Day 251: Biking on the Bamboo Bridge

The hotel was equally impressive with their breakfast service. The menu was short and simple, but the staff kept bringing out things nobody ordered, and couldn't communicate at all when we tried to explain the problem. The plain egg omelette I ordered, when I finally did get it, was pretty good, it just took me almost an hour of discussing it with the staff and waiting to get it.

Once we'd all finally eaten, we were read to begin our bike tour. Since the trip so far had involved a lot of sitting in buses I was happy to have a chance to spend a few hours on a bicycle getting some exercise. Our tour was to cover a nearby island of farms, but to get there we first had to bike across a long bride made entirely of bamboo.

The ride over the bridge was bumpy, but certainly a unique crossing. On the island we had a variety of terrain as we went from biking on paved roads to stretches of sand to dirt roads full of huge pot holes and mud. On most of the island people were busy working in the fields, almost everything being done by hand or with ox ploughs.

After we got back it was time to get back on the road again to head to Kratie, around 4 hours away. After checking in at Kratie we got on another shuttle to drive us a good distance to the river where we got a sunset boat ride to watch for rare Irrawaddy dolphins. The dolphins were everywhere, but really tricky to photograph. They tended to only come up for a second or so - not long enough to find them with a camera and focus. I gave it a few solid attempts, but got nothing terribly clear.

Fortunately it was a clear day out this time, and the setting sun was a much more accomodating subject than the dolphins were.