.
After that my spirits were lifted but I still could handle descending more mountains so I decided to travel the rest of the day in the car. Before the end of the day we came across another landslide across the road, this time a truck was stuck and not going anywhere fast. The smaller vehicles had managed to create a risky but possible track to go around in and Thee successfully maneuvered his truck through the obstacle around to the other side. From there on it was smooth sailing through to the Guesthouse in Kasi.
So by the end of the day I was still a little battered and bruised from the fall and relieved that my passport was not completely lost and so I was able to enjoy a hot shower and dinner with reasonable grace.
Today the ride to Vang Vieng was beautiful though uneventful. It was more beautiful than I had thought having traveled this road many times. But Laos at this time of year is especially attractive. Tomorrow, more cycling a boat trip and a swimming pool to look forward too at the end. I am going to hopefully collect my passport shortly.
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