My world walk blog Laos #5

33-kilometres took me to Phonsi. That was day 699 and 24,437 myworldwalk.com kilometres have now been walked in almost two-and-a-half years walking.

The day was pretty much the same as other days in Laos. I walked through about eight villages for they are only about three or four kilometres apart. It's pretty depressing to see so much poverty and even signs of recent floods where even fields are flooded. I walked past so many houses where gardens were flooded and the water in some cases was only a metre from floor level. What's so evident to me are the huge smiles as people still continue to greet and wave vigorously at me.

Aug 21 was road day 700 and it was a pleasant ramble from Phonsi to Vieng Kham. 24,469 kilometres have now been walked. 

After a sleepless night I was tired on the road and despite my 7:30 am start I only covered 32-kilometres. Four similar distance days should get me to the Vietnam border (132 kilometres away) on Saturday. So, I will probably take a rest day there on Sunday as I committed myself to cross over on Monday on my Vietnam E-Visa. 

Today, I stopped for breakfast in one village and had three boiled eggs served on a skewer.

 Lumpy rice, chicken and coffee finished it off for me. I haven't had much luck ordering food here and almost always seem to end up with something spicy for just like in Thailand the food is extremely spicy. 

In another village four generations of the same family greeted me. The young child was wearing an interesting Buddha medal, please see photo. I had stopped for a white bread ice cream sandwich. I kid you not, they sell that here. 

As in other poor Asian countries and in much of Latin America small grocery stores sell petrol out of plastic soft drink bottles to motorcycle riders. Obviously, safety for its storage is not as much an issue as in the western world and also the same for vehicle security. Despite so many debilitated some home-made trailers which are often tied onto bikes and other vehicles I almost never see an accident. Many years ago a police officer described the dilemma for many of these governments. He said that if safety laws were to be vigorously enforced, as in somewhere like Australia. Well, that would prevent a lot of people from working as many people need to get to places to trade. Many people just don't have money to buy stuff like crash helmets and often a school run with two or three children is on one of these bikes. As someone said to me that if a parent rode with a minor on a motorbike that they would probably go to jail and have their children taken off them.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing I have seen was in India where a man was putting self-tap screws to hold his truck tyre together! There must have been at least a hundred screws. 

India aside, strangely, I rarely see an accident in these countries.  

Please remember my message that life is precious and early cancer screening saves lives.