Day 137: The Loop [day 2]

Okay. We admit it. We cheated; The Loop is for hardened cyclists, the kind of people that want to burn rubber, come out caked in mud and have a thousand bugs die on their chiseled cheekbones as they roar through the country side at 100 mph on two screeching wheels.

We got the bus.

Actually we got two buses, and in true local fashion we made our way to Ban Na Him in jumbos (open-back truck with two benches along the side) travelling with a motorbike, a puppy, a ladyboy and - at it's peak - 19 other people. It was cosy and, as we discovered later, not actually the cheapest or quickest way to do it...ah well!

In Ban Na Him we found a hostel and dined with the owner and her extended friends and family over alot of Beer Lao and brushed up on our language skills; dun beer lao (drink beer) and jun jar (cheers) are now well and truely in our vocabularory.

We also arranged to visit the local attraction, Kong Lo Cave, with a Korean/French group that were also staying at the hostel; this meant going in the luxury of a car rather than on motorbikes as we had originally intended - but it was cheaper and easier and I was well on my way to being pretty hungover in the morning.