We had a day off riding today as we are now only 100km from the Myanmar boarder that we need to cross on Monday as that is when we have arranged to meet our guide (Myanmar requirement for travel). We also needed to do a bit of house keeping before we move on.

First on the list was to have our clothes washed. The riding gear was filthy and the weather has been so humid nothing dries properly, which leads to “odd smells”. Typically the hotels offer a same day cleaning service which is really cheap ($5AU for our typical load, including riding gear).

Following Steve’s top box (Tourtech) mount completely failing we needed to have a new bracket fabricated by a local metal working shop. Thanks to a hotel staff member who came with us we were able to explain the issue to the shop and they kindly dropped what they were doing and set to work fabricating the required bracket.  This time we should not have any additional issues with this troublesome bracket as we have eliminated the original point that failed.

Next it was off to wash the bikes as they had been swimming in mud and brown water on our ride the previous day so they deserved a clean. No hose and car wash soap with nice sponge around here, just a bucket, rag and the local pond and elbow grease which made the work somewhat more difficult. Steve was lucky and two local boys must have taken pity on him as they soon got involved and worked like troupers to clean his bike.

As the evening approached a couple of other bikers pulled into the hotel car park. It was a pleasant surprise as they were two Australian brothers (Dylan & Lawson Reid) from Brisbane who are riding their Suzuki DR650 motorbikes around the world over the next 3 of years. We wish them all the best on their travel’s as they are couple of lovely blokes.

They were travelling in the reverse direction to us so we took the opportunity to swap stories and information about boarder crossings and local situations etc over dinner. It was strange talking to other people with a similar accent and not have to slow it all down.