Hills, Thrills and no Spills

Well I did write a post the other day and it decided it did not want to be published and is now lost somewhere in cyber space. We are down to the last couple of days biking of this hard assed trip. I should have more sense than to go away with 9 guys and one other woman! Biking has been the focus of the trip and climbing more hills than I can possibly remember. I do remember sucking a lot of air and looking at a lot of tarmac while my knees ached and my muscles tightened.

We did have a rest day the other day at a wonderful world heritage town called Luang Prabang I think! It was full of wonderful old temples, and young monks in bright orange clothes. THere were cake shops, delicious fruit shakes and wonderful food - food is the second focus of the trip. All those hard cycling bodies consume a tonne of food. After our day off we had a 6200 feet climb. Actually I didn't do too badly until the last little bit. At the top were we stayed in a hole in the wall it was redeemed by a local party! These wonderful people know how to party and I tried to dance away my aches and pains. The young women were dressed in the wonderful outfits.

Yesterday we climbed another 4,500 feet and the highlight was a natural hot spring to refresh us for the last 20 km! And today was short - just a half day which my body was not very happy about. We did a kayak trip in the afternoon. We stopped at the side of the river while the guide cooked delicous kebabs. We ran a few rapids, floated and paddle. We came to this amazing party place were there was loud party music, hordes of white bikini clad tourists some jumping off there high platforms into the river, it felt totally bizarre. We stopped at one that was quiet and our youngest team member Jose from the philipines who lives in Tokyo did two jumps - i reckon the water was pretty chilly - far too cold for me to try plus my body is too exhausted to anything very much other than type right now.

Massages have been keeping me in one peice. They are quite bizarre clive and I had one together and the two young girls who pummelled us chatted quietly away to each other. My body did feel better for a while but then it was back on the saddle.....

Well let me see if this will now finish up on my blog. Watch this space for photos.