I have to say that I'm impressed with the roads on our trip. A good 80% were asphalt and much of that brand new, the rest was either rough-ish or under construction. Drivers, as I said, were very considerate. In over 900 km i saw only one bent guard rail that suggested an accident and too, no road kill in sight apart from a few snakes. This is no small feat given the free range cats, dogs, goats and chickens. A couple unique hazards that you did have to watch out for though we're (illegal?) 1/4" water lines that were poorly recessed across roads plus plank bridges with boards running parallel to the direction of travel for vehicle wheel that had gaps wide enough to trap a bicycle wheel.
This morning's construction wasn't too bad. We had our morning tea at a 1940's wooden bridge and then spent some time at the village market where a Houdini type magic show was underway...the speaker was so grating I didn't stick around to see if the trussed dude sewn into a burlap bag disengaged himself. While taking tomato pics some ladies came over to me and at first started touching my white arms, then they went for the white legs - about 8 of them came running over to rub my legs and laugh and yammer at each other probably along the lines of "wow, this is weird" which is pretty much what I was thinking!
I managed to disengage myself and was bike bound to our lunch another 20 km down the road. More of the same roads as the previous two days ocean on the left, mountains on right, palms all around with enough dips and rises to keep it interesting.
Lunch was at a lovely ocean front place with some fish corrals with some pretty blue tipped fish in one area, turtles in another and some wrasses in a third. This was another establishment with a clove operation in the back room. The production ladies were only too happy to have their picture taken and then it was their turn to get selfies me. No shyness about it!
By end of lunch the morning clouds had cleared and the sun was searing. I lasted another 20 or so kilometres and had to call it quits. Was happy to do the last 20 km in the air conditioned van rather than heat stroke out. The last hill turned out to be brutal in terms of grade, sun and wind. Alex said that he underestimated today's ride and that it was the toughest day of the trip.
Couples and Reyna & I settled into the upstairs rooms at a warung (a family run restaurant) while the solo men camped out at an unused training centre with mattresses on ant filled floors. We definitely got the better deal. We also had another guest staying in the sixth room - a very skinny, friendly guy with no shirt on and jumbo sized underwear that came out the top of his pants and up to his armpits - I actually hadn't noticed but the others filled me in. We gleaned that he was from Surabaya, or at least liked saying "Surabaya" over and over. He also kept repeating "tiga, tiga, simbilan, dua, dua" or 33922. Perhaps a zip code in Florida? We'll never know.
Dinner was catered down the road at the training centre next to the guys digs, set up in an auditorium. The ibu (polite term for addressing women) is on the verge of opening a new restaurant and based on the dinner we had she should do well. There was a note worthy soup with rice noodles and bits of chicken, veg and some aromatic herb reminiscent of the Burmese mohinga but with a chicken bases broth instead of a curried fish broth. Lovely and warming at our cool elevation of 500 meters :-)
White legs! Touching! You cracked me up woman!
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