The Wobbling Sprocket

Man, this is tough getting pics up, but here are a couple….

John took shot of one of the colorful outfits thatabound in Sapa:

Here

is another one of a kid on a water buffalo:

Here is Grace and the very helpful lady at the Karaoke place in Tam Deoun who spent half the nite showing us how to crack open the itsy bitsy tiny little nuts that came with our beer. We eventually gave up and ate the whole things shell and all. We also played pool with the locals and managed a little dancing (with the local guys!).

Here we are on the way to Tam Deown waiting for a construction crew.

Sorry…these are out of order, but way too hard to mess with from here.

Best,

Bob

This is the big one. On a clear day, this stretch of road really doesn’t have many rivals. It is a big climb though. Last year Chantal and I had done this with panniers on the bikes. I don’t know why, but it seemed more difficult this year without them. The weather was partly clear so it was nice. No one dawdled at the top, since it was cold up there (2000 meters). The road down to Sapa was entirely under construction…the entire 15k. Yuck. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining. If it were we would have been covered in mud from head to toe. There is something about riding your bike to within a foot or so of heavy contsruction equipment that looks to be operated by 13 year olds that is a little scary!

We have a rest day in Sapa…that is very weclome!

This stretch of road is gorgeous.  It follows a river gorge so there is plenty to look at while you ride.  There are no big climbs until the end, but plenty of ups and downs to make thing interesting.

Tam Deuong is now a huge place.  We stayed at the fanciest hotel in town.  A 7 story affair with an elevator no less.  It has 150 rooms but only 50 are open.  It is brand new.   The rooms all had baclonies and were nice.  I had to laugh though.  When I turned the water in the sink on, I heard some splashing on the floor.  I looked underneath to investigate.  The drian pipe was offset about 1 inch from the pipe in the wall and draining on the floor.  They must have had some Lao plumbers working here.