Hey...I'm not dead yet!

I've been out of computer range for a while now but thanks for all the feedback...I'm so so so pleased you have enjoyed this blog. But don't stop now!!
I've been crying a lot lately. Well, not a lot, but sporadically and at inconvenient times. I have just over a week left on this journey and while I'm ready to go home I hate to leave. It's not Thailand that I hate saying goodbye to however. It's the entirety of it all. The intensity, and growth, and all the challenges and the meeting of those challenges that travelling has brought me. But that trip home is still a week away...lets go back a few days. Crossing the Friendship Bridge from Laos to Thailand was too easy and it was when I got to the immigration stop that I realized that the "adventure" part of my trip was over. The ass-kicking hills and the out of the way places and the general sense of being off the beaten track were all behind me now. In front were the 8 lanes of immigration checkpoints. The area was clean and organized and with yellow "king" shirts everywhere it was a stark reminder of being back in "civilization". The official smiled and warned me to ride safely as he saw I was on a bicycle. I was recalling my introduction to Laos a few weeks ago at a small border crossing where two grumpy officials in military fatigues unhappily stamped my passport and wouldn't answer my questions. But once beyond those guys Laos was the friendliest place I've ever been. If Thailand is known as the land of a thousand smiles then Laos would have to be the land of a whole lot of really smiley, high-fivin', happy people that don't resent you being in their country... at all. Cycling into Nong Khai I was amazed at all the traffic. Only the biggest freeway in Vientiane was this busy. I had become used to a newer, better pace. Here in Thailand people stopped at the red lights because there might be a car coming from another direction. In Vientiane (lonely planet calls it the most laid back capitol city in the world) people would come to a red light, realize no one was around for a mile or so, and run it. It seemed sensible enough to me even after I passed numerous painted outlines of mopeds on the road. At first I didn't understand. Then I came across fresh paint marks that were surrounded by monks praying for the souls of the deceased while family members held candles and flowers.
The pace was especially slow in the last place I visited in Laos. It was a nature preserve 50 km out of Vientiane. It was a nasty ride there as the air quality was some of the worst I've seen over here in Asia. This city was a smoke filled oven and even still I was a bit sad to leave it. Vientiane, for all its charm and crumbling French architecture, amazing baguettes and French food, incredibly ornate Wats and the smilin'est people on earth, is kind of a crap hole. I love Vientiane. You can't not love Vientiane. You love it like an old widower loves his 17 year old mangey, stinky, flea ridden but sweet dog. The dog that wants nothing more than for you to pet it... but the pustules on its skin make you think twice because you know intuitively what that skin will feel like all crusty and moist under your fingers. And you know what your hand will smell like after petting the thing, just as the old man inevitably offers you a pretzel or some other finger food that you can't politely refuse. So you have to excuse yourself to his bathroom for a hand wash but notice the bathroom hasn't been cleaned since his wife died and makes the the dog look positively sparkling. THAT is how you love Vientiene. Only the bathrooms aren't as clean and there is never soap or towels so your post anal scrub and cold water rinse while wiping your hands on your sweaty, salty bike shorts don't really improve your hygiene. But this isn't what I wanted to write about today at all. Back to the nature preserve.
Alisa rode about half way out to the park with me as she said she needed some exercise. Of course she was suffering from classical separation anxiety as we were going our own ways. Her fear of all the Laos children running up to her while cycling and giving her high fives was starting to take over her rational mind. She regarded me as some talisman of protection and didn't want to be on her own anymore. She had convinced herself that some 5 year old would take her out with a high 10 unless I was riding out in front. It's amazing what heat and electrolyte imbalance can do to ones mind. During the ride I had to give her the almost cliche, "Do you think your brother Lance worries about all the little French kids high 10-ing him everytime he has a hard climb up the Peloton?" speech. It seemed to work as she was able to shout out a few weak "Sabaidees" to the kids we passed. After 24km Alisa turned around and we said our goodbyes. As I watched her shrink in my rearview (with a tailwind dammit) I thought about how nice it was to travel with a friend who just happens to be a stronger cyclist that I. She pulled me up more hills than she will know and when the headwinds blew I was the perfect gentleman with a ladies first attitude. We managed to have only a very few arguments and I can count on both hands (OK toes too) how many times I wanted to kill her. Travelling is difficult. Travelling at close quarters under difficult conditions with a total stranger nearly impossible and yet we pulled it off and remain friends (until she reads this blog I'm afraid...sorry about the separation anxiety BS Alisa...but it is kind of funny). I also thought, as I travelled into the boonies, how nice it was to be travelling solo again. There is an openness that occurrs when alone and opportunities for self discovery present themselves. Actually the opportunity occurs with each pedal stroke (or each second of our lives if you will) if you pay attention. And I was paying attention as the road changed from paved to red dirt. I felt hot, dirty, sweaty, tired, strong, alone, connected, anxious, calm, concerned and care free. I FELT! I was alive and I knew it. This is life...this endless pointless spinning of pedals was life and I was in it and part of it all. This was my thought...and even before my usual afternoon opium dose! But still this isn't what I wanted to write about.
I'm sitting on the banks of the Mekong river looking across into Laos. On the main road over there an occasional car or moped drives by lazily. I miss that pace. I am in Nong Khai which is celebating some week long festival with amazing energy. Every night the streets are packed with stalls selling meat-shapes on a stick or fresh fruit or candies or coconuts or strange drinks like the black colored liquid with gelatinous chunks that taste like dirt and grass. Every other stall it seems is selling DVD's and the TV's with attached mega speakers pump out Thai karaoke. From distorted speakers, music overlaps the sounds from other distorted speakers. The shrill voices of hawkers trying to yell over the music. The masses all shuffle as if on a conveyor belt along streets too crowded to pass. Smoke from the noodle stands mixes with smoke from the "meat-stick-people" which mixes with the smoke from the fish grillers. Everywhere are blinkey lights and big stuffed animals and there is a screaming raffle give-away and small roller coaster rides for the kids. At the end of the street on a large stage a karaoke guy is singing between a group of Thai go-go dancers with black knee length boots. I pass by a TV showing mangled corpses being hauled out of some horrible car wreck (shown by the local EMS group). It all adds up to sensory overload and it is mad. Seeing as how I spent the last 3 nights in a nature preserve I'm not really that receptive to Thailands ability to overstimulate.
Lao Pako preserve sits on a 90 degree bend in the Na Ngam river 50km and a world away from Vientiane. Riding the red dirt roads through tiny unnamed villages with grass thatched huts I started to think I was lost. An hour and a half of jarring dust will do that. But finally a small sign pointed down a white sandy road and 3km later I was at the "resort". Surrounding the reserve was a flat desolate clear-cut area but once inside the park the beauty of the jungle was all around. The air was cooler and cleaner and the sounds in the trees calming. There were more staff than guests here and this place was laid back even for Laos standards. One of the activities on the notice board was "relaxing"...just under "reading a book". At the entry to the place was the omnipresent "sweeping guy". The Laos love to sweep. It's like a national past time. Everywhere you go someone will be sweeping. If there is another ice-age the Laos need to take up curling as a winter sport. Curling being about as exciting as Bocci ball...the other national past time in Laos. I think the reason sweeping is sweeping the nation is because of the brooms. Very flat and made with a wispy soft straw and a handle a foot too short, it's about as efficient as a size 10 Reebok for pushing crap into a pile. So a 15 minute sweep job takes an hour. Add to that the Laos sense of urgency about finishing anything and we're up to 90 minutes. But it's hot over here so I give them credit for even being aboe to move. Besides the gentle , slow, pushing of a broom the only other noise I heard was that of wildlife. The river slid silently by but the birds and insects and wind in the trees was serene. For the next 3 and a half days they would be my soundtrack of Laos.
But I think I started this blog with something about tears...not sure it was a long time ago. I feel torn between the pain of leaving and the joy I've had this year. But pain isn't even the right word...these are tears of being overwhelmed by an amazing journey. These are also tears of gratitude for a world so beautiful and for me being able to experience it. I went for a hard ride yesterday and while pushing it as hard as I could, I just lost it...screeaming and with tears streaming down my face. I am going home. My trip is over. I am not the same man I was 6 months ago...and of course I'm the same man. Travelling has kept me awake and alive and vibrant. I want to bottle it and take it home with me and sip from it and get drunk on it everyday! But I fear the "other" James. I fear my own sloth and laziness and self-doubt and inertia. I fear my own ruts and the shovels with which I dig them. The shovel of comfort. I fear toilet paper and cleanliness and hot running water and soft beds and all that I take for granted at home...how to stay aware and awake there?! I just read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and this struck me poignantly: "...or have you only comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes the host, and then a master". As doubts and laziness and comfort can drive me, so also can the fear of those things and I continue to move, to seek, to travel. It is time to find a balance between them...it's time to go home. My new mantra is, " Do not let comfort be my master".