23 Sept Phang Rang to Ca Na 35 Km

Today was a very hot day so our cycling was slow,but then came 11 am ,,school was out and we have hundreds of school kids riding home on their 1 speed bicycles,like all kids they wanted to race us..all giggling and waving and they call out "HELLO""HELLO" The braver ones ride along side us and started firing questions at us .."where you going"? where you from? what you name? how old are you? but their English ability was not good enough to understand our answers but never the less it was fun and it really makes our day.
I think we must look really weird to them with our bike helmets ,anti-pollution face masks,sunglasses and our weird looking bikes,it brings back memories as I can re-call the days I too use to cycle to and from school in "Alor Star" a small town in the north of Malaysia during my school years there.There is not a day that passes where we do not hear a friendly "Hello" from the children on the road, even the adults scream out hellos from their houses , coffee shops,even the farm where they are working..It really makes it all so interesting to cycle in this country.
Eventually we got to Ca Na at12 noon we stayed at a beach side mini hotel called"PANDARAN" The owner is a minority tribe of Vietnam called 'CHAM"The malays are probably the descendants of these Cham people,Their language are very similar to Malay as we compared them..they call eyes "TA" malays says "Mata" nose they say 'dung" we say "hidung"they call legs "kake" we say "kaki"he even showed us pictures of the Chams in costumes they look just like the malays costumes but 1 thing not in common is that their written language is "Pali" from India.
Our room over looks the sea, clean but old we had lunch a few doors down the road at "Mai Linh" bus company restaurant we had B-B-Q prawns ,battered calamari and seafood fried rice,that night's dinner was at the Ca Na hotel a few mins walk away we ordered fried fish in tomato sauce and stir fried beef and veggies,one of the housemaids of the hotel approach us to ask if we wanted a massage,, she is moonlighting !! so I took up the offer as I was so tired,she used the staff quarters as the place of business!! she was in fact a specialist in "Moxibustion" a kind of acupuncture remedy that uses glass cups and a flame was lit inside the cup to create a vacuum, then the cup sucks on to your back and it leaves a deep red marks afterwards, well I opt for the regular massage .