Language

There are no words to describe just how beautiful these islands off of S.E. Asia are. Magnificent! Stunning! Breathtaking! Hmmm. Geologists have named this type of formation a karst which doesn't really inspire me, for one , to start packing my bags or dust off my passport. And that's the problem with language, isn't it, trying to convey a personal experience using conventional words. Experiences that no one else (out of over 6 billion people!)will ever have...no matter how crowded the beaches get or how worn the sidewalks. Only my experiences, sifted through my culture, and my upbringing, (not to mention my filters that unconsciously weed out the bits of information that don't quite "fit"), only these matter. They are mine alone, but how do I share them?
By the way, and as an aside, I've taken to placing rhetorical questions at the end of my sentences these days, haven't I? I think I sound more European, or at least British, and really who doesn't want to sound more British? It's a new influence from all the English travellers I've been talking to. It seems like they need confirmation of what they're saying to verify their reality, doesn't it? And it is weird if you try to answer the question because they've moved on, unconscious of even having asked it, and look at you a bit like "Why are you interrupting me", don't they? Sorry, it's a dangerous path to start trodding. A bit addictive, isn't it?
Anyway. Yesterday I rode 126km or so. I like using the metric system because it sounds so much more demanding to ride 126km than the standard British 75.6 miles, doesn't it? So I'll have to blame it on the intense heat and humidity instead of the distance."It" being my insane behavior of talking to/shouting at myself. Since today I am writing about language I think it is only appropriate, if not too revealing, to let you in on my conversation with myself. Not the ones we all have that take place in our heads. But this one, that was at full volume with shouting and arguing and crazy laughter. I'm guessing that this phenomenon is shared by others who spend a lot of time doing physically demanding activities alone: marathoners, triathletes, blue water sailors, and trombone players...sorry dad! If not then I truly am losing it out here. It began with some "beeps" and "boops" as I sang some be-boppy jazz riffs that were just passing through my head. Then, "There are strange things done in the midnight sun, by the men who moil for gold", came blurting out of my mouth, inspired maybe, from some long forgotten neuron in my brain that just died of heat stroke. One of my favorite poems from a great poet Robert Service...and for the first time I really understood the word "moil". That's what I'm trying to say here, with language and experience. How could I have understood, at 16 years old, moiling for anything? If it's possible to moil your way through a bag of Dorito's, or through the channels of afterschool T.V. shows then, yes, I would have understood better Robert Service. But yesterday I actually moiled and I think that's why the poem came to me. "Moil" I said, then shouted and then laughed at the rediculousness of that word and me yelling into the Thai afternoon. But I was now on a roll and from that word sentences sprang, stories, country western songs trying to find a rhyme with Kuala Lumpur (try it sometime), and even characters. I had the cockney house wife screeching at the snooty BBC World Service headlines. I had the Irish Priest and the lucky charms leprechaun arguing over their purple moons and green clovers. But my favorite was the stereotypical stiff-upper-lip WW2 British Major who always rallied his troops through the worst of the worst. He's the one who pulled us (me) through the mid-day heat. "C-mon, lads" he'd (I'd) shout, "this is nothing!" "Why, I could tell you stories of the jungle heat in Rangoon..." and off he'd be 'tut-tutting' and 'stiff-upper-lipping' his (my) way down the road. It worked brilliantly too! The kilometers flew by as I shouted and grumbled and accented my way to Krabi which like I said is "stunning", "breathtaking" and "beautiful"!
All throughout Thailand so far, people shout out "Hello!" from wherever they are...homes, yards, shops, and fields as I ride by. It may be a stereotype but the Thai people really seem welcoming and open. Yesterday however, looking down at my legs which had developed a bright red rash with welts in places (too much heat I think), and my black shorts with weird white lines of dried salty sweat, and my dripping front grill of a chest that was marked with dead bugs, I realized that I didnt hear nearly as many hello's. Either I was starting to look too far gone, too foul or just too nutters to be Hello'd to anymore, or maybe I just couldn't hear them through all my screaming and arguing.
OK time to go check my meds.