It is Friday and I reluctantly bid Loei goodbye, before continuing homeward towards Chiang Mai. As I learnt on the outward leg, the trip between Loei and Uttaradit is too long, really only in travel time as the condition of the back roads often limit my speed to around sixty kilometres per hour. With this in mind I break the trip in two and stay for the night in an out of the way establishment called Falkland Resort. The place is pleasantly laid out and consists of a bunch of timber walled and roofed huts. In daylight light comes in everywhere but at night it is surprisingly pleasant. It is too cold at this height for there to be many mosquitoes and the lizards I am well used to by now.

The locale is good with a pretty lake and very peaceful until the proprietors embark upon a late night drinking session. They are watching the Thai football team compete at the Asia games, their TV running at full volume and their voices raised to shouts in order to hear each other over the top of it. This goes on for hours and the sound carries clearly across the lake so that it seems as if they are right outside my hut.

That evening, whilst I wait for food to be prepared, I look through their visitors book and find the pages full of the comments of travellers from around the world, all singing the praises of the place. I soon realise that the people I am with cannot be the proprietors as described in the guest book and conclude that these are either temporary caretakers or new owners.

The evening meal is terrible. Small fish caught in the lake whilst I wait and thrown straight into the pot to be cooked whole. These are served up with a bit of rice and other odd tasting items which I'm not sure I would want to have identified even if I could. I tell them I am full when I am still ravenous but I can't face any more of their food. It is all followed up with a glass of Laos whiskey which I manage to get down but I assure you this is an act of extreme bravery.