Winners and Losers

Mike
So sports fans, scores on the doors [ so to speak ].

Nominations for best Myanmar illness or injury ;

Sammy with 35 [ that’s right, 35 ] mosquito bites attained when Mummy and Daddy decided to slum at a truck stop on our first night cycling up country. He must be very tasty. Oh, and no one else was bitten though we were all on the same bed / futon ?/ very strange.

Meggy with a cut lip and nose caused when she fell over whilst running along a Main St in Nyaung Shwe with both hands in her pockets. She claimed she was cold [ It was 25 degrees at least ]

Liddy with a 4 hour flu [ read ‘Hot Flush’ ] after a morning ride near Inle Lake. Daddy and Sammy suspected this was only a means of facilitating an afternoons’ slumber. She felt ‘OK’ after 5 hours ‘Alone Time’.

Megs’ 24 Hr illness that propagated the saying what goes down must come back up [ violently ]. Mike suspects it was Liddys’ fault asking Meggles to partake of some roadside BBQ fish. I won’t say I told you so. Of course Liddy strenuously denied this was the cause, though the postscript to this is that we have now all had it, one after another, all the way back to Bangkok. Thanks Team.

But the winner is Mike, who managed to sit on a cracked toilet seat in Saigang and gave himself quite a cut on his left buttock for the next 2 weeks or so. It made riding a bicycle very VERY uncomfortable.

Other Casualties & Stats ;

1 Mikes’ shorts. These required regular running repairs [ He finally binned them in Bangkok yesterday, they almost walked to the trash can by themselves ]
600 km by Bike 
32 km per day on actual cycling days [ nice one teams ]
20 pounds per day average room costs [ Sorry, I thought Myanmar was supposed to be cheap _ hmmm rethink ]
12 Punctures [ would you believe 9 in one day : this def requires explanation _ perhaps another time ]
125 Bottles of water [ Not that we were counting or anything ]

3 Bottles of sun cream [ Ohhh and these were scraped from other would be tourists after we lost ours _ so probably 5 would be a better equation ]
1 Watch [ Mike was very annoyed … bugger, bugger bugger ]

4 Bottles of mosquito repellent [ Special mention to Sagaing's little monsters ]
12 Books [ and still going - Mike is keeping a list ]
1 Pair of flip flops [ Mike ]
1 Pair of sandals [ Meg _ probably now adorning the cab of the truck as a souvenir ]
5 Spokes [ tell me again how you break 5 spokes Liddy ? ]
1 Tag along tire [ Now this was a surprise, we woke and there was a massive puncture ]
1 Pump [ & no it was not frustration _ it just broke ]
1 Tag along tire tube [ Mike suspected hotel sabotage at this point or Sammy just didn't want to cycle any longer _ one of the 2 ]
1 Set of contacts [ Classically Mike had left his extra set in Yangon ]
1 Head of hair [ due to Mikes’ inexpert attempt at explaining to a Kalaw barber that yes, short was good and start short from here….. 1 very bald, very very short buzz cut later ]
1 Out of control Oxen last seen rampaging down the Main St of Inthein [ Still running most likely _ that beast was moving and not at all happy ]
1 Out of control horse [ This passed the group on the road from Inle lake and was motoring _ it was finally rounded up a further 3 k down the road with all cyclists keeping a wary eye in case it doubled back ]