Sunday 1st September Short ride planned for today quick 40 ish miles to the City of Mangnai. We had breakfast in the cafe adjacent to the hotel, same family run the place, good job as we had not paid for one of the dishes, we had last night, all taken in good spirits.
Packed the bikes up ready to, it was good not having to pack all the extra water and we had finally finished the cream soda, so are bikes felt pretty light, on the road for about 08:30, no one was rushing this morning. With the road predominately downhill, the ride was a bit of a breeze really, though there was quite a few trucks on the road with very little room to manoeuvre out of the way. We followed a new railway line most of the way and past a few oil wells, this area is definitely being developed.
As we approached Mangai, we went through a police check nothing like the previous state, but still made us wait there for 10 mins, soon on are way again, decided to stop at the first café with WIFI, for some reason all are phones can not get the a signal, either we have been had by the Chinese girl who set are phones up for Sept, or we need to activate a message we have all been sent, probably the latter. Had lunch in the little café, nice meal again and company with the owners
Mangai is just a concreate mass of building all new set up in a grid, not much character, managed to find a hotel that takes tourist after the third attempt, same with the hotel, but it is far better than camping.
Plan was to have a shower, do some washing then go and have a look for some spare inner tubes and possible tyre, then sort are next routes out, we may have a little plan, that entails a few more miles (not many) but has more going on between the villages, towns etc.