Great surprise to find the road to Boten is a new two lane highway with beautiful camber and guttering. One hint of a pot hole and 2 two slight bumps on the whole trip. We counted them. Beautiful. The Whippet still boiled when pushed up hills, but Horace just moseyed along. The larger engine in the Dodge helps.
Boten is, well Boten was, a casino. Apparently some Chinese punters were allowed credit at the tables, couldn’t pay, and were detained by the Lao. End of story, now it’s a ghost town. Large hotels totally empty shops and stalls. We were the only fools to rock up to the hotel. No food and not a paper cup or glass in the place. Two hundred made up rooms covered in dust. There was a Thai developer there who was interested in the cars and had a team who were going to turn the place into a theme park. He had 6 tour companies in China and is going to bus Chinese down for the day for balloon rides, flying foxes, elephants, massage, lady boys, you know, the usual. He was talking 1000s a day on this international jaunt. At least the surrounding forested hills look good
Congrats for getting to China. I assume that apparently missing the 7 May Deadline to cross did not present a problem or are you posting information from or before 7 May.Either way the journey continues. In a months time I will be one of several support team drivers for PJ Lingley as he begins the Race Across America (RAMM) which is probably the longest endurance bicycle race in the world. He will be trying to join about 200 hundred other solo and tandem riders who have completed the 3000 mile plus 12 day race limit in the last 30 + years. And you ask what does that have to do with your efforts. Easy! His average speed will be about 30 KMS per hour and there will be some problems with faster and larger traffic.He will also be doing it without any drug / performance enhancing drugs. Continued good luck to you. Gordo signing off from Tulsa Oklahoma.
ReplyDelete