Sickly roosters woke us up with the sun this morning.
After a slight delay, we began the “elephant tour” we booked through our guesthouse. A man carrying a small whip walked alongside the lumbering elephant, gently positioning him in front of an elevated platform for us to board the bamboo love seat attached to the elephants back.
If he felt the additional weight load the elephant didn’t acknowledge it. I couldn’t help but think that if you had never seen or heard of an elephant before someone showed you a photo of one you would have a hard time believing that they exist on earth in the present tense.
Sparse prickly black hair covered the elephants skull. I rested my hands against the place where his shoulder blades rubbed together as we walked out of the village and into the forest. Leathery sandpaper skin scraped against my fingers.
The sun was scorching, and in an effort to cool himself down the elephant sucked water (or spit?) out of his mouth and splashed it across his side and underbelly. We scored a bit of the impromptu and much needed shower as well.
We dismounted the elephant near the ruins of a temple overlooking the marshland below. The elephant followed his owner into the shade and seemed to enjoy the attention we showered him with. A low, rumbling noise emanated from the elephant… similar to a purring cat but three octaves lower and three times longer. Louise mimicked the noise and raised her hands to ask the owner what the noise was. Without missing a beat, the man swallowed some air and forced out a burp.
Today was our first day completely mapless as my phone is on the fritz and Louise’s Nokia can’t download the map of Laos. Luckily the handful of roads in the entirety of Laos make navigation sans map somewhat possible.
During one pit stop I bought and devoured a large papaya while a tiny white puppy licked the residual sunscreen off Louise’s legs.
We pulled off the road when we reached a collection of stores and guesthouses (e.g. a full blown metropolitan hub for Laos) and found out that we were in Paksong, not far from the guesthouse we’d wanted to stay at. Unfortunately, as we started the bike to roll onwards the back wheel locked up. The previous owner had warned us that the ball bearings had broken on him twice and we were looking at exactly the same problem.
Luckily for us, we broke down in a city only two blocks from a mechanic. I wandered to the shop while Louise stopped in a cafe to figure out where we needed to go.
One of the mechanics drove me back to the cycle and disassembled the back half of the bike in minutes. With the back tire in hand, we scootered to the shop where the tire was fixed in the next 15.
We tried to make it further inland to stay at a highly recommended hostel but we bunked early elsewhere due to lack of sunlight and potholes. As we pulled into the guesthouse, two dueling heat lightening shows erupted above us. Louise compared them to an X ray machine for the clouds.
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