Simply cycling around
When Pita offered us to visit a Pagoda she said “it’s very old and not nice, do you really want to visit?” haha, we said “yes! of course, sounds good :-)” We hopped on our bicycles and started the tour. This temple is actually a new one. Well the original was built 1000 years ago, then destroyed partially, then finally restored 700 years ago. I guess the white patworks have been added along the way to maintain the Pagona in a decent shape.
This morning we worked a bit more on the Adobe house. Then Pita brought us to see 100.000 bats that leave their cave every day around 5:30pm. This place is apparently more famous than I thought. Today there is even some biologists and other scientists who stand on the hill, next to the cave’s entrance, to catch some of those tiny bats and verify if they are fine.
Second day working on and learning about Adobe house. Build a mud house is not that complicate and it’s even easier to destroy. Today, Pita asked us to cut the sides of the walls around doors and windows because she wants to be able to open them and fixed them against the wall when the wind becomes very strong. Before we started, the wall was like new. Now it’s a mess. But that’s what she wants :-)
Here we are :-) Pita is showing us today how to build a wall with mud. These is not only mud of course. In that case, we don’t make bricks. To be able to build a thinner wall Pita made a bamboo frame that we are going to cover with a mixture of mud, water, straw and rice peel. Once the mixture (mixed by foot without the straw) has the right thickness, we shape by hand an handful of straw with that fresh mud. The shape looks like a long tube about 50cm long and 3 to 4cm wide. The next step is to apply the “mud pipes” on the bamboo frame by hooking them up on it and then press around to make the desired shape and flatness. This is harder to explain than to do actually :-)
Here we are, Pita’s place :-) We met 4 months ago in Singapore and now I’m visiting her :-) I expect to help on her mud house project. She does this by herself so it’s very long and not always possible to work alone. When I met Pita, I told her I would stay one week with her. Stephane will leave earlier but we will meet again in Bangkok. Today, I need a rest day. Kate, the other person I was cycling with from Singapore to Malacca gave Pita the magic recipe for me to eat every day until I get better: boiled rice and… boiled rice. That’s all?! That’s not going to be funny… Pita brought me to the local doctor too. What I’ve got is some energetic powder and some pills call “Norflox 400mg”. The funny thing is few days earlier, Sebastien talked about this medicine. He recommended us to buy some incase of food infection which can happen. Ah! I could not have choose a better time to get sick. Anyway, I will certainly feel better tomorrow and will start working on Pita’s Adobe house.
After two days off, we are back on the road, good! Except I have a stomachache that doesn’t seem to disappear. The last few days has been very windy. This morning was fine but after 8am the headwind hit again. Eddie and Manon were right, we are now in Camargue haha. Well, it doesn’t look exactly like this from what I remember but it does not match the image I had of Thailand! There is hectares of salty water and hundreds of people working in the “fields”. Today we met two other cyclists, Ronan from France and another guy from England who is doing a 3 weeks trip with a folding bicycle. During we stopped to take some picture we saw 4 other cyclists on the road going the opposite way of us. Later, we were cycling on a secondary road and saw one more French guy cycling by himself. When he saw us, he just said “Salut”. He knew we were French but we did not even talk to him. That’s 7 people touring today!