Laos UniTour 2006 Photos



N

nathan

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I'm starting a new thread since I think there are going to be quite a
few people posting their photos from the trip. First, let me say that
Jason Williams of 'Grasshopper Anventures'
(http://www.grasshopperadventures.com/index.html) was a perfect tour
leader. I can't wait for the next Asian UniTour. And Ken Looi did so
much in organizing this great trip. THANKS so much.

I created a gallery of about 180 of my photos and 7 videos here:
http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/1181224.

The videos are originally .mov but the site only accepts .mpg so I've
converted them. But my favorite one, 'Rat on a stick'
(http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/1181224/11/55512453), was shot
vertically and my converter can't handle unusual aspect ratios
(480x640). Anyone have an easy way to go from mov->mpg for this size
at 30fps (or probably simpler to rotate a .mpg file)? I tried a couple
of packages that didn't work. Email/PM me if you have a solution.
Thanks.

Here is the 'Tour Website'
(http://www.laosunitour.org/laos_unicycle_tour.htm) - there are photos
and daily writeups in the 'Tour Blog'
(http://www.laosunitour.org/tour_diary.htm) section (and more to come).
You can still 'donate to Oxfam'
(http://www.unicycle.co.nz/View.php?action=Donate) for the tour until
Feb 24.

A little on the riding: this tour was shorter than previous tours (12
instead of 19 days) and had fewer riding days (only 6 instead of more
like 14). But the riding itself was quite challenging:

Day 4: Ride 60km/400m climbing (50km on dirt)
Day 6: Ride 78km/1800m climbing
Day 7: Ride 95km/1000m climbing
Day 8: Ride 58km/300m climbing
Day 10: Ride 107km/300m climbing
Day 11: Ride 97km/200m climbing
Total: 495km/4000m climbing
Ave: 82.5km/667m climbing

Quite a few of the riders hit new personal bests for distance or
climbing, and certainly for effort. While long rides without much
climbing are hard for me and not my favorite, I think this itinerary
was about right. Certainly it was hard enough to make the trip very
memorable, and it was possible for a number of us to ride every bit of
it.

We also had more riders than any other tour (except UAM '99). You might
think that with 19 unicyclists plus 6 staff, the tour might be unwieldy
and full of personality conflicts. But there was none of that. Jason
handled everything and everyone just got along great.

Enjoy,
Nathan


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Great photos and another fun tour to follow from a distance.
Happy belated Birhtday, Beau! I guess I will have to return the
Rat-On-A-Stick I got you since your Mom already gave you one.

Scott


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Thanks for the comments everyone. I did manage to fix the Rat-on-a-stick
video. You can see it properly now:
http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/1181224/11/55644315

I wore my Forerunner GPS on all the rides and here are links to all the
charts etc if you're interested:

'Day 4 MotionBased' (http://tinyurl.com/7hnrt)
'Day 6 MotionBased' (http://tinyurl.com/b2ecx)
'Day 7 MotionBased' (http://tinyurl.com/crq42)
'Day 8 MotionBased' (http://tinyurl.com/bvk8y)
'Day 10 MotionBased' (http://tinyurl.com/dnwx3)
'Day 11 MotionBased' (http://tinyurl.com/7ae44)

Here's a sample chart from day 6. You can also export the data directly
into GoogleEarth from motionbased (or use these convenient links):

'Day 4 GoogleEarch' (http://www.nhoover.com/maps/lut/LUTDay4.kmz)
'Day 6 GoogleEarth' (http://www.nhoover.com/maps/lut/LUTDay6.kmz)
'Day 7 GoogleEarth' (http://www.nhoover.com/maps/lut/LUTDay7.kmz)
'Day 8 Google Earth' (http://www.nhoover.com/maps/lut/LUTDay8.kmz)
'Day 10 GoogleEarth' (http://www.nhoover.com/maps/lut/LUTDay10.kmz)
'Day 11 GoogleEarth' (http://www.nhoover.com/maps/lut/LUTDay11.kmz)

---Nathan

PS Speaking of Rat-on-a-stick, I did see (but not photograph damn it)
an even more interesting variety. This is where you take a rat, stick
it on a stick and cook to taste. No skinning, cleaning etc. You're left
with a crispy whole rat. As I rode past a very happy guy just about to
eat one for his breakfast, I noticed a strong smell of burned rat fur.
I'll never forget the look of pure joy on his face. I figure it was the
combination of seeing us ride by with the anticipation of digging into
a great breakfast.


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Thanks for the GE tinks, that is a cool way to view the route.

The Rat video worked for me with RealPlayer, only after right-clicking
and saving from the link as per the instructions on screen.
That looked like rat jerky on a stick. It was probably better when
they first cooked it, ... a week or so prior to selling it to you.


--
S_Wallis

"Lol, of course it's not the best riding, if it were we'd be the best
riders and you'd all know who we were." -kington99
--------------'-top secret-'
(http://www.wallisdesign.com/HANDLEpics.html)-------------------------------------my
-'-email-' ([email protected])-------------
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I like the alt text caption that pops up when you hover over 'the pig
photo' (http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/1181224/8/55505852) in the
gallery. It says "Nathan Hoover A pig on the road". That's not a very
nice thing to say about Nathan. :)

All very nice photos and looks like a wonderful trip, except for Ken's
accident. I'm going to have to get myself to the point where I can
comfortably manage long rides day after day so I can do a uni tour. I
really really don't like getting the numb butt saddle soreness. Riding
stops being fun at that point for me.


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Simply Mouthwatering! Fantastic photos and captions... I was just going
to glance at them for now, but I had to look at them all! You are all
animals!

Later,

Jess


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I was wondering who would get the best Monk photo. I thought I had the
best one, but I think Nathan wins the Monk Photography Award for this
effort:


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--
GizmoDuck

'www.adventureunicyclist.com' (http://www.adventureunicyclist.com/)
'Laos Unicycle Tour' (http://www.laosunitour.org)
'New Zealand Unicycle Federation' (http://www.unicycle.org.nz)

"It's not a unicycle ride if it's less than 30km." - note to self
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nathan wrote:
> First, let me say that Jason Williams of 'Grasshopper Anventures'
> (http://www.grasshopperadventures.com/index.html) was a perfect tour
> leader. I can't wait for the next Asian UniTour. And Ken Looi did so
> much in organizing this great trip. THANKS so much.



I'll echo that! The tour was an amazing experience and it was very well
organized and supported. I'm definitely going to sign up for upcoming
unitours organized by Jason and Ken.


nathan wrote:
> We also had more riders than any other tour (except UAM '99). You might
> think that with 19 unicyclists plus 6 staff, the tour might be unwieldy
> and full of personality conflicts. But there was none of that. Jason
> handled everything and everyone just got along great.



Yes, everyone got along great! With the large number of people, from 8
different countries (including Jason, I guess, 9 countries if you
include the entire support crew), one would think that there would have
been conflicts. However, the tour was very well organized with paid
professional staff, and I think that led to it being conflict free as
all the riders could focus on it being a unique cultural experience and
holiday (vacation for us americans) and not expect anything from
volunteers.


Evan Byrne wrote:
> Ken can mannage a smile after a compound fracture? Impressive!



Definitely! I was one of the few ahead of Ken and waited at the first
rest stop of that day for over an hour wondering why nobody was showing
up.

Hearing from the others and seeing this photo of Nathan's
<http://nhoover.smugmug.com/gallery/1181224/8/55505911>, it was very
clear that Ken handled the situation very well. Had he not been a
doctor and not handled the situation correctly, he could have been in
much worse shape (loosing lots of blood and being far from a hospital).
The incident certainly made the rest of us on the tour think about the
possibilities of what could happen to us in the middle of an
inpoverished country. I was riding a schlumpf and I was going
incredibly fast on it for the downhills. I wish I had a brake on it to
slow me down! I was going way too fast on the downhills and if I had
lost control and fell, I probably would have been in a very serious
medical condition. Luckily that never happened.


Daytripper63 wrote:
> Looks like an awsome ride
> Wish i could have joined everyone



Based on comments from both Jason and Ken, it sounds very likely that
there will be more great "'Grasshopper Adventures'
(http://www.grasshopperadventures.com/)" in the future for unicyclists.
If you are looking for a cultural experience with unicyclists from all
over the world, I'd recommend joining these tours.


GizmoDuck wrote:
> I was wondering who would get the best Monk photo. I thought I had the
> best one, but I think Nathan wins the Monk Photography Award for this
> effort:



Haha... The monks were quite amusing for me. Even after the unitour, we
saw monks in the typical tourist areas acting just like regular
tourists. On one of the boats Seth and I went on, there were seats
labeled "reseverd for monks" which I found quite funny.

I just got home today from the trip, but I will upload my photos to the
gallery once I sort through them all.


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Gilby wrote:
>
>
> Haha... The monks were quite amusing for me. Even after the unitour, we
> saw monks in the typical tourist areas acting just like regular
> tourists. On one of the boats Seth and I went on, there were seats
> labeled "reserverd for monks" which I found quite funny.
>



Welcome back Gilby. I'm about to fly home in about 3hrs (woohoo!).

The funniest monk experience for me were the "Monks-with-cellphones"
wandering around Bangkoks Pantip Plaza. Unfortunately I was too
stunned to take a photo. I think there were Monks-with-ipods too.


--
GizmoDuck

'www.adventureunicyclist.com' (http://www.adventureunicyclist.com/)
'Laos Unicycle Tour' (http://www.laosunitour.org)
'New Zealand Unicycle Federation' (http://www.unicycle.org.nz)

"It's not a unicycle ride if it's less than 30km." - note to self
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Thanks for this thread, and for sharing such great documentation of your
adventure. I'm sure I'm not the only one silently whining to self "I
wanna go on a tour! I wanna go on a tour!"

Two questions:

1) What's with the FBI guy in the background of the monk photo? :)

2) Nathan: what software are you using to export your Forerunner stuff
into Google Earth. I need to get all over that!

TB


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I'm always thrilled to look at each and every one of your photos,
Nathan. The water looked really, really nice. The videos were cool
and reminded me of bike touring when I was just a little older than
Beau is now.

Thank you!


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