12/04/2011 Crossing to China or when the equipment says "no"

It was supposed to be a fairly easy ride to the Chinese border. But for those two days, things did not worked out very well. First, we leave Oudomxai under a thunderstorm. Rain keeps falling, changing the dust road into a mud road. Our feet and legs are covered by grey mud and so are our bicycles.

Eventually, that mud got on the gears and chains, forcing us to stop and clean everything. Then we realize that we have no more lubricant. We finally choose to put some of our cooking vegetal oil on our chains. It does a fantastic job.

Later in the day, my front rack breaks but I have what it needs to be repaired. We finally end up camping on the top of a hill with a nice view of the surroundings.

In the middle of the night, we are waked up by a loud scratching noise. Outside the tent, I see hundreds of ants. In the morning, we discover that the floor of our tent has been literally eaten by termites during the night. It has now over a hundred of small holes in it. After this bad morning, we bike to the Chinese border until Amélie's right pedal decides to stop working. We are running out of solution and energy and desesperately ask a group of Thai cyclists if they can do anything to help us. After enthusiastically working on the pedal for a good half-an-hour, we leave them with the pedal in an arguably better condition. They have made a big hole on the side of it which is now sealed by a old chewing gum.

Going through the border is straight forward. On the other side, the road is in perfect conditions. On each side of the road, Chineses have built ugly luxurious hotels and fake building facades surrounded by colorful and flowered landscapes. It looks like a Disney theme park. They are obviously trying to convince us how China is beautiful and how it is nice to live there. What is true is that the Chinese people are still very friendly with us. It is good to be back in China, really.

"Here a farmer forcing us to take two of his heavy and delicious watermelons"