Not quite according to plan

I woke at around 1:30am with stomach cramps and had to take some neurofen before I could get back to sleep. I felt no better when I awoke again at 6:30. Simon was feeling fine but when he went to wake the kids, Georgia had been up vomiting in the night. Jonno wasn't feeling to good either. We suspected food poisoning from dinner. Happy birthday, Simon!

We met in the kids' bungalow to give Simon a card and a little painted elephant rock that I had picked up the day before after our massage. The kids stayed in bed.

Simon and I still managed breakfast and asked the owners to arrange a driver to take us to Chiang Khong as there was no way we could cycle 75kms. They were most accommodating and allowed us to keep our rooms till 3pm when the driver was due.

Simon went out to explore the boardwalk opposite the hotel whilst the three of us rested. Jonno started to feel worse and we gave them both some gastrolight which seemed to help. They were feeling better by 3pm and made the drive without any problems. We stopped at the top of one hill for a photo, grateful that we weren't climbing on our bikes.

We checked into our hotel in Chiang Khong just over an hour later and the bikes were given their own auditorium as a resting place. We had rooms overlooking the Mekong and across to Laos as part of Simon's birthday celebration. Simon and I then headed to the bus station to find a car and driver to take us to Pathong tomorrow as noone was going to have the energy to tackle a 9km hill with gradients up to 18%.

We found a driver with a pickup that would take us and the bikes and negotiated an acceptable price of 1700 baht, just a little more than we paid for a similar distance today on easier roads.

That sorted, we picked up some sports drinks for the kids and beer for us and returned via a market that had set up just outside our hotel. Some of the food, such as the fresh fish cakes, looked tempting but we were less interested in the plates of bugs.

We drank our beers watching the moon rise over Laos. Then given our sore tummies we settled for fried rice at the hotel for dinner, whilst Simon had some chicken and cashews. The kids then had a shower and some bananas and seemed to be feeling a much better. Hopefully we will all be back to normal tomorrow but will get to our next destination by car anyway.

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