San Juan Island!

I've been craving this for months and here I am...sitting on a beach log with my back to the ocean and looking at ducks (mallards and buffleheads) floating on a small lagoon. Their invisible feet propelling them effortlessly makes it look like they are being blown randomly by the cold wind that is biting my neck. Driftwood all along the beach sticks up out of the sand at random angles like long forgotten tombstones shining white in the harsh low angle of sunlight. A monstrous blue heron circles silently overhead before alighting on a fir. I'm not sure if "alight" is the right word as the tree branch bends precariously under its weight. A big yellow cloud of pollen puffs off in the breeze under the giant bird. It is spring here and I had forgotten the amount of pollen a single fir can generate. The pollen reminds me it is spring. The sun is still low in the horizon even though it's noon, and the wind keeps nipping at my exposed skin. But in this little sheltered area the sunlight feels good on my face. Walking earlier along the path through the giant trees I saw no one. I heard only the sounds of birds and wind in the trees and the small wavelets licking the shore. What made the tears come was the smell. I hadn't expected the power of the smell of the pine trees. I hadn't missed that smell at all as the odors of Asia can be overwhelming. The heavy wet decaying smells of the jungle, or the hot smokey stench of all the roasting meat-stick vendors, or the ever-present funk of open sewers. The humidity of SE Asia made the air feel used , like I was breathing someone else's sigh. The halitosis of hundreds of millions of people was at first oppressive but I soon acclimated and forgot the subtle and fresh scent of a cold pine forest after a cleansing rain. Even though the wet earth smelled of mushrooms and ferns and moldy wood it was the fresh scent of nature... and things occurring as they should. There were no tuk-tuks fouling the air or clouds of diesel billowing from tail-pipes. As I wandered the path it led to the shore and the smell of the sea mixed with the pines and I finally felt home for the first time.
At home for the first time...both in my own skin and on this island. I'd walked this path many times before but never as this man at this time in his life. I walked it alone and enjoyed it more than if anyone were with me. I have been here for 5 days now and haven't called anyone or seen any friends...only family members. I'm still in a state of transition and being alone with James is a thing I have never been comfortable with until now. I'd always look for someone to spend my time with in the past. I'd try to plan my day around who I was with or what I was doing next. Even when walking on a trail I would be thinking about what the next thing on my days agenda would be. I'd hurry through the walk to get it done or over with and check it off my list so the next thing could be done. It was as if my entire life was a thing to be lived after I was done doing the thing I was now doing! The harder I ran looking for the next thing to do, the less attention I gave doing the present activity. Sure I had a busy life and lots of things going on but I never really enjoyed those things. I've grown up a bit. I need to slow down...not for my body and not for lack of energy, but for lack of joy. Do I get some prize at the end of this life for being busy? The prize comes now by enjoying this precious moment. I think spending 6 to 8 hours a day pedalling, always pedalling, doing the same thing even in different places and with different amazing experiences broke me of the "what's next" habit. Even though I constantly still wonder "what's next" in my life regarding career and ways to make a living, it's different. I can spend time alone now with James and actually like my company and not have to wonder about the next minutes or hours...they will, no doubt, lead to the next career path no matter how much I stress about it.

Re-entry

Back in town for less than 24 hours and I'm sitting in an old high school gym waiting for the "music" to begin. I moved out of this town 5 years ago and looking around the crowded bleachers is like a time warp. My god, it feels like I never left as I see the same faces that I used to and will again, daily, for the foreseeable future. Five years and the circle is complete. I left here after a divorce suddenly shrank this already small island north of Seattle. It seems big enough again. Big enough to breathe and big enough to start over. And if I ride around it 10 times, big enough to feel like I'm on a bike tour...in Iceland! I am so NOT ready for the freezing wind and rain that has met me in the NW. OK, so it's in the 50's and cloudy and I'm whining but crap, I had a heat rash on my scrotum a week ago and now I almost miss it.
Sheryl, the woman who waited (sometimes patiently) six months for me to come home from Asia, and I are here to listen to her younger son Julian play the trumpet in his band concert. The kids look excited and anxious. The parents look more like...resolved. I mean, when is the last time you attended a 6th grade band concert. Sitting here it hits me that 5 years is a long time. The passage of time for me seems like a blink and the mirror doesn't change that much from day to day even though the grey is more prominent and the wrinkles deeper. But there are kids here playing a horribly arranged Star Wars theme who were just out of kindergarten when I left. It seems to me that their parents have changed much more drastically than I have as well. Of course they have. I'll never get old. I'm different than everyone else! Old acquaintances walk by. Whoa, is that...? Or, man, ...isn't looking so good these days.
Then I see him. Sitting there in the trumpet section playing 3rd trumpet. The smallest kid in the band, hunched over and reading his music with a nervous intensity. I can't tell if he is any good through the cacophony of mistuned wind and brass instruments but he is the clearest thing to a past life experience as I've had in a long time. This life, that is, in my past. Memories of being the small, scared, runt of the school playing in my first band concert, desperately seeking approval, flood my thoughts. I don't have any children of my own. How else can a 44 year old guy go on a trip for 6 months and be so "irresponsible"(and not be on a 'deadbeat dad' list somewhere)? So, I haven't been to a school event in a long time. I realized with some clarity that this concert (or football game or baseball game or debate) is one reason people have kids. To remember, to relive, to continue ones unrealized dreams through another. You get to hit the rewind button and play it all over again with a mini-me. For a few minutes I became that little kid as he played and struggled and persevered and stood up to take a bow. It was a sweet melancholy. I remembered how, even through my fear of making a fool of myself, I would come through and feel elated and feel the love of family, and feel successful. Of course the music was awful tonight, just as it was 33 years ago when I sat in that same chair in a different gym. But it sounded so sweet as I got lost in the drama of one kids struggle and in the drama of life continuing on just as it should. It's funny how we all torture ourselves voluntarily, in our own ways, and struggle so we can grow. Growth is a painful process so we hate it and yet crave it because without it we die. I realized this past year that pain, while not really a friend, is an ally. The changes I've experienced this year have been so enriching while also painful... whether through cycling, a crumpled relationship or some yoga asana that twists me in ways I don't want to be twisted. I have spent so much time avoiding that which helps me grow...hmmm. So this new pain of being cold all the time, and aimless, and unsure of what is next, and not cycling daily, and living in the "real" world again, and living "an ordinary life"...what lessons am I to learn from this time in my life?
I'll find out soon enough but in the meantime I'll just go play my trumpet with Julian and watch us both grow.

Home!...Now What

Bangkok to Seoul to San Francisco to Seattle...30 hours. I feel numb and tired and lethargic. I also am a bit confused as to what is next and where I'm going. For the past 6 months I never really knew where I was going until I got on my bike and started pedalling. That I had just got out of bed in the morning, eaten some breakfast and had another diarrheal stool was enough direction for me. Now I sit and look out at a cold and cloudy sky, wet pavement and windblown trees. My bike is in a box and my panniers are put away. What do I do now? I have identified with "being a traveller" and feeling "special" somehow, and now that part of me is gone (until next time)... What part of me will fill that void? Who am I now if I don't cycle and be adventurous and hunt for an internet cafe so I can write (brag?) about it and get all the love and feedback from friends and even people I've never met?
And of course nothing has really changed at all. I awoke this morning and ate some breakfast and had a poop (if you must know it was solid, brown and it floated) and still have no idea where I'm going...but I know I'm not pedalling there...too freaking cold! Not to mention that my rear rim is bent and god only knows what other disasters await me when I open the shredded box that contains my once beautiful bike. So the cycling adventure is over. It replaced the zip-line-tour-guide-adventure part of my life. And that replaced my E.R. nursing adventure. I realize of course, as I write this, that all those things just describe only one aspect of my life while I was experiencing so many other aspects at the same time. So why do I feel like I have to identify with parts of my life instead of the whole? Do I have to be doing something cool to feel good about who I am like some 18 year old with a self esteem deficit? What about this guy who has been the constant through all these life changes? He's still here and is the constant. He is still naval gazing (especially here in the NW with dark cold clouds and really good coffee) and laughing and loving and breathing and self-doubting and second-guessing and worried and care-free and putting his body into wierd yoga positions and then asking why. He's still asking what it all means and looking for the point in any of this. James is still here, the constant. And constantly whining and laughing and crying and knowing that this is the next adventure...this moment and this second. In the words of Bob Marley (who, before the trip I used to love and now just flinch when I hear, as every Asian bar catering to Westerners overplays his hits ALL THE TIME...and don't even get me started on the Jack Johnson rant!!), "when one door is closed, many more is open". These new moments are all unfolding right now to creat my present adventure. And that they all add up to make a life of meaningful and meaningless moments but moments none the less to be experienced as only I can.
I thought I would wrap up this adventure of mine with relevant anecdotes... or comparisons between the East and the West, or sone poignant moment that defined what the trip meant to me. I find that I can't do it. I will continue to write stories and memories from the recent bike trip and I will write about moments from this new adventure. On one of my last days in Nong Khai, I was writing in my journal trying to keep back the tears and a woman sat down and asked me if I was a writer. It was the first time I ever just said yes, and let it be. This trip has given me that incredible gift. It may be crap. It may be good. But I write and I put it out there for people to read and I found out that I love it. I want to thank you for reading it and commenting and keeping me going when I was pissed or down or discouraged and tired. People whom I've never met like Stoder, or met once like Wheelz or acquaintances who now feel like a friend...Margaret! Hopefully you'll keep reading because if I fail as a writer I might need to borrow some money from time to time! And I need help picking a new blog name...send me some ideas... as I know now why I left Kauai.

Relax...Take Deep Breaths...Balance

Over and over this past week I've heard those words repeated. I've been in a yoga retreat in Nong Khai, Thailand for the last "adventure" of my trip. Pancho, my yoga instructor and all around spiritual community builder here, has a background in theater and those three reminders were uttered just as you would imagine a yoga teacher should. They came slowly, stretched out and breathy. It worked: I actually relaxed and breathed deeply and found my balance. The yoga class was perfect for me as the focus was on breath and quieting the mind (not that I need any mind quieting at all) and the improved flow of pranic energy. This is the kind of inner work I've been seeking the whole trip and here, and found it in my last week in Asia...without pedalling! The inner journey experience while cycling was difficult and yet invaluable. Through stubborn perseverance and lonliness and determination I overcame fears and my own insanities of which I've mentioned before. I found an inner resilience and strenth and self respect I never knew before. I discovered a James who I like that I never knew before. I found scrotal pain I never knew existed before!! Yoga is analagous (except for the scrotal part) but takes a very different approach. Through cycling, I became more aware of the dispiriting inner voice that always whines and wants to quit when things get hard (easy gutterheads). I could settle into a cycling rhythm that allowed me to gently but assertively hold an uncomfortable but maintainable edge. And I got a lot stronger physically. And as the riding was just what my stagnant yoga practice needed, the yoga was the perfect ending for this trip. Abused and overworked muscles and tendons and bones that were never meant to move that reptititiously for that long, day after day and month after month were worked and stretched in a different and more wholistic way.
I cycled into Nong Khai and followed an inner beacon that often leads me to right where I need to be. It's weird and I don't know how it woks but I'm learning to really trust it. Lost in the bustle that is day market stall after day market stall I saw a sign saying Mut-Mee guest house. I had signed up for the yoga class weeks earlier and thought maybe the Mut-Mee people could guide me there. A small, quiet, tree lined side street led toward the guest house. Pancho's yoga studio and home are both next door to the Mut-Mee. Providence led me to the right place once again and I was glad as it had been an 80km ride from the nature preserve in Laos and the direct sunlight was bearing down as if through a magnifying glass. I hopped off my bike and smiled knowing this was going to be my last stop on the trip and it was over looking the Mekong river. The smile soon faded when I looked around at all the white faces and the young hippy set eating western food. Once again I was in Thailand and yet could be anywhere. Americans, Dutch, Germans, British and Canadians...all being served by the Thais who didn't really mingle. But by the next day my dismay had evaporated as I realized very few people were drinking. A lot of these people either lived here or were long term renters who came for the yoga/neditation classes...then fell in love with the little community of new agers, and decided to stay. Here was a group of like minded, spiritual seekers that spend way too much time naval gazing. It was a place that would have had my friend Cary looking for a semi-automatic weapon. I was in heaven. An 11:00 post yoga breakfast would last 2 hours as we would discuss things like whether morality is subjective. It's kind of embarassing to write about now because none of us were even stoned. The atmosphere and heat just fed these discussions until the 2:00 meditation hour started. I actually had a hard time leaving the Mut-Mee after 2 days and just languished at the tables reading or waiting for another conversation to start up. There was a little bookstore and an art studio and people playing music all around and shady banana trees and a thatch roofed restaurant and the flowing Mekong behind it all. I spent one of the most relaxing weeks of my life there (even though the yoga retreat was physically and mentally difficult) and was sad to have to leave. Especially since the train from Nong Khai was taking me back to the familiar and evil haunts of Bangkok.

Roberto, squared

I've already written, OK whined, about my first days' ride out of Luang Prabang, Laos. It was a 80 or 90 km day (already repressing the pain) of mostly uphills and heat. But I failed to mention that this is where I ran into Roberto. And his friend, Roberto. The guest house was at the top of the hill and I was dead tired as I pushed my bike into the storage room next to the restaurant. The storage room also had a large mattress on the floor and doubled as someones bedroom but no one seemed to care I was parking my bike there. It was then I saw a beautiful new Trek mountain bike next to the fridge and piles of veggies and fruit. My sense of "off the beaten track" was offended, but I looked forward to talking trash with another cyclist. It's the kind of conversation that will make the average non-cyclist fall rapidly into REM sleep. You know, "how many kilomteres did you go today" and "how much water did you drink" and "what did you think of that last hill" and the like. It's weird but we instantly have a connection. No matter where we are from or how old or how different, a cyclist out here is a kindred spirit. So I sat down and was thinking about my upcoming noodle soup when a very handsome and ruggedly stubbled Italian guy came in and sat down at another table. I walked over and sat down and he introduced himself as, you guessed it, Roberto. After 2 minutes the conversation ended. It was clear the kindred spirit thing was not going on here, at all. At first I thought it was a language issue, but his English was pretty good. You know that feeling when you really wish you hadn't just sat down and committed yourself to a conversation with someone you have absolutely no connection with and you feel sort of tight in the throat and chest and a little squirmy and fidgety and you start looking around for empty tables and thinking up excuses for why you have to eat alone and can't come up with a good enough one to make it hide the fact that you'd pretty much rather eat anywhere else in the world than at this one table? Yeah, that was the feeling I was having just as his giant, bald headed, bird faced friend named, mm hmm, Roberto came and sat down with us. I was relieved...for about 2 more minutes until the same feeling crept over me and the silencio at the table became strained. I tried the always reliable, "George Bush is a moron" line of conversation but it fell away almost unnoticed. I tried the well worn bike-gear-blather but again a big miss as he didn't seem too interested even in his own cycling adventure. As a matter of fact he didn't seem interested in much. He had just met his friend, Roberto, in Laos and Roberto was following Roberto via bus and carrying a lot of his gear for him. I was wishing Alisa would hurry up and save me from this scene but since she and I were needing a lot more space than a small box of a room with two single beds can provide (i.e. wishing the other would accidentally ride off a mountain cliff), she was in no hurry to share dinner as well.
When dinner came we all dug into the food and I finally noticed the eyes of these two mis-matched Italians. They were bleary and bloodshot. When the conversation was thus directed to the always popular subject of drugs they both perked up and the discussion was lively. Both in their 30's and a bit old for constant drug use I was startled to find out that this was why they liked Laos so much. With the constant pot use, and smoking opium when available, I wondered when the one Roberto had enough time or energy for bike riding. It was like a full time occupation with these guys as they discussed the different aspects of drug use here in Laos.
We vowed to cycle together the next day and I finally escaped off to bed. By 9:00 the next morning there was no sign of Roberto, or that his bags were anywhere near being packed so Alisa and I took off. We ran into him later that day. Since his buddy had all his gear on a bus somewhere, he caught up with us easily...even after smoking his morning joint. That afternoon, found the two Robertos staying at the same guest house as Alisa and I, once again. This place was a jewel that every passing cyclist had mentioned to us. As an aside, after cycling for hours and seeing the cars, busses and mopeds passing, and having long internal dialogues with oneself, it is a rare and wonderful treat to see a geared up, loaded down, cyclist coming from the opposite direction. I always like to stop and chat and it gives me another excuse to not pedal. There are an amazing number of us cycling fools out on the roads of the world and even if it makes me feel a little less "special", it's always good to share the pain and information. The ones that make me feel like the wuss I am are the ones who have cycled from their homes in Europe somewhere. Through the middle east and Pakistan, into India up the Himalayas into Tibet, through China, maybe dip in Kyrgistan or durka-durkastan until they find some beach in Thailand to hang out on. I find them heading north, cycling home...2 years or so later. Along this stretch of road every cyclist had mentioned the hot springs just outide of our next destination. After 2 days of mountain passes the decision was a no brainer and we altered plans so as to stay at the bungalows just next to the hot springs. The steep mountains and woods surrounding the place were beautiful. The atmosphere, even though built right on the main north/south route of Laos, was serene. "Main route" here means an occasional truck or bus passes as opposed to a smaller road where nothing passes. A large square pool had been dug out right next to the road but a little further up the hill was a hot stream that, nestled in the trees and boulders, soaked away all my muscle tension and pain. In the morning I was glad I had chosen the stream to sit in as there was a group of locals that were brushing their teeth, doing laundry and bathing, soap and all, in the big pool. The two Roberto's were sleeping in apparently, once again, so Alisa and I took off after a snack, vowing to eat in town. We didn't want to repeat last nights dinner experience. The Roberto's must have had the munchies last night because the food that arrived at the table was sketchy and had no similarity to what was ordered. I'm used to that by now of course but the disparity had reached a new level. Why Roberto chose to order schnitzl in northern Laos was a mystery. So was the plate of food that arrived about an hour later. My vegetarian noodle soup had more huge chunks of meat in it than noodles but it looked rather like chicken so I picked out the bits and ate the rest...and I hate doing that! But they must have run out of chicken because the mystery meat that everyone else ate brought up the topic of eating dog meat in Laos. Apparently eating a dog that had yellow fur gives one more power than if the dog is another color. In Thailand a yellow dog will be exported (as pets of course) and fetch up to 4000 Bhat. That is almost $150!! As dinner here was dirt cheap the meat must have come from some poor black mutt. No one felt very good the next day.
Riding along in the afternoon heat I discovered how Roberto can do so many drugs and cycle around Asia so well. As passenger truck passed by I heard a "ciao" coming from the back and saw the Roberto's waving amiably with big grins and a bike tied to the roof of the truck. "Hey, that's cheating" I yelled smiling and waving, forgetting all the trains and busses I've enjoyed over the past few months. For the rest of my time in Laos I kept running across the Roberto's. In Vang Vienne they came up to our breakfast table, already hopelessly stoned, and ordered their second breakfast of the day as ours looked so delicioso. Later that day I ran into them heading for the "happy pizza" place and they were discussing the magic mushroom shake with which to chase it down. In Vientiane we cycled passed them once again and they invited us to visit them at their guest house later in the day. I never did get there. I think we took our relationship as far as it could go...even though I ended up really liking these guys. I can't even say why. Maybe it was just seeing a familiar face everywhere I went. Maybe it was their relaxed attitudes and constant smiles. But ultimatley, it's not nearly enough as stoned people are really boring. Pleasant maybe, but boring and I couldn't face another evening with the Roberto's.

International Womens Day...Laos style

My third day at Lao Pako nature preserve and things were moving as slow as possible...just the way I like it. My morning herbal sauna was over and I was wondering what to do. The sauna was amazing. I had to meander through a hot jungle to get to the sauna house. The small wood structure with a grass roof was on a gentle slope just above a stream for the refreshing dip afterward. Most people describe this part of Laos as a sauna and wonder why anyone would want to go from one sauna to a hotter one. I wondered that too as I stripped down and entered the steamy dark room. But I realized that day, that if one steps from the hottest fires of hell into the more reasonable fires of Laos, it makes Laos seem rather refreshing...which it isn't. From under the hut a pipe leads horizontally out to a small boiler sitting over two long logs that had their ends pushed into a fire. Its a great system. Someone puts eucalyptus leaves and other "herbs from the jungle" into the boiler and if the room cools down too much you just run out in all your sweaty nakedness and shove the logs farther into the flames and streak back in. It was plenty hot however as I stepped into the steamy abyss. The herbal smells and wood smoke mix with the hot wet air as I melted into a puddle of sweat. The smell was cooling and counteracted the heat which allows one to stay longer than is prudent. Not known for prudence, I hung out in there for a good 30 minutes before feeling the (by this time in my trip, normal-post-cycling) effects of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. The lightheadedness was kind of nice and for a dollar one of the cheapest highs in Laos. That and Beer Lao, but I've already discussed the magic of Beer Lao. And since I've decided to go back to beer abstinance (which as we'll see in a minute lasted all of three hours) I felt great. Stumbling into the cool stream I stared up at the leaf speckled sky and smiled at how perfect this moment was. The dizziness wasn't clearing after I took 3 or 4 more trips to the steam room and started to wonder about the "jungle herbs" that were in the steaming pot above the fire. Back at the resort however my mind cleared after 2 liters of water. It was then, in my paralytic state, that I realized that Phut was talking to me. It was 90 degrees by now and it took me a minute to formulate an answer to his question. He just stood there waiting for my answer. Either he sees a lot of really drugged out tourists or, like everyone else in Laos, is so mellow that waiting 20 seconds for a reply is not abnormal.
"What party?" I asked. "You know, I told you yesterday my village is celebrate international womens day". Leaving the shaded, open deck/reception area and cycling in the blazing midday heat didn't sound really fun after a dehydration high. But how often does one get invited to a Laoatian villiage party? (As it turns out...all the time but how was I to know?) "Of course I'm going" I said, and thought, 'as soon as my legs lose that gelatenous feeling.'
I set out at about 1:00pm instantly remembering it was the hottest part of the day. In the clear cut jungle area I was surrounded by the pleasing and mystical sounds of wooden cowbells. The sound was all around and weird since I could only see an occasional emaciated cow in the scrub. I always think of percussion instruments as each bell has its own tone. With dozens of them tinkling invisibly and no other sounds and nothing around for miles it was my own private concert and I stood in the shadeless road smiling once again at Laos. It was the sweat pouring down my asscrack that pulled me from my reverie and I rode on to the small village. The booming subwoofers told me I was close. When I got to the school field there were maybe 150 people sitting outside under the trees. Plastic benches and stools were set up in front of a wall of massive speakers as a guy with a microphone in his hand was shouting excitedly into it. Being the only white guy in the crowd I felt a little uncomfortable realizing that this was their party and I was crashing it. Even though I had been invited, my host was back at the "resort". Just blend in I laughed to myself as I leaned my bike up against the fence. I haven't really bothered locking my bike these days as I have had no reason to. Back at home I would have put the chain through both wheels and found something strong to lock it to. Here in Laos it feels way safer than my own country. Maybe its just because they are all so wealthy I shrugged and went off into the crowd. The musicians had taken over the mic and were blaring some nice sounding Laos pop which has a swinging little reggae beat and great lyrics. Actually they were singing in Laoation which pissed me off but didn't seem to bother anyone else. People were staring at me while I was leaning up against a tree trying to be as inconspicuous as possible but the looks were not hostile at all. A handsome young guy in a starched shirt came up to me and invited me over to his table of friends. I told him I'd be right over and made a detour to the beer stand. There were 3 tables set up for concessions. One for chips and sunflower seeds, the other for meat stick snacks and the biggest by far was the Beer Laos stand. Grabbing three large bottles of beer I headed back to the group of friends who had cleared a spot for me. They were all well dressed and looked fresh whereas I had on a sweaty dirty T-shirt and some natty shorts. They didn't seem to care as their gaze was fixed on the beer. I was a hit as I opened them up and passed them out. But even though they were pleased, no one grabbed a bottle but just kept them together in the middle of the table. Then I realized that there were no cups and started looking around for some. The last pot luck I attended at home someone always brings the cups and plates...its an unspoken expectation and they always show up. Then at the end of the party we always gather up the trash bag and throw away 5 pounds of plastic. No such waste here! Someone stood by my side and poured me a half cup of beer and waited. I took a sip and continued the tortured conversation of where I lived etc. The guy pouring beer was still at my side and my young friend said "You must finish your beer". I thought it was some sort of macho thing about not sipping beer so I downed the rest. The guy pouring looked relieved and grabbed my cup, refilled it and gave it to someone else. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! I don't know how many of us shared that cup that day but I was there for 3 hours and it was going strong when I left. I was at the table of college students who were visiting the village for 4 months teaching English to the local kids. They all wanted to speak English so I had the same conversations over and over until one woman asked me if I wanted to dance. The music was too loud in front of the speaker wall and that's just where everyone was. The Laos dance, as a generalization of course, like they live...very relaxed and slowly. Kind of like a reggae sway...you find that groove and hang with it. Everyone in the crowd with the same move and all smiling and laughing and loving the afternoon. Everyone includes the cool teen-agers, the married couples, the old ladies dancing together and a few drunk old men dancing alone. I was surprised to see that everyone was drunk as well. The Beer Loas was flowing hard but I was a bit shocked to see one 60-ish year old woman pouring beer down the throat of another older woman. As the beer soaked the front of her shirt they both just laughed and supported each other with a free arm. It was International Womens Day after all and these girls were milking every minute of it and having a blast. After many, many half cups of beer later and dance after dance with half the village, I had an experience I've never had before and gave me just one more reason to love this country. While dancing and looking out over the crowd I realized I was looking out over the crowd! Being 5'7" on a dance floor usually allows me the view of armpits and bouncing breasts...OK so not all bad but still a bit claustrophobic. Here the tops of heads were swaying and I could see to the horizon which was also swaying! It was time for me to go back to the lodge and drink something other than Beer Laos. I had to extricate myself from the party and especially from one guy who wanted me to sleep at his house all night...but not really sleep. The bike swayed a bit as I rode out of town they all waved and smiled and shouted goodbye.
The women here in Laos got one day off this year from cooking and sweeping and toiling and harvesting and slaving away. They took that day and, here in this village, played just as hard as they work. Unbridled joy in a crowd is a rare thing to see...it's a memory that I hope stays with me for a long time.

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".

Who would've thought this was why I left Kauai

Hey! I have new photos up on the link if your interested check em out.
The heat was getting to us. It was the end of the day and after 10 hours of cycling out of the mountains and onto some level ground we were ready for the kick back part of the day. After heading south for the past 10 days the road started north again and the light headwind was getting annoying. Then after getting lost on smaller and smaller roads we were suddenly found. The dam appeared around a bend and we were almost to the guest house. Then out of nowhere it appeared. The road just shot up at an angle I hadn't seen since Thailand. One thing about Laos roads...they may be never-ending and damn steep but they were engineered with the idea of people actually using them...unlike Thai roads of which I've complained enough! But my legs were now jello after the long day and had nothing left, at all. We were both surly but I just lost it and started cussing and yelling at that hillside like it gave a damn. It didn't and around the next bend got even steeper. The spewing vitriolic hate that I let forth was powerful and started pulling me up the hill. Alisa was fighting her own battle and couldn't deal with my tantrum and told me to shut the hell up. I stood up and pedaled harder and with each stroke of my legs the cussing became more nasty and creative. I was out of earshot of Alisa now and having the big tantrum of this trip. My legs had re-developed the heat rash of southern Thailand and I was red-faced, soaked and mean looking when we came across two guys sitting at the side of the road. They smiled and pointed up the road when we asked if we were going in the right direction toward Na Nam. Normally this would have been encouraging but today everyone had the same response with differing estimates of distances. Ten kilometers back someone said, "Yes, Na Nam this way...maybeee 5 kilometers". Normally this kind of thing happens all the time here as people want to be friendly and polite and make you feel good. Normally this is an awesome trait that I love about SE Asia...friendly, smiling, and helpful strangers. These two pointed straight up the hill and said "Yes, maybe 2 kilometers". Normally I would have said thank you but it was good that I was panting so heavily or I might have started screaming at them to shut the hell up. As it was I rode off yelling at the road again and revelling in my hate fest. The power of anger is amazing and I tore up the hill using most of the little energy I had left. Turns out it was about a kilometer as the hill topped out around the next twist. And 2 hours later, I was feeling great and drinking a cold beer lao with the owner of a restaurant who used to work for the American secret airforce. ( Aside Alert! You know, the CIA funded nightmare called Air America that bombed most of Laos to hell trying to stop Ho Chi Minh as well as the communist insurgents in Laos. The airforce that ran more sorties in Laos than were run in Viet Nam! The secret airforce that dropped over 1000 pounds of ordinance for every citizen in Laos causing untold pain and death. Why didn't I learn about this crap in school, dammit?!) He still loved America and Americans and was so warm and sweet to us. With rotting teeth (some moving disturbingly as he talked) and love in his eyes he told of us repairing airplanes for the Americans. He didn't seem to care about the politics but he sure liked working with all the Americans. That was after his 9 year career of being a monk. In the morning he performed a ceremony and, putting a cloth bracelet on my wrist, blessed me and my family and wished me a safe and happy journey. It was a touching and wonderful connection in which two strangers from opposite ends of the world are sharing something bigger than each of them. But lets get back to my pain and infantile behavior for a minute.
The reason I began todays blog with my tantrum is that I realized something about myself in that rant. I can be a total whiner. I can be weak, or a crybaby. I can moan about the littlest things and I can be a real ass sometimes. In the past I always wanted to improve and change and "better" myself thinking that those traits made me unlovable. I got it, out here on the back roads of Laos, that nothing needs to change but the rediculous voice in my head that thinks I'm somehow incomplete! Ever! Somehow I came to understand (blame the heat) this week that those annoying traits make me human, not anything else. Sometimes they can even be assets. I don't have to be a certain way or have to change anything to be lovable. I've come to love myself on this trip. AND THAT IS WORTH LEAVING KAUAI FOR!! Having that realization has given me a feeling of completion and I'm ready to come home. I'm homesick for family and for my love, Sheryl and for a sense of groundedness that travelling often doesn't afford.

Vang Vieng

"This place feels like a border town". I said it, but Alisa was thinking it as we pedaled in from the mountains to V.V. By the way, if you were wondering why I didn't blog about Alisa in the last post it's because we separated for a lot of the first days climb. Listening to her very good advice, I shipped at least 10 pounds of gear back to Bangkok so I could keep up with her. As a result, hmm... how can I put this politely, I kicked her ass up and down those mountains!! Bring it on Lance! Anyway, for the past three days we had been in the boonies and stayed in places where the tourists are not backpackers and not westerners. That always makes me feel superior to everyone else traveling. It's like I have it figured out and all these poor suckers are just along for the ride following mindlessly some route chosen for them by Lonely Planet. The fact that I am surrounded by them right now in an internet cafe is not lost on me, at all. But I still do feel superior...it's the curse of the low-self-esteem-afflicted I'm afraid. Coming back onto the backpacker circuit also has the downside of seeing how cheesy mass tourism really is. A few of us here and there eating noodles from some hole in the wall is one thing. But Vang Vieng is the antithesis of that...a town created for tourists by people who think (and quite correctly I'm afraid) they know what tourists want.
For example, bars. Not just a few bars to cater to the thirsty, but a main street that is bar after bar after bar. This town is a tiny, dusty hole with 2 main streets and maybe 30 bars. But it isn't Khao San Road with blaring, pumping party music. It's TV bars. Every bar has either a big screen TV or multiple TV's so you can watch from any table. The tables are low slung affairs with pillows on the ground so you can lie down and take in the show for as long as your high lasts. TV bars with themes. Like the one that shows only episodes of the smash hit FRIENDS. Over and over, day after day, one mind numbing FRIENDS show after the other. I was trying to imagine the hip LA english that the staff at that bar were learning by listening to Matt Le Blanc and Jennifer Aniston. But not for long because we passed the TV bar that shows the SIMPSONS ad nauseum...DOH! So this dusty town with nothing but guest houses, bars and internet cafes feels very border-esque. The problem is that the border is no where near here.
As the sun went down and we walked around, it hit us both how this is the new-milennium opium den. Pizza places can sell you a "happy pizza" with marijuana on top instead of oregano and you can get a magic mushroom shake. After that you can lie down and trip your way through Homer Simpson as long as you'd like. And people were...lots of them.
Today it is hot. Really freaking hot and the sun is out full strength. Not the filtered sunlight we've been getting up in the hills from all the slashing and burning...no it rained last night. The rain cleaned up the air nicely but took away the smoke filter and now it is really (did I mention) HOT! It is so hot that my pride followed all my strength and we found ourselves planted in front of a TV bar watching some excellent movie choices like "My super ex-girlfriend" and then "The Pink Panther". Thankfully the power went out before some other movie started, and we remembered that we were in Laos. As in S.E. Asia Laos... as far away from AMERICA as you'd want to go! So we left and walked down the street as the power came back on and we stared at the opium dens anew and felt instantly superior to the losers who could come all the way to Laos just to watch TV. That's why I'm here now at the internet cafe really getting my fill of Laos culture before dinner and the next movie!! It's all really just a hoot and only gets obnoxious if I judge it, myself, or anyone else for that matter.

Sabai Dee!

The grass really isn't greener. Not always. The past 3 days have been some of the hardest cycling yet in the lost mountain ranges of N Laos. I wouldn't change any of it for a second. Riding up STEEP hills that go on forever with sweat stinging in my eyes? Love it. Coming around a bend in the road only to see the asphalt snaking up the side of the clear-cut, burned out hillsides and disappearing into the smoky distance? Love it a little less. Making eye contact with some tourist, half my age, looking bored out of her mind as her bus passes? Priceless. As hard as the last few days of hot and humid riding have been, I feel like a million dollars just sitting here in this internet cafe. I am alive. I am tired. I have just accomplished something that was worth doing. And my ass is killing me.
The road from Luang Prabang to the capitol city, Vientiane is the major highway running north-south in this part of the country. Occasionally a car passes. It is no wider than a country road and no passing lanes, that is what the blind curves are for. On the steeper downhill sections I found this out by passing trucks and cars on these blind curves as the diesel spew gets nauseating on the long descents. Even though the people in the back of the truck (and there are always people in the back of a truck) are smiling and waving and giving me the thumbs up, I still want to pass them as it is the rare chance a cyclist gets to pass a motor vehicle. It is so satisfying...like lane splitting in Bangkok. There is some psychic connection that one has with blind curves the longer one drives over here. It is the only explanation for the ability to pass blindly yet knowing you will survive. Sure you may have to hit the brakes as hard as you can a few times. Sure you might have to force the car you're passing to cram on his brakes a few times but in the end everyone survives and speeds off to the next curve. I think I've mastered it after watching enough cars try it...although I have been wearing my helmet religiously just in case.
As soon as Luang Prabang was in the rear view mirror the hills started with a gentle warning. Eight hours later, and the warnings gone unheeded, I was at the summit of a hill dripping in salty sweat and "over it" as my niece Juelianna would say. The previous three hours and 20km had been spent on one solid climb. No little downhill sections, at all. No little spots to coast and let the blood back into my thighs. No spots to relax and spin gently so the lubricant in my knee joints could circulate. Just a continuous UP in my lowest gear. In those three hours I think I experienced four of the five stages of grief researched by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Hour one found me in denial that a mountain could actually go on like this for 20 km. This rapidly moved into anger that a mountain could go on like this for 20 km. The second hour found me in the stage of bargaining with myself, god, the imagined truck driver that might stop and ask if I wanted a ride...anyone or anything that would listen. As no one stopped, and god seemed preoccupied, and I got sick of whining (yes it's possible), I started to move into the fourth stage...depression. But the amazing thing about riding through Laos is that it won't let me get depressed. The scenery is just so beautiful. Even if it is deforested, and a lot of the hillsides are baren and black from slash and burn aggriculture, and the smoke is so thick from all the burning that you can barely see the next ridge (as well as having bronchial pain from deep breathing it all day), Loas is still a beauty. I wanted to ponder the destruction of the earth and how we are all on a one way trip to environmental suicide (because we all know how helpful and useful those thoughts are!) but the damn kids kept interruping me and kept me smiling. Small villages lined the way up the mountain and every time I rode through one all the kids would shout as loud as they could, "Sabai Dee!!!!" A village here is defined as a row of wooden structures on stilts with palm leaf roofs lining either side of the road. No side streets in these towns as the structures were precariously perched over steep drop offs. Under the houses were pigs and chickens and lots of dirt. And even gasping for air I couldn't help but shout back a sabaidee. From dark doorways kids would appear and always waving and shouting hello. From unseen places a shout of sabaidee was frequently heard. The bigger kids, from 4 to 10 years old, would run out to the side of the road and give high fives as I passed. It was a great feeling and so encouraging to have all these little guys rooting for me. I could imagine what it must be like to be famous like Lance Armstrong or Julia Roberts for a day! OK, maybe not, but those are the kind of messed up thoughts that passed through my mind as the electrolyte imbalance got more critical.
The last hour of the ascent felt steeper yet and I moved into the fifth stage of grief...acceptance. Breathe in for 3 pedal strokes; breathe out for 3 pedal strokes. Repeat. The breathing took over the thinking and it just became an exercise of stubborn will. Just keep pedalling and you will get there. And as I did pull into town and found a guest house, I felt like a rock star. Mick Jagger maybe, or one of the other dinosaurs who should have quit long ago... but still, a rock star. And the guest house up there? Let's be nice and say it wasn't a 5 star resort. It didn't have running water and the beds looked eerily similar to the bedbug infested things that I've "slept" in before. The dank shower room consisted of a 50 gallon oil barrel (Shell Oil logo still visible) full of cold water. There was an small empty bucket outside and I took it towel clad into the back kitchen (and you really don't want to know what is in a back kitchen in Laos...let alone the front kitchen). There the bucket was filled with boiling water from a huge pot being heated by a log fire. Mixed with the water from the oil drum, that bucket bath was better than most showers I've ever had. Washing away the funk that had accumulated on my body was all that mattered and it reminded me once again of all the crazy little things we not only take for granted, but get so upset about in our daily "struggles". Yet another reminder that travelling is such a great teacher. It can show us our craziness by stripping from us our familiar expectations...and replacing them with that cultures' crazy expectations.
I awoke bite free and ready to do it all over again and that's exactly what I did...for the next two days. Each day the power in my legs decreased. I rolled into Vang Vieng last night vowing that now I will take a day off and play in the river here and drink lots of Lao coffee. The sludge that just a few days ago I complained about is now a favorite staple and drug of choice. Super sweet, thick and chewy! Unfortunately this town is all about other drugs of choice and is a hot spot on the backpacker loop. But that is for tomorrows blog.

A River Journey Down The Mekong

Let me try to describe what the last two days of travelling in Laos have been like. And I preface this with the fact that my ass hurts more now, after 2 days of non-cycling, than it has since early Malaysia. A two day long-boat trip down the Mekong River from the border town of Huai Xai (yeah, I can't pronounce it either) to Luang Prabang on a hard, straight backed bench right out of a southern baptist church will do that to any butt. The pain really started before the boat ride, next to my ass...in my wallet. What should have cost $15 for the journey ended up being $30 as no one would tell us where the boat dock was. Everyone wanted to sell us tickets but mystery surrounded how to buy directly. One official looking booth next to the sign to our destination was occupied by a guy who pointed up the road when we asked to buy a ticket. Since we had just arrived on the bank of the river in this new country, up the road was, basically, Laos. The advice we got from everyone varied from "Go to the bus station" (we're thinking NO!) to the ubiquitous "can not". We finally caved in and bought the ticket from a guest house as the boat was leaving soon (or so we thought). Following the tuk-tuk on bicycle for 1/4 mile led us to the docks but the damage was already done and we had been fleeced. Fifteen dollars for a quarter mile bike ride...hey, it's a lot when you're spending $2.00 for lodging and $1.50 for meals!
Patience takes on a whole new meaning when travelling and especially travelling with the herd of backpackers all trying to find the next new thing and using the same Lonely Planet book to do it. We all packed into a boat approximately 10 feet wide (to hell with the metric system!) by 100 feet long. I say packed because there were maybe 200 people on this boat. The bicycles were stored up top and all bags were under the floor boards by 9:30am and we were ready to go as it was getting hot. By "we" I mean all the passengers. The crew was way more relaxed than the rest of us however and we didn't do much more than sweat and wait for the occasional straggler (or wiser tourist who had done this before). By the time the engine fired up, to the cheers of all, and we pulled out of the dock/sand bar it was 11:30 and our butts were already complaining. The Brits on board were whining that we were behind schedule as if a schedule actually has meaning over here, and the Canadians were on their 2nd or 3rd "beer-lao". The Canadians were definitely having more fun than the rest of us. But the fact that they were Canadian meant that their livers were well primed for 90 ounces of beer before breakfast. For those who have been to Laos (and I've been here for all of two days), Beer-Lao is more than a beer for the backpacker...it's a way of life. For just about a dollar one can get a good buzz on a 32 ounce bottle of nice, hoppy, light beer. The beer being light and delicious, and the weather being hot and humid, one beer just doesn't seem to cut it for most of the backpacking set. The philosophy of more is better takes over the philosophy of moderation after the second beer. And the resulting drunk fest that occurred on the boat was kind of depressing and yet impressive. People were getting to that place where , holding up a big 32 ouncer in each hand and waving them at passing monks seemed like a good idea. I've seen people drinking a 32 ouncer for breakfast as I'm still picking the sleep goo from my eyes and trying to focus on my lao coffee (read sludge). Lao coffee is another bloggable item that I just don't have the patience for but suffice it to say that sludge is a kindly description. Don't get me wrong, it'll wake you up...like a marching band will wake you up, like Led Zepplin will wake you up, like a Laotian hot chili poop will wake you up!!! Yeah, it'll do the job but in a painful kind of way. The cup, filled one fourth with condensed milk, barely sweetens and whitens but without it the enamel peels from your teeth. I've had 3 cups this morning and you can see how the clarity of mind is effected! The golden triangle indeed. To hell with heroin, the drugs of choice here are beer lao and lao coffee.
All right, back to the point of this entry... the river trip down the Mekong. The river is a brown and beautiful glassy mess. Cutting through places accessable only by river gives one the feeling of exploration as the steep hillsides and river banks were almost totally void of habitation or signs of human activity. Jagged twisted rock formations poke up like sharks teeth or striated fins from the murky brown water. Large forested areas mixed with ferns and palm trees gave it that strange feeling of "I've-been-here-before-except-for-the-tropical-bits". You know the feeling. The air was hot enough that you wanted to jump in the water half the time. The other half you remembered that this river starts in China and that the definition of a river in China is 'something that takes toxic things downstream away from you'. It was easy to remember that however, because anywhere there was a back-eddy, and therefore turbulence, a foamy brown baseball sized sludge-nut formed. It looked like the Mekong was making its own styrofoam and shipping it downstream with us tourists. So instead of looking to the river to cool down we would go to the bathroom. The floor was puddling with god knows how much beer lao pee. And the amazing quality of my new Thai baggy pants to drop into it still amazes me. Holding up the pants and trying to pee and then trying to tie them up again on a rocking boat can be challenging. I failed that challenge and will just tell you that the wicking ability of thai cotton to soak up liquids of any nature needs to be studied. It's uncanny how wet the bottoms of my pants became with an ungodly mixture of watever was on that dark and wet floor. Sitting back in my seat I did notice the cooling effects of urine soaked trousers but couldn't really enjoy it as I also imagined the bacteria colonizing my shins.
There were more people than seats on the boat and the overcrowding gave one the feling of claustrophobia mixed with a big party. In this case a frat party. Going to the back of the boat to pee was an experiment in balance and not stepping on the toes of everyone in the isle. But in the back was the engine "compartment" and a group of sleeping beer-lao soaked backpackers all intertwined and going deaf in the roar of the room. The engine was totally exposed and screaming at OSHA defying decibels. On it were flowers and rice offerings that kept this motor running. It was important as any engine failure would probaboly mean sinking at the downstream pace we were going and the jagged rocks that were jutting out from the banks of the river. And back here too was the Thai Bob Marley who was dreadlocking some young westerner's long black hair. It was as if everyone I had seen for the past month on Khao San Road had been placed in this boat as a cruel joke by god for some forgotten sin. It was everything I find obnoxious about travelling along the backpackers well worn route and I was trapped just a few feet under my bicycle. I was on this boat for two days...9 hours each day.
The second day everyone (even the Canadians!) who had been drinking crazily was subdued and either reading or listening to ipods and trying not to barf by the looks of them. What had the day before been a party boat was now a church service with prayers of delivery and forgiveness coming from the upright benches. A 10 hour church service. And as fun as that sounds, I was dying to get off this beautiful and horrible little long-boat trip down the Mekong. By the time I got to Luang Prabang I was begging for some of those monster hills of N Thailand and the feeling of desperation watching Alisa shrinking into the future. In two days we leave for Vienne Tien and I'm sure I'll be begging for the party boat and a cold one. The grass is always greener, as is the river.

A Quick Addition

Just added a new link to view starring my partner in cycling crime. The fact that she doesn't complain at all just makes me hate her even more! Enjoy.

Alisa Armstrong

OK. There is a piece of the story I've left out for reasons of pride and ego and self-respect. Her name is Alisa, she's 28 years old and we've been cycling together since Chiang Mai. And before you gutterheads get the wrong idea...no it's NOT like that...at all! We met up in Bangkok about a month ago after she read my blog and sent me a hello. She was also hiding in an internet cafe while avoiding the pierced and tattoo'd dreadlockers that knuckle drag their way from Khao San Road to Soi Rambuttri in search of the next bucket of mixed drinks. She came across this blog and we were soon emailing and setting up a time to share cycling exagerations (which proves that this verbal diarrhea of a cycling blog hasn't been a total waste of time). She was solo cycling N.Thailand and as usual I had no solid plan. So we went our own ways only to meet up again unplanned in Chiang Mai. When we decided that it would be fun to travel together up into Laos, I had no idea that this woman was Lance Armstrong's twin sister! The fact that Lance is in his late 30's has no bearing on this discussion. Growing up with Lance was tough Alisa assured me. Always having to wait for her older twin on the hill climbs and having to listen to him complain about the headwinds grated on her nerves to be sure. But the testicular cancer period was especially hard as she not only saw him through the ordeal but watched as he got all the attention and became the media darling while her own superior cycling skills were never appreciated. I think that to this day (7 "stolen" Tour de France victories later) she secretly resents Lance.
There is nothing new in my experience of feeling inferior to people...men or women. In many ways, women hold a greater power over me than I can explain. And knowing that I give them this power doesn't seem to change its emotional impact. So it was a familiar yet defeated kind of sensation when Alisa and I headed out of the rice paddies and straight for the mountains. I have been priding myself on my physical abilities after months of cycling and thought that I was strong. As a 44 year old I was also beginning to feel like I have a handle on what kind of mental strenght it takes to solo tour S.E. Asia. As Alisa began to shrink into the distance ahead I started questioning both those assumptions. Instantly in my lowest gear and struggling, I could barely make out that she was still into the middle of her gear cluster and had tons of lee-way "for when the hills get difficult". It was a foreshadowing that I didn't need to hear. She just got smaller until she disappeared around a bend. When I finally got around one of the harder bends she was standing there eating a creme cookie and sipping water like we were on a picnic. The last thing I could have done was eat a creme cookie without barfing or inhaling the dry crumbs while catching my breath. That was day one. She would say things that were supposed to be encouraging like, "It takes more energy to push a bike up a hill than to ride it". "Huh", I would say, not letting her in on the fact that if I possibly COULD have ridden up the hill I would have! By the end of the day she saw I was truely struggling and realized that I was getting washed out. She would give me words of encouragement that somehow just didn't work. Things like, "I don't have nearly as much crap in my panniers as you do. No wonder you're going so slow". Or, "You're legs must have atrophied over the past 6 weeks of not cycling". Sitting here now I can see the remarks as they were intended. A way for me to save face without too much shame. At the time my ears heard things like, "What dumb-ass packs a plastic pet cat or 5 pound hatchet in case he comes across a coconut to eat?" Or, "God your legs are weak."
It turns out that Alisa is a professional bike tour guide back in Washington and is used to people doing stupid things and not being quite in shape for the rides they plan. She's seen it all before and my antics were not new to her. Even though I know this about her and about myself, it still sucks to get my ass handed to me by a woman! So the other day we crawled out of the mountains and hit some fine flat rolling hills of a river valley. Just after a noodle lunch I said we should kick it down a notch and just spin for the second half of the day. It was hot and we were dripping sweat in the full afternoon sun. She agreed and as we rode off I hit the gas with a post lunch blood sugar boost. Once out of the steep hills I started feeling great again as I could finally get off my lowest gear and make some time. It really felt great to power up and watch as Alisa shrank into a small dot in my rear view mirror and then disappeared. "Who's got too much crap in their panniers now sucka" I thought as I hit a cruising speed of 16 to 18 mph. Then up ahead I saw the first of the short but moderately steep hills. It took a lot of energy but standing up while pedalling I could keep the momentum from making me hit my lowest gear again. No Alisa behind and I was still good...until maybe 3 to 4 similar hills later. It was near the middle of one of these little soul stealers that I saw her coming up from behind. From a speck to a blob to a discernable cyclist to Lance's sister I could see her advancing rapidly. It was uncanny how quickly she was catching up and made me feel...well, slow. My pride was now attatched to the thought that "OK, maybe you're stronger than me on the hills but dammit I got you on the flats!" I was now peddling almost all out but it was no use. Training with Lance had given her all his competitive drive and she overtook me within a minute or two more. She smiled at me as she said, "Hey I thought we were gonna take it down a notch here!" Then she was gone...blowing up the next hill as I hit the well worn low gear and spun my way up. Anyone who has done any sport knows that a lot, maybe most, of performance is mental. Being in shape and training correctly are important to be sure but if your mind gets beaten...then you are beaten. I had just been beaten and at 85 degrees it was killing me. After a few more hills Alisa pulled over and waited for me while drinking some water. A bit of advice here for those who have just kicked some ass. Never ask the person whose ass you've just handed back to them how they're doing. The responses given can be wide ranging but I chose the face saving "good, good, good, no worries!" So off we rode and it was only a few minutes later that I realized I wasn't doing so well. My upper lip was sticking to my upper gums giving me that skeleton look. No matter how much water I'd drink I resumed my psycho smile...my lips were cracking and I had cotton mouth so I couldn't even swallow. I was dehydrating and couldn't keep up with the water I needed. At about the same time I bonked.
There is a funny phenomenon in cycling called bonking. Sorry again gutterheads but it has nothing to do with what you are thinking right now. Bonking is another word for hitting the wall... a.k.a. pooping out. The blood sugar high I had just been running on peaked and I felt like my legs had instantly turned to gel. There is a fatigue and weakness that occurs and though I got hungry and weak, the last thing I wanted to do was eat. As I rode more and more slowly Alisa pulled over and saw the bonk face. "You need to eat, dammit, follow me." We went to a roadside stand and drank coke and orange drink and I jammed cookies in my mouth while fighting the urge to throw it all back up. After 20 minutes the world became clearer and the edges of things lost their hazy sheen. Even though I was thoroughly beaten down, I was grateful that Alisa had come to my rescue and forced me to eat and drink. I have now lost all illusions that because I'm a man I should somehow be a better or stronger cyclist than a woman (though sometimes I look at her gear ratio and think I could be just as strong with that wimpy Mt bike set up!). That notion was unceremoniously kicked out of me a few days ago. But if you (male or female) ever get the chance to ride with Alisa...pack lightly.

A Whole New Ballgame

Never...ever, as an adult, have I had to push my bike up a hill. After thousands of miles of bicycle touring in Europe, the U.S. and Asia I have finally had to face the shame and defeat that N. Thailand has dished out. Everything...all the moaning, whining, complaining, and even wimpering that I've done so far? Forget it. It's all been the writing of the uninitiated. Like someone complaining about the heat of black pepper before tasting a red chili. But I now have been initiated. Northern Thailand has shown me things I thought only God or satan could. The places of despair and anger and futility that pull things out of you that you wish would have stayed in. Sure there were the hot days of hallucinations and talking to myself down in S. Thailand...where sweat stung my eyes and blurred my vision. Sure there were the lonely days of wanting to have a conversation longer than "hello". There were times after cycling for days that progress could hardly be measured on the map. Ahh, the good old days.
Riding out of Chiang Mai was a joy as it had been almost 6 weeks since I had been on my bike. My legs felt good and rested. I now realize that rested means atrophied...6 weeks of sitting and menu gazing makes for lousy traing. But I was finally headed out of town toward Laos knowing I would soon be off the crowded polluted highway. Fourteen km later and a right turn showed a world that is quiet and wonderful and full of water buffalos and rice paddies. There is a feeling that I get when I am out here propelling myself quietly along, using no fossil fuels and watching the world pass by that I can not describe. Self reliance, pride, elation, alive, physically strong, adventurous, ecofriendly (OK, I can describe it) are some words that come to mind. There is a peacefull understanding that all is right and all is as it should be. Had I known that just 6 hours later every one of those feelings (except eco-friendly) would be stripped from me and left me to feel just weak, inadequate, tired and stupid I might have turned around. Nah, everyone I met already had warned me about a new kind of hill in N. Thailand but I didn't listen. It's not like I would have changed my plans but maybe I would have unloaded a few things before the hill climbs. Things like Presta, my new battery operated shiny, golden, one-armed, waving kitty-cat that I thought would be hilarious outside my tent every night keeping me company as I camped out. Presta was weighing heavily on my mind, and without the hilarity, the first time I hit the monster hills. Or other things like clothing that I bought for friends back home, books, a knife that no longer opens, or the down jacket that I might use someday, or the 2 extra pairs of shoes (rumor has it that the king of Thailand has only 3 pairs of shoes...and I'm right up there with him...on a bike!). OK you get the point, a catalogue of the absolute useless crap that is in my panniers being hauled up the mountainsides of this country doesn't make for the most exciting reading. I just wanted to be clear about the feeling stupid part.
I've ridden some steep mountain passes in my time. And there is one thing they all seem to have in common that is lacking in Thailand...foothills. The nice little rollers that introduce you to the mountains ahead. The ones that say, "Welcome, friend, you are going to have to get it together soon because in a little while your gonna be in a world of hurt"...like a puff of air on a still day that warns of the impending storm. Here in the paddies of nowhere, minding my own business, the looming hill just ahead seemed to say, "What the hell are you doing on a bicycle?" It's a question I've asked myself over the past 3 days many times. There are no foothills here. From rice paddie to steep incline, the road changes incline so fast that I have to rapidly downshift into my lowest gear to avoid losing all momentum. The roads start steep and stay steep. Or worse they tend to get steeper. On day one of my re-introduction to cycling, after 5 hours of HARD riding, the hills just went crazy. Surrounded by the most amazing scenery of steep cliff sides and tumbling valley walls and coffee plantations, the road just shot UP. The switchback ahead curled around the bend recalling a paved spiral staircase. I was already exhausted and sore and my knees were having discussions with my common sense. I just buckled. I had run out of wimpers long ago and just shouted out a big F#%$$& to the world who didn't seem to care a whole lot. I was still 2 km from the summit and the sun was starting to head down. I was beaten...done...paralyzed. I stood there for the longest time as mopeds crawled up and cars groaned in first gear spewing black clouds. I got it together and started pushing my bike up the "staircase" having to stop every 10 steps or so to catch my breath. My pulse hovered around 160-180 just pushing Presta and her mobile home up this road. Now it's acually harder to push 80 pounds uphill than it is to cycle it, but when your legs and the gear ratio on your bike meet their limits you get off and push. I don't know how long the last 2 km took to walk but the carrot of the town/lodging/and food kept me going. As I walked, I also considered the other thing that most roads (outside of Thailand) have in common...some sort of engineering. The sort that puts turns in roads so as to make the ascent easier...or at least doable. Maybe it's cheaper to just go straight up the hillside though, as that seems to be the common theme in roadbuilding here.
As the milemarker read zero and the summit came into view, the town didn't. I was met with an amazing view of mountains and trees and valleys as far as I could see. I was also met with frustration. The light was fading and I was done. To the right the road stretched uphill. To the left a steep drop to a town and hopefully food. Yeah, I went left and what had taken me hours to achieve had been erased in a mind-blowingly fast and scary descent in just about 5-10 minutes (a descent that I would have to climb the next morning!).
What occurred just outside of that town strengthened my faith in humanity as there was no store or market for food down here, and no lodging. I was brought to the house of a man in 50's who set up a place for me to sleep on his floor and cooked me the best meal of rice and some green beans that I've ever eaten. After dinner, when I bit into the bar of imported chocolate I just started giggling like a fool. I'm not sure why. And he smiled along. The connection we shared was limited by language and culture and yet it was deep because it transcended both. He was a human being helping fellow man and it is a lesson I hope to remember for a long time. It washed away a lot of the pain (that and the HOT! shower) and gave me courage to get up the next day and do it all over again.
I'M NOW NEARING LAOS AND MAY BE OFF LINE FOR A FEW DAYS...OR DEAD...SO STAY TUNED.

Body Fluids or So THIS is Why I Left Kauai

A friend has talked about bloggers block. It is real. This is how I combat it...I appologize wholeheartedly.
Why the hell have I been getting sick so often? I asked the question again all night last night as I kept myself up coughing and sputtering. Then it all started to piece together...like an infected puzzle; the lack of vigorous physical exercise, the stress of crowded cities, crowded trains, and crowded planes and basically just crowds. But the biggest piece of the puzzle was the hacking woman, coughing moistly and incessantly, on the Petri Express to Hanoi, Viet Nam. She kept coughing without covering her mouth but since it was on my sister I felt pretty OK about it all. Instant Karma I guess as Samantha is healthy and back in the US and I am stuck here coughing up pieces of lung tissue.
Viet Nam has had several outbreaks of bird flu this year and as much as I think the whole bird flu pandemonium (not pandemic) is a media driven non-event {be afraid and support pfeizer and the economy with a trip to the doctor to get an immunization} the fear of it entered my mind as pieces of crap keep getting hacked up from deep inside my body. As an aside...I know!...there are countries in SE Asia that now have millions of outdating immunizations and they are trying to decide wheather to spend millions of very limited health dollars on a "maybe" when there are so many critical issues facing them that are NOT maybe. Remember Y2K!! Anyway, the crap that is coming out of me is a lot like...crap...thick green bird crap. I think I've got a case of bird crap flu...the first case noted anywhere! Call the CDC and have them analyze my phlegm (by the way, I used to live in a house with a guy who did that for a living...analyze peoples' phlegm...he hated his job) and it can be confirmed. I swear, if I hacked up one and spit it onto your windshield you'd think a bird had just flown by...with diarrhea.
Phlegm. The laymans term for what respiratory therapists and medical professionals call sputum. It has always been my least favorite bodily fluid. It is referred to us (read ER or ICU nurses) who use the term "professional" a little more irreverently, as lung butter. In many, many ways it's not the worst of the effluents that spill from our bodies...certainly not the smelliest. That prize would have to go either melena ( a very nasty runny, black stool of digested blood) or emesis (plain old barf). A little tangent here to meditate on the word stool. It has always been a mystery to me how two nouns could have the same name and be so different. For one is something you step on and the other is the last thing you'd ever want to step on! But where was I...oh, vomit. The word can be a noun or a verb but either way it is a powerful thing. I mean, when you smell someone elses poop, do you suddenly have to poop too? Everytime I clean up a trauma patients' barf encrusted hair (and sure I generalize here but trauma=alcohol ingestion and alcohol ingestion=a recent pizza meal...trust me I'm a nurse), I start to wretch. I've never actually vomited on the job but I've wretched a lot...with some serious close calls! And even hearing someone throwing up (having an emesis lacks punch don't you think? I mean, it sounds like they could be ordering something from a cocktail menu...OK not really) kind of makes you curl your toes right? You set your jaw hoping you won't be next. That's why I hate it when a poor sick patient gets those watery, bugged out eyes and desperately says, "Oh God, I think I'm going to throw up!" I fear the ER chain reaction as I reach for the amplifier that is their barf bucket. It's like a megaphone for the gastro-intestinally challenged to broadcast their condition. I've never measured how far the sound actually carries but half a football field down a narrow hospital hallway would not be exagerating. The heart monitors of those unlucky patients closest, speed up...it's like an epicenter of nausea spreading outwardly and dissipating as it gets quieter. It is an odd thing really as we don't react that way when we hear a burp...or a fart. So yes, vomit is way up on my list of least favorite bodily fluids.
Melena is just as bad. When one digests their own blood and then passes it, (and why God, does it almost always have to be incontinent?) there is an odor that is indescribably foul. It is a good thing that a patient in this condition is so desparately ill and needing emergent care. Otherwise the instinct {called self-preservation} of every nurse, to barely slide the door open, slip in a bucket of soapy water and a can of glade(with the instructions to hit the call light when finished) would take over. Even in the most caring RN. So yes, again, Melana is not a favorite.
Sputum, however is the worst. This is a personal ranking of course as we nurses in the ER have this discussion not infrequently. For me the greyish creamy color, and most of all the tenacious consistancy of sputum, gets me gagging all the time. A slimy and thick gob of lung butter can alternatively slide down a napkin onto your unsuspecting arm. Yet once there it will fight all the water pressure in the hospital to hang on to it. Yeah, it's like that.
Oh I could go on reminiscing...but since no one is left reading this thing (I hope), why should I bother. And even if it isn't what I wanted to blog about, at all, it has helped me to remember one of the reasons (OK 3) for leaving nursing for hopefully cleaner pastures. It also, unfortunately for you, has helped to break up the bloggers block like a good old enema...but I'll save that story for later.

GERMS!

OK all kidding aside...maybe my sister has something here. I'm sick as a dog once again and figure its those damn germs. I awoke with abd cramps and diarrhea and have been coughing for the past 2 days and now habve bronchitis!! Back to bed!

How to Travel?

Alone again!!! My sister and nephew are somewhere over the South China Sea right now and I'm 5000 miles from home and back in Bangkok happily sitting at Taewez Guest House wrapped up in a blanket of polluted fishy air and the familiar sound of tuk-tuks. When I left here three weeks ago I was fantasizing about shooting every passing tuk-tuk as they roared by in a blaze of blue smoke. After Hanoi they've regained their cute status. I do not miss the constant honking of Viet Nam. But I must say the unbelievable frenetic energy of that country, and Hanoi in particular, makes Bangkok seem like a retreat for PTSD sufferers. I'm almost happy to be back in Bangkok...almost. There is a warm and humble greeting that Thais give you upon meeting. A simple "yo" or "whattup" or "hey" in my world is transformed in Thailand into a kind of reverence for the person you are meeting. Hands in prayer position and a slight bow while uttering a soft "sawadee kap" are the mechanics behind it. What gives it the humanity and warmth is the eye contact and the sincerety of the accompanying big smile. I feel truely welcomed. Sawadee kap could mean "my ancestors would have whooped the asses of your ancestors had they met" and it wouldn't matter...I'd still melt. Upon boarding the airplane to Thailand from Hanoi I was sawadee kah'd by a beautiful Thai flight attendant. The past 2 weeks of the Viet Namese greeting, "Xin Chao", happily melted into the past. Into the nebulous and watery world of memory and unread journals. Xin chao is said in the same way we would say "yo" or "hey" with all the intended depth and connectedness. It was nice to be leaving Viet Nam even if I was bound for the crowds of Bangkok. For even in this city of 10 million (people/cars/tuk-tuks/carcinogens) the people are willing to connect. The Viet Namese less so (again, except for Phan, whom we met up with in Hanoi and took us to dinner, and was even warmer so disregard everything I've just written). Sometimes I wondered if it was because we (the U.S.) dropped over 5 million TONS of bombs on the place, and 80 MILLION gallons of toxic defoliants like agent orange. Or when the war was said and done, somewhere between 2 and 3 million Viet Namese were dead. And in the south those we just abandoned were left to be killed or "re-educated" by those in the north. Sometimes I thought about these things...when a Viet Namese wasn't too warm and fuzzy. But I have to say that we were treated amazingly well for such a recent and terrible history. Of course we were mercilessly ripped off by everyone who could. But that had more to do with being rich than being American as every tourist I talked with had similar experiences. My sister called it "the revenge of the Viet Namese" and she was able to use that phrase frequently. The Viet Namese were able to exact a painful, slow, unceasing barrage of the senses and wallet in much the same way they won the war. Small attacks, never full on. Hit and run so you only realize the damage after it has occurred. Like the time I traded in a book for another one and then actually bargained my way to a higher price than the seller originally quoted. Everyone laughed as I pulled out my dong (easy now gutterheads, dong is the currency over here!) and half way down the street I groaned out loud as I realized that "the revenge" once again had hit my wallet. Actually it's all just economics and I really think that, just like the Cambodians, everyone here wants to move on and focus on the present and the future...the past just hurts too much. BUT...this isn't what I wanted to blog about today...at all.
I need your help... some feedback. My sister and I have been having a running dialogue about travel. How to travel and what is it that makes it worthwhile and what actually is the best way to do it. One way to NOT do it is to have one person, i.e. my sister, pay for the entire trip. Don't get me wrong here...it's been great having an all expenses paid journey for the past 3 weeks. The problem is that she with the pocket book usually gets to make the final decisions. Samantha hasn't played that card at all, it's just that it is hard to make the person paying for everything stay in a place she really doesn't want to. The weird part of the scenario is that I always want to stay in places that would save her tons of money but also be a whole lot less comfortable. The second class 19 hour petri dish of a train ride is a good example (pee puddles and all). Another example is food. Viet Nam has millions of noodle stalls and street vendors where hygeine takes a back seat to "adventure". Hanoi has these street corner places where plastic step stools used as seats spill out to the curb. Kegs are out in the open pumping up the cheapest beer in the country and the corners look like a vibrant and fun way to pass the time and eat a $2.00 meal. We gave these a wide berth and dined in a beautiful french colonial restaurant that served the best ratatouille stuffed aubergine this side of Paris. Beautiful decor, great service, awesome food and a decent little house red (a bit woody maybe but with a nice finish) to wash it all down. OK, you get my point. When in France...go big! When in Hanoi sit on a stool, shoo away the occasional cockroach and eat chilies like you'll never poop again! So we discussed these diferences in travel style and tried to compromise. I whined enough about the horrors of clean sheets, air-cionditioned rooms, maid service and swimming pools to get MY way the last night of the joint trip. It is here that things went wrong...terribly wrong. Maybe it was the fact that we had been on the move all day with taxis and airplanes and schedules. Maybe it was the fact that we had stayed up till midnight the night before waiting for the hotel (mid-range compromise) staff to break the door knob off our room door so we could get in (we locked the keys inside). I think it was the combination as well as the not too distant memory of a train ride that still gives my sister scalp scratching nightmares. It all led to the inevitable and only argument of the entire trip.
I got to chose our final nights lodging in Bangkok. At $7.00/night (for the family room mind you) it's the cheapest place we've stayed in Asia (although I prefer the term inexpensive). The room we reserved had 2 large beds, air-con, and a private bath. The only problem was that the staff reserved it for the wrong day. Fancy foot work (giving us someone elses reserved room before they got there) ensured us a place to sleep. This room had two big-ish beds, AC, and a bathroom just down the hall. Samantha was definitely "NOT HAPPY" but what could we do? The place was full and we were exhausted. Samantha went off to the bathroom and came back livid. The toilets were squat style (bonus in my book!) and some splash-back ended up on her feet. Not a big deal unless the water system for the entire neighborhood was shut down...which it was. Add to this scenario the afforementioned germ phobia and things begin to teeter precariously. She was realizing that for the next two days she would be airborn, sleepy (having had only 3 hours of sleep), cranky, dirty, unwashed and possibly stinky...with pee on her feet. She was getting less happy the more she pondered. Her comment, "If I had my way I can guarantee you we would have stayed in a a neighborhood where the water system is not shut down!" didn't help my edgy tired mood. I was taking it personally as I not only chose this place, I love it. The smell of fish from the bustling market across the street has the odor of authenticity. Plus it masks the stench of the sewer gas! It was past midnight now and we were all surly and the room was hot. It was time for sleep. I turned on the AC and crawled in bed. When the air-con unit failed to respond I thought 'hey at least we have a good strong fan', but wisely chose silence knowing this would be the proverbial straw breaking her back. She doesn't sleep well without the room being cool. Her response surprised me though as she chuckled in agony; broken and reserved to an evil night of dirty teeth and sweaty sleepless tossing and turning...with pee on her feet.
As an aside, I woke up at 8:30 and the water had been restored. I took a cold shower (who needs hot water when it's so hot out anyway?) thinking how much I love budget travel and the joys of having rock bottom expectations. The handheld shower hose, if precariously balanced on the pipe coming out of the wall, allowed me to rinse my hair using both hands. The fact that I had to do so bent over at a 90 degree angle and putting my face within inches of the squatter ("hey, the skid marks are almost gone!") in no way altered my outlook.
I think there might be a problem here. Maybe my other sister Martha can find a diagnosis in the DSM-4 (ultra-low self-esteem disorder?, happy with horrible conditions condition?, self-effacement syndrome?) and email me some treatment options. God I hope not as I just got a whiff of the buckets of snails and eels from the market and I'm recalling the coast of France. Travel is good...it's all good!