Midtown Hotel Days 1 and 2

We move into town in the morning and find a cheap hotel. To our surprise the room we are shown to is lovely, but still no electric! We spend a day resting and taking small walks around the shops after our sleepless night and it is nice to be out of the hectic home life of a home stay recovering from a storm. We even have a balcony so we can get our washing done. On the night a generator kicks in! No air con allowed but the small fan in the ceiling does enough to put us to sleep.
The next day some caves are open so we rent bicycles and try to reach them for the second time. We rent good mountain bikes so as not to have any problems. After an hour attempting to get to Phong Nah cave we realise we are on the wrong side of the lake so can't get in. I then get a puncture (two actually) so have to walk back for an hour until I find a mechanic who fixes it.
We set off again, and after around half an hour of cycling, Amy's chain breaks. Luckily we find some local boys who fix it for us and the panic is over. We bike to the botanical gardens on a route that is much more uphill then we thought, but when we get there the wait is over. Monkeys, snakes and porcupines are seen in a small reservation pen, and the two small pools underneath the waterfall are so refreshing to dip in after our hot nights. The trek is around 2 miles through deep jungle and is great fun. We also meet two belgians, zeno and Tom, who are staying in our hotel! We take the tour with them and the annoying trouble with the bikes and steep uphill climb to get here are pretty much forgotten.
On the way home we have trouble with bike number 3. The steep uphill is much easier to go back down, but I soon learn the inadequacy of my brakes as I fly down a hill screaming to Amy 'i can't stop!' I fly into a corner and somehow manage to stay on until a bit of flat road finally slows me down. It takes a much longer time for my heartbeat to slow down.
We go to bamboo cafe for tea and meet zeno and Tom again, also a few Canadians we met the previous night join us. It's a good night, but still no air con in the hotel, hopefully tomorrow we will have more then just a fan to keep us cool!Read more