I wiggled my leg. It felt fine. I got out of bed. It hurt. Lots. Some people’s attitude is that their body is something to be conquered, that working through pain is an achievement. I believe your body is on your side, not the opposing team, and relies on you to look after it, just like you rely on it to take you through life. My body is the most precious thing I have. Adam, my acro teacher (who’s amazingly good at what he does, and such a nice guy to boot, btw) once advised me to “respect your injuries”. Wise words from someone who really knows what he’s talking about. And that’s why I’ve got through life harbouring only one minor niggle and that could have been much worse if it wasn’t for an enlightened swimming coach. One morning, he noticed me touching my shoulder a lot as I came on to poolside. He asked how it felt and I said it was just hurting a little after a particularly unusual training session the previous day. “Go get changed,” he said. When I emerged fully-clothed onto poolside five minutes later, he said, “Go home… and I don’t want to see you for two weeks.” Two weeks?! But, but, but…. But I knew that he was right. And he’d seen too many swimmers train and compete through an injury and end up damaging their body and retiring from the sport. JJW, I salute you.
Being an introvert means that I need time on my own. I’d been with someone (albeit someone who was very easy-going and fun to travel with) for days now, so whilst it felt like a very sudden and premature goodbye to Pakse, it was nice to take a tuk-tuk to the airport by myself.
The smallest airport ever. With the three check-in desks, two of which looked like they were rarely used:
Oh, and whilst I still haven’t been able to get a photo of the enormous butterflies (because they never alight on anything), here’s the other extreme:
I put my bags through security, and stood holding my water. Pants, another bottle wasted. I held it up and looked at the security guard to find out where I should dispose of it. He waved me through. Result 🙂
The birds’-eye view of Pakse during take-off:
Whilst my bag looked very lonely:
And I kinda wished that I’d gone to 4,000 Islands. But I’d booked my flight in advance, so Phonsavan it was.
Middle of nowhere:
I was here to see the Jar Sites on the Plain of Jars, so I dropped my bag at a hotel and headed straight out tto find out how I’d do that. Problem was the same as before – only me meant it was really expensive. And then I spied a lone traveller talking to a tour operator over the road – with very little else to do here, surely there’d be a chance she was doing the same. Half an hour later, a group of four of us were booked on a van tomorrow. Can’t wait.
And, whilst the leg was extremely tender, it was fine. Looking forward to a really impressive bruise in the next few days.