Back in my arms again, my beloved dog Zambo on our farm

I am safely back in the United States, on my farm in Indiana.  One of the reasons I am posting this is because several people sent emails to me, worrying about me.  They had not read a new posting in a while, and they were worried that something had happened, like, as one person said, whether I was ‘in a Thai jail’.  Well, I am not.

I am on my farm, plowing and planting.  I have planted 20 hazelnut trees, onions, sunchokes, many greens, potatoes and other root crops.  It is still too early for the big three of corn, beans, and squash.  We did not get a killing frost this spring, so all the blossoms on my fruit trees will make it.  If you look in the background of this picture, you can see a pear and plum tree in full blossom.  My problem now is “Where are the bees?”  I see none on the trees.  I may have to start keeping bees again.

If you look in the background of this picture, you will see a black contraption to the right of me.  That is my almost complete solar food dryer.   I hope to be using it later this summer.

I will be traveling some more, this summer and winter.  If it warrants it, I may blog again.

Best to all of you.

Arriving back in Bangkok, March 16th, 2010

Low points:
The street hustle and hassle in the urban areas of Vietnam.  The dangerous urban traffic in Vietnam, the noise level, and having to deal with the official, sanctioned corruption in Vietnam.  The rural people of Vietnam were wonderful.  I cannot say the same for many of the urban Vietnamese who deal regularly with travelers.

About my bike:
I rode a 20″, 24-speed Dahon foldable.  It mostly held up, except for the front axle collapse.  I had to get a new front wheel.  Because of the smaller tires, this Dahon was not adequate on rough roads or the mountains.  But in the end, it got me thru it all.

I just had one flat tire on the whole trip, which is amazingly few.  I think this was because I used knobby teflon tires for most of the trip.  After I wore out my two original tires, I replaced them with the knobbys I had brought with me.  Knobby tires are not for speed.  But at the speeds that I ride, it doesn’t matter so much.  They do whine on the road at higher speeds though.  Besides their thickness, they give me better protection by lifting the tire body higher off the road from glass and metal.

I went thru 6 brake pads.  This is easy to do when you are riding in the mountains.  I have worn out two of my Nashbar panniers.  It is time for me to pay real money for the best panniers in the market, the Ortleibs.

I used my leather sewing awl several times a week, constantly repairing and reinforcing everything made of canvas and  cloth.  It is a necessary travel tool for me.  I probably used every tool in my one pannier dedicated to bicycle maintenance.   I found that every morning I would have to re tighten my pannier racks and fenders on my bike.  The daily bounces and jolts would shake the tightest of bolts loose, even if they had lock washers on them.

Several people have asked me about how much money I spent on this trip. It is pretty easy to measure since I used my ATM card the whole way.

1.  For the 65 days I was pedaling, I spent $2200.  This includes all rooms, food, tickets, immigration fees, museum entries, and the paid side trip to Hai Long, the ferries and river boats, additional gear, and repairs.  The most I spent on a room was $28, and the least was $3.

2.  My plane flight was about $1150.

3.  I will probably spend $500 on gifts and clothing for myself.

From Eastern Thailand

March 13th, 2010

Warning: This story is gross, without any photos. Read at your own risk.

I have been reluctant to publish this one. Part of me thinks, ‘This is in bad taste.’ Another part of me thinks, ‘Dwight, you have been in bad taste your whole life, so why change now? Go for it.’

Let me tell you a few things that were NOT the grossest things on this trip.

1. Watching people in NE Thailand eat 4″ long deep-fried water bugs.

2. Returning to my hotel in Hanoi after an evening of beer-drinking with an Aussie professor and I stumble down an alley to see some men barbecuing a puppy on a skewer.  (hard to believe that this would not be the grossest)

Before I go any further, I am going to quote Jack Nicholson. He said that there are 3 rules that old men should abide by:

1. Always show your kids and grandkids that you love them.

2. Never pass up a bathroom

3. Never waste an erection

Well, I am NOT going to write about #3, to your great relief, or disappointment.

It’s #2 that I will try to express.

I am at an Internet cafe in the Mekong Delta when I suddenly feel nature call. No warning at all. Only nature is screaming this time. I explain to the people that I need to use the toilet. An old man leads me out back. But he does not take me to any of the small buildings. Instead, he leads me to a pond that is about 8 meters wide, fetid grey in color, and smelling to high heaven.

Now, I am in a hurry. My walk is stiff and rigid, and my pucker factor is high. To put it simply, I really do not want to shit my pants. Every old person’s nightmare. Well, the old man points to this rickety little bridge, just a plank, that leads up to a platform covered with a few modesty palm fronds. I have no choice but to scramble up this steep slope without any hand rail. There, about 1.5 meters above the stinking pool, I must squat. Quickly too. Nature and pressure does the rest. SPLASH! Some of the water splashes onto my backside. GROSS!

As I am pulling up my pants, I hear a serious thrashing coming from below. I look down and I see that my floater is being torn apart and eaten alive by a massive swarm of catfish!  It didn’t have a chance!!!

In a minute my shit is gone.

Suddenly, I am sick to my stomach. The old man is waiting for me. But I am dizzy. I must descend this plank, without any rails, above this swarm of catfish. Oh I fear that I am going to fall in! I am truly dizzy and sick. I clamor down the plank and I almost fall in. But I leap to the edge onto dry ground and fall forward. As a retired mountain climber, I know that it is always tougher coming down a mountain than going up it.

I walk back to the Internet Cafe.  But for the rest of the day, I am profoundly puzzled.

Here is the line of my illogic.

Man eats catfish.

Man shits.

Catfish eats man’s shit.

Catfish grows.

Man eats catfish.

Get the idea of where I am going? Now to the best of my understanding, man AND catfish are NOT photosynthetic creatures. So where are the energy inputs here? It seems that this is a violation of the 1st law of thermodynamics: Mr. Farley, my excellent HS physics teacher, taught me that Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed.

I start to think that I may be onto something here. Maybe I have just solved the food-energy problem. Patent it and I’ll make billions. Fat city here I come.

But that is for when I return to the USA. For here I am sitting in an Internet Cafe in SE Asia late into the evening. I have drank too much beer and I have only had one meal today, after riding a long distance on my bike. I am REALLY HUNGRY.

Time to go down to the open market and see what is available. And what am I going to eat?

Well I don’t know. But I will tell you one thing.

You can bet your sweet ass it won’t be no catfish!!!

March 10th, 2010

Siem Reap, Cambodia

An incredible meal of amok and a seafood salad

There is some fine dining in Siem Reap. Most of the time I eat in the open markets with the other peasants. I can find some great local foods there. But I am trying the national dishes of the countries I visit, and checking out a few recommended restaurants. So I have ordered the national dish of Cambodia, Amok. It is a fish baked in a mild curry and coconut sauce inside banana leaves, with various herbs and vegetables, many of which I have never had before. Along with that I have a seafood salad on lightly steamed veggies and greens, again with unknown herbs. I am amazed from the first bite.

A new vegetable for me, Cho

I have discovered a new vegetable, CHO. It looks a bit like a chopped off artichoke. From it you pluck out these embedded seeds and peel them. Inside them is a savory nut like seed. I am munching on these as I travel.

Should I have accepted her conditional proposal?

And yes, I get yet another marriage proposal. I am SO popular! They love me for my youthful bod and good looks, of course. A young lady sells me a bottle of cold water and then begins interrogating me.

No, I am not married, I answer.

Ok. I marry you, but only if you cut hair off. I not marry woman. I marry man.

Ohhh? Okay. I will cut my hair off. Then we marry. Okay.

I go live with you after marriage. I be good wife.  Work hard.  Then we have baby. Just one. Tall baby, like you.

Me tall? But at 5′ 10″ here, I have often found myself to be the tallest person in a room of 50.  She was about 4′ 10″ and 85 lbs.  But wow, this woman gets to the point.

“How old are you?”  I ask.

“24.  How old you?”

“46, ”  I lie thru my teeth.  I didn’t want to end this conversation this instant.

But I remember my dear mother’s advice. She once said to me “Son, before you take a bride, there is one thing I really think you should do.  We always did in our generation, and I think you should too.  I really think that you should know her name first.”

So, taking my dear mother’s advice, I look Ms. water vendor woman directly in the eyes.  Then I muster up the courage to ask the question.

“And what is your name?”

“Myai” she says, or something like that. I ask her to write it down and she does. But it is in Khmer Script. I look at her name. I cannot recognize a single letter. But it does look strangely familiar. For it looks exactly like a bunch of earthworms doing tantric yoga. And I’d recognize that anyplace.

We make plans for a lifetime.  Then I give her my email address.  She looks puzzled.  She does not know what email is.  Ohhh?  And then I ride off into the sunset, wondering just what I have left behind.

But shortly ahead, I witness the one little piggie who did NOT go to the market.

One little piggie did NOT go to the market!

Two guys pass me on small motorcycles carrying FOUR and FIVE  75 to 100 lb. LIVE pigs! I oink you not.  The pigs are strapped upside down on the cycles with their hooves flailing the air, squealing and smelling to high heaven.

The driver of the first motorcycle is actually sitting on a live pig as he passes me. I didn’t learn that in driver’s ed.  They get ahead of me.  Then I see some turmoil.  I watch a pink pig go running across a dry rice field. He has escaped! They stop the motorcycles, batten down the remaining pigs, and go chasing the pig into the field.

But this is no dumb piggie. He is feeling his wild boar genes today and he is gone. No amount of cajoling will bring him back. I find myself totally rooting for the pig.

And for the last photo, here come de mattress delivery man, on a 100cc motorcycle.

Here come the mattress delivery man!

The Temple of Banteay Srei

Siem Reap is where the Angor Wat temple complex is located. Usually people refer to it as ‘Angor Wat’. But Angor Wat is just the the largest and best preserved of the many temple complexes here.

I do not want to repeat the readily available information about all of these temples and ruins here. But here are some points that stood out to me.

1. The temple complex is simply immense. I bought a 3-day pass for $40, and I needed every hour of it. I rode my bicycle 40 km on the first day just to visit the temples in the Angor Wat complex. This included some serious hiking and climbing. By the end of the day, I was really tired. On the 2nd day, it was a 70 km round trip to visit the Banteay Srei Temple to the northeast. This was entirely worth it. The detail and quality of the work was extraordinary. On my 3rd day, I rode 40 km round trip to visit the Rolous temple complex to the east. I had no regrets afterward about making this trip either.

2. Around 1100 AD, Angor Wat supported about 1 million people, while London and Rome each had about 15,000 people. Yet by 1600, no one lived at Angor Wat. Such is life, and empires.

3. If you want to see the wonders of the world before you die, I think the Siem Reap temple complex should be on your ‘must see’ list. I wandered thru and climbed them for 3 days, and never got bored. Only tired. I still have found nothing that has taken my breath away like that spring day in 1970 in the Andes when I walked around the ridge and Machu Pichu revealed itself to me. I found myself saying  ‘oh my god my god oh my god’. But Angor Wat will truly get your attention. We should not miss it in our short lives.

THE LAND MINE MUSEUM.

Mine field exhibit at the land mines museum

On the way back from the Banteay Srei temple, I stopped at the land mine museum.

Aki Ra, founder of the land mine museum

How about this guy for a Nobel Peace Prize?

Anyone ever heard of Aki Ra? Aki Ra is not sure how old he is. He thinks he was born in 1970. His family was most likely killed off by the Khmer Rouge. When he was 10 years old, The Khmer Rouge ‘drafted’ him. It was enter now, or summary execution. We would not have had a chance to know about him had he refused, would we? As one of his duties, Aki Ra was forced to lay 1000’s of land mines. He became an expert at planting them.
And then Mr. Ra, who had no family, formal education, tutoring or guidance, had a revelation that what he was doing was wrong. He had seen the results of the mines the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese, and the US had planted. And he personally, without any support or funding, began to disarm mines. They estimate that Mr. Ra has disarmed over 50,000 mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO). No one else comes close to having disarmed that much ordinance. (Think King of the Hurt Locker). Mr. Ra appears to be able to identify ordinance from any of the major manufacturers, Russia, China, the USA, Italy, and Vietnam. He has to be able to recognize exactly who built the mine and what kind it is. With one mistake, Mr. Ra is no more.
Mr. Ra estimates that it costs at least 100 times more to disarm a mine than to build and plant it. If you measure in costs the people killed by the mines and disarming them, then I imagine that this is a low estimate.
The true horror of land mines is that their war does not end. The mines, and the blasts, continue long after the official hostilities have ended. The victims continue to increase.  They kill far more civilians than military, and most of the civilians are children.  The latest anti-personnel mines are built to wound, not kill.  The manufacturers know that a wounded soldier disables the military much more than a dead one.  This explains all the children without legs here.   
On his own, Mr. Ra bought land and began displaying the types of land mines planted in Cambodia. He built his own museum. In it there are 1000’s of pieces of disarmed ordinance. He has trained 100’s of people on how to disarm mines. When he takes his students out to the countryside for on-site training, these are not your normal field trips. They pay attention. Mr. Ra has a large library with pictures and explanations of what to do with each type of mine. He has even built a sample ‘minefield’ for you to observe.
What has gotten my attention is simply the number of people in Cambodia who are missing limbs. You see them along the roadsides, in the parks, the marketplaces. I have been unable to take pictures of them. I feel too gawky and embarrassed to do it. So I am sparing you the photos.
I generally have strict rules about beggars: If the person is not handicapped, I give nothing at all, with the possible exception of food. But how you look in the eyes of a child who has had his legs blown off and refuse them? I can not.

So, I have come to the conclusion that I support a complete ban on the production, storage, sale, and use of land mines, unequivocally, for the whole planet. Only 13 countries have refused to sign the land mine renunciation treaty. Those 13 include 9 Asian nations, plus China, Russia, the USA and Cuba.
I asked some questions while I was there. How about a compromise, where the land mines produced would just have fuses that lasted, say 3 years? What are the problems with this?
Well,
1. How do you know it will just last 3 years?
2. How are you going to differentiate it from an older mine?
3. How can you possibly test it, except to wait 3 years?

Allowing short term mines opens the gates to cheating in many ways. We have banned poison gas in warfare. I feel we are long overdue to ban all land mines too.

The 2-directional Tonle Sap River

#27 from SE Asia
March 7th, 2010
along the Tonle Sap river

I leave Phnom Penh at sunrise before the heat of the day. The road traffic is not frantic. I stay on highway 5, on the south side of the Tonle Sap River and Tonle Sap Lake. Within 10 miles, the traffic and street noise has dropped to the level of a country road. The drill is clear to me. Get in as many miles as early as I can, before the heat of the day. I am doing 3 gallons of liquids a day. I will have to do this all the way back to Bangkok, for winter is over here. It is now getting hot. My goal is 90+ kms ahead, to Kampong Chhnang (that is honestly how they spell it in English), where the Tonle Sap River meets the Tonle Sap Lake.

Along the way, I stop at villages without electricity. But I can still get iced drinks. They have daily deliveries of ice here. I can remember as a child that my grandmother actually had an íce box’, where she would receive a daily block of ice for her refrigerator from the íce man’. .

one generator is charging up the village

So what do they do for lighting? A local man has big single cylinder diesel engine attached to a generator. Every morning people bring to him their discharged 12 volt car batteries. When they are all wired together in parallel, he fires up his generator and charges them all afternoon. They come with bicycles and pick them up at the end of the day.

They do not just use them for lighting. They have 12 volt TVs. And what do they watch? ALL the women in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia watch soap operas. I swear. ALL of them. In every shop, restaurant, business, there is a soap opera on. And the men? Kick-boxing. I am confident that soon, the human genome project is going to identify the genome cluster for watching soap operas and sports.

I have been consistently amazed at what these people can move with a 100cc motorcycle.  Do you think this would pass US highway inspection?  I assure you that I have seen much worse here.

This would meet federal inspections, right?

As I ride north on a Friday afternoon, I see maybe 40 men gathered around a TV in a cafeteria, watching a kick-boxing championship. Their reactions are identical to US men watching boxing. I notice that most of the men are from 45 to 60 years old. A Cambodian in Phnom Penh told me earlier that any man in this age bracket now alive in Cambodia HAD to be active in the Khmer Rouge. He said that if they did not support the Khmer Rouge, they were summarily executed. He said that if they were not killed, they were doing the killing. I look at their faces and I wonder, ‘which ones?”

I read about the Tonle Sap River in WHEN THE RIVERS RUN DRY. This is a great book that researches how damming and draining off the world’s major rivers have changed them so. The Tonle Sap is unlike any other river in the world. It is the only river to flow in both directions. For 7 months a year, it flows into the Mekong River and out to the South China Sea. But for 5 months, the Mekong River rises so fast during the monsoon season that it backs up into the Tonle Sap and refills the Tonle Sap lake. This shallow lake may quadruple its size, flooding the surrounding woodlands and rice paddies. The plants and the people have adopted their lives to this annual cycle.

The Tonle Sap Lake is also the richest fresh water fishery in the world. On good years it produces up to 3 million tons of fish, fully 4% of the world’s annual catch. All this from a relatively small lake. (NOTE: No wonder the national dish is Amok. It is a fish wrapped in a banana leaf, baked with light curries, coconut, vegetables and herbs I have never tasted had before. I had a serving of it tonight and it was extraordinary).

There is something else extraordinary about the Tonle Sap River. For a while, the river stops flowing and just sits still. It then deposits a lot of water-logged organic matter at the bottom. This material gets silted over and begins degrading anaerobically into methane. When the river reverses course, it sometimes does so violently, stirring up the bottom and causing large amounts a methane gas to be released. At this time in the evening the Cambodians in Phnom Penh will launch many small boats with burning candles into the river. When the boats hit pockets of methane, they explode. 1000’s of spectators cheer at this. But the Cambodians have a different explanation. They say that the river dragons have awakened and are angry. I like their explanation better.

I haved not seen this phenomena myself.  I have only heard of it and read about it.  But I would like to witnessit some time.

The Tuol Sleng Prison Museum

Post #26 from SE Asia  — the Khmer Rouge
March 6th, 2010
pulling into Phnom Penh, Kampuchea

I could feel the difference immediately riding in Cambodia.  (They call it Kampuchea.)  Slower drivers, much less honking, the roads not nearly so dangerous.  More smiles.  I knew that I was back in the ”Buddhist belt’”.
You have surely heard of the disasters that Kampuchea has been thru.  Just watch THE KILLING FIELDS again to get an idea.  Briefly, after the bombing of Cambodia destabilized the country, there was a civil war where the Khmer Rouge came to power in April of 1975.  In the next 4 years, the Khmer Rouge proceeded to kill 2 million people, 1/4th of the entire population in one of the most insanely genocidal unleashings of this century.  Anyone with any education, who spoke any foreign language, was immediately executed.

It went far beyond that.  The regime on day one changed the calendar to YEAR ZERO, banned all money, and ordered the immediate evacuation of ALL cities on Cambodia.  All two million residents of Phnom Penh had 72 hours to go to the countryside and grow rice or face execution.  Anyone found within the city after 72 hours would be shot.  And that is what happened.  The Khmer Rouge army stayed behind and looted the city of everything.  But for 4 years, a city of 2 million stood vacant and without human life.  Hard to believe.

The translated rules of Tuol Sleng

The story gets worse.  I did visit the Tuol Sleng Museum.  It had been a high school before the revolution.  The Khmer Rouge converted it to a prison and torture chamber.  They kept accurate records including photos of all the inmates.  When the Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979, they found the prison intact.  Of the 21,000 prisoners who were held here, only 12 are known to have survived.  After I saw this, and all the grisly evidence, I decided not to go visit the killing fields 20 km to the southwest.  I had seen enough skulls, bones, and photos to last me a while.  I have already visited Dachau, Auschwitz, Birkenau, the Anne Frank house, and the Rio del Sangre in the Dominican Republic.  I know what we humans are capable of.  I came out with a feeling of pity for what the Cambodians have been thru.  Every last family lost members, and lots of them.  The actual fighting and hostilities went on sporadically until 1998.  This is recent.
There are many NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations — the do-gooders) here now, doing what they can for education and reconciliation.  They seem to be making a difference.  You have the sense that the remaining people are so relieved.  Just happy to begin to live anything approaching a normal life.  One-half the population is younger than 17, so I am a very old person here.  There are lots of orphans, and many people with missing limbs.  I have a general policy to not give anything to beggars but food.  But this does not apply to the amputees, and especially the kids who have stepped on land mines.
I can only hope that these gentle people here get their deserved peace.  They sure are peaceful and gentle on the street and in their interactions.  They have paid so high a price.

Coming into Phnom Penh, in the middle of the street...

Post #25  from SE Asia
March 4th, 2010
Time and travel

Time and Travel:

“‘Inside every old man is a young man wondering ‘Just what the fuck happened anyhow?”

Einstein’s general theory of relativity states that the faster you go, the slower time passes for you.  My corollary to that is that the more you travel, the slower time goes.  I personally know this to be true.
I have been traveling now for about 10 weeks.  Yet, personally, it seems like this is all that I have ever done.  Every day is crammed with so many new experiences, events, locations, people, cultures, foods, languages, all coming at me so fast, that it seems like I have been traveling for years.  I am learning so much about everything.  In a 2 month period, I now know Bangkok, the Mekong River, Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Dien Bien Phu, Hanoi, Hue, Saigon, the Mekong Delta, The Tonle Sap basin, Phnom Penh, 4 new countries, and beginning tomorrow for 4 days, Angor Watt.

I remember when I was in my 30’s, when I was working overtime, raising kids, paying a mortgage.  It personally seemed to me like I went from age 30 to 40 in 2 years.  It scared me.  Older folks have told me that the older you get, the faster the years go by.  I find that if I am doing about the same thing every day, time, and life, flies by.  Does this make any sense to you?  Because it is a personal truth to me.
It is one of the reasons I travel, to fill my life with excitement and joy and simply interesting experiences.  I know all too well that life is just wonderful, but far too short.  But a trip like the one I am on grabs time by the balls and stops him cold.  And if time stops, then you live forever.  Right?

So I am already planning my next trip.  I am thinking on flying to Indonesia around late November and visiting Sumatra, Borneo, Malaysia, and work my way up the South Thailand Peninsula.  When I get to Bangkok, I may, or may not, build up a bicycle to go up to Chiang Mai, in NW Thailand.  After that, I would go to Myanmar.  And if I have the time, cross over Bangladesh and go to Southern, Dravidian India.  If anyone is interested in joining me next year for a section of this trip, do let me know.

I am traveling alone now.  I did invite a few friends and former students to join me for parts of the trip.  I thought until just before I left that I would rendezvous with a friend in Thailand.  But for various good reasons, they all canceled out.  So what do I do, stay home?  No.  I have a gut feeling that if I don’t do it now, I may never do it.
The clear advantage of traveling alone is your sheer freedom to make your schedule and destinations, and change it if you want.  That is a BIG advantage.  The disadvantage is not having anyone to share it with.  This is not entirely true because you can meet such interesting travelers on the road.

Traveling alone allows for serendipity.  If something magical happens, you can follow it, without asking permission from anyone else.  I had no idea that I would be going to Hai Long Bay or deep into the Mekong Delta.  But others told me not to miss it.  And I am glad that I have that flexibility in my life to be able to change my mind.  Or to quote Henry David Thoreau again, “A foolish consistency is the hobgobblin of little minds.”
A disadvantage of traveling alone is that you really have to watch out for yourself, because there is no one else there for you.  I am acutely aware of this in many ways.  I must watch my own back.  I am very careful when riding on the roads.  But it goes beyond that.  If I am in a restaurant and need to go to the men’s room, I carry whatever I have with me to the men’s room.  I will not leave anything on the table while I am gone.  When I am walking in the street or visiting a museum or archaeological site, all my gear and valuables are strapped and zipped to me.  I have learned this over the years.

Having said that, it sure seems like I am sharing a lot with others on this blog.  It turns out that this blog has become very important to me.  It is now my major way of communicating to my friends and loved ones.
On the road, I meet ‘really’ interesting people from around the world.  Great conversations in bars and restaurants, in museums and historic and archaeological sites.  You meet a lot of people who have spent their lives living outside of the box doing exciting things their whole lives.  I am very comfortable with these people.

The White tax

A friend of mine, George, who is currently bicycling in Africa, writes of the ‘white tax’.  Yes, it is real in Africa and South Asia.  If you are white, you pay more than the others.  Or at least they try to get you to pay more.  The simple fact that you can pay for a plane ticket there proves to them that you are wealthy beyond their imagination.  The price of that ticket might be more than their year’s salary.  So get used to it.  You can resist it, and often reduce it and occasionally even negate it, but it is there.  Having said that, I have a fine room in Siem Reap (where Angor Watt is) for $7 a night.  It is clean with a private bath and hot shower.  Maybe I could get the price down a bit, but at that price, why should I care?  I will be outside for 14-16 hours a day.  All I want is security and cleanliness, and I have that.

As a bicyclist traveling thru here, I have started to develop an attitude when I listen to young travelers, mostly European, complaining  of the rough conditions traveling.  I see them sitting there, almost universally smoking cigarettes, talking about hot, uncomfortable, buses that are not on time.  I ride into the guest-houses drenched in sweat and I have to listen to people 1/3 my age whining.  I mean, just how much work does it take to buy a bus ticket and then plant your fat ass in a seat?  Most of the time I say nothing, but occasionally I call them whiners and wimps.
Maybe the worst are those who rent motorcycles and then talk of how tough their 6 hour motorcycle ride was.  I needed 3 days to complete that same route by bicycle.  I did say to one guy “Ýeah it takes a lot of work to twist that grip” and laughed at him.  At least he shut up.  I think I am getting a grumpy-old-man attitude here.  Cool it.

The real joy to me of bicycling across some place is the feeling afterward that I have really accomplished something.  I honestly was not sure that I could complete this trip.  Before leaving, I gave myself a 50-50 chance.
I have had the joy of being so close to the land and the people.  I have less than 800 km left on this trip.  Barring an accident, I will make it.  I have not seen another bicycle tourer since Hanoi.  I gather that this is not a popular route.

I pull into a bus stop and guzzle down a liter of cold water in one continuous swallow.  A bus load of young white kids are standing there gawking at my water gluttony.  They are university and high school kids from Vancouver, Canada.  Out come their cameras.  Nice kids, asking lots of questions about bicycle touring.  I find myself saying things like ‘bicycle touring has soul.  It takes effort.  It challenges you, but it can be so rewarding.’  We exchange emails.  By the time their bus pulls out, about a 1/3 of them say that they are going to do it.  I do hope to hear from them.
For my last 2 weeks I may cut south to Battambang, thru the hills to the world’s largest sapphire mine, then down to the Thai beaches.  We’ll see how this trip unfolds.

evidence of road kill all over

An educated Vietnamese told me in Saigon that the #1 cause of death in Saigon and Hanoi is in fact traumatic head injury from motorcycle accidents. It seemed to me that it had to be, given the way they drive. No turn signals, no head checking, left and U turns whenever they feel like it. Both Saigon and Hanoi have 4+ million motorcycles, each increasing at over a 1000 a day. It is a disaster. I am relieved to be out of these cities.
Well, yesterday morning I came upon the remnants of a fresh accident. A badly crushed motorcycle,with oil, gas, and blood on the road. While the cops were trying to stop the traffic, the motorcyclists continued riding thru it. They drove right over the oil, gas, and blood. They probably would have gone over the body, except that it was already gone. The accident scene specialist had already sprayed the positions of the motorcycle and body on the road.
I find these markings on the road every kilometer or so. I feel I am even getting pretty good at understanding what happened at the accident just based upon the paint on the road. Either the paint really lasts a long time, or there are a lot of accidents.
There appears to be no licensing or driving lessons here, other than beginning, intermediate, and advanced HONKING. People pull right out in front of anyone without ever head-checking. They are making an assumption that the other one will alter their path. If they do not, there will be an accident. Oh and one other thing. They drive on both sides of the road, regularly. I think there is some Darwinist selection process going on here.

Bits and Pieces

the lifetime sentence

I got to Mytho okay. The Mekong Delta is the flattest land I have ever ridden. It doesn’t get over 3 meters above sea level. The only rises are for bridges over the canals. An old man (at least as old as me) pedaled by me in a cyclo. This is a bicycle used to carry a person around. You see these in Bangladesh, Calcutta, and here in Vietnam,wherever the land is really flat. Anyway, he starts speaking fluent English to me. He is clearly well educated. I anticipate his next statement.
“I was a military translator for the US Army. Top level.”
“How long did they send you to prison.”
“One year.”
“You got off easy.”
“Well, yes, but I must stay in Mytho the rest of my life. I cannot visit my children. They must visit me here.”
At this point, I hop into his cyclo. He begins pedaling me to the local Internet Cafe that I cannot find. It is the first time I have ever ridden in a cyclo. The man is interesting, I need to get to the Internet, and he could use some money.  He tells me that this is the only work the state is permitting him to do. I tell him that he is still serving his sentence. He agrees.  He said that if he would have served 3 years in prison, the USA would accept him as a refugee. But one year is not enough.  He entertains me with some funny stories. He clearly speaks English with a southern accent. A small vignette of life passing by…

Later I will meet another older woman who speaks good English. I say to her “Did you do translation for the US Military?”
“Yes
How much prison time?
Long time.”"

Minor irritations that keep coming up…

I get the óld menu–new menu’ trick again.  I have a fine 4-course meal.  The first menu says $4, but the ‘billing’ menu says $6.  The meal is simply fine, and I am too tired of fighting this sort of stuff to have another round of arguing.  I just toss the ‘old’ menu in the garbage and pay the $6.  They quickly retrieve the ‘old’ menu.  If they would have said $6 to start with, I would have no problem.
I check out of my hotel at 6 am, waking all the staff up. Before I go out for orange juice and rolls, I spread a few pieces of clothes in the lounge to dry. When I come back, my wet socks are missing. I am positive they were there. Alright, they just cost maybe a dollar. But if they would steal socks, then what else would they steal? This is why I pack my valuables against my body. And bless ATM machines, because we don’t have to carry a lot of cash with us.
I tell the concierge. She says it is no big deal. But this is honestly the 4th pair of socks I have had ripped from me on this trip. Am I petty? Maybe. But I don’t GAF.
Then I utter the magic words, the nuclear bomb of international travel.
“I am going to email Lonely Planet that your staff steals from its guests.”
She freaks.
I go upstairs to get the rest of my stuff. When I come down, there are my socks, one stuffed inside the other, next to my bike. I guess she thinks that this makes it all better now. NFW.

I tell this to an experienced Dutch traveler. He shakes his head at me. “Well if it’s too much for you, then leave.” I am surprised at his reaction. “Look, the French come here, they guillotine 1000’s, kill hundreds of thousands. You Americans kill a million and poison the country, and now you want them to kiss your ass. What you expect?”
I hear him, but he is just a bit too self-righteous. “And how did you Dutch treat the Indonesians in your colonies?”
He pauses, smiles, and says “Even worse.”
“And how do you really feel about the level of hassle?” I ask him.
“When I leave this time, I think I will not come to Vietnam back any more.”
I have had that thought myself.

Converts to dental flossing

Flossing lessons:
I am a compulsive dental flosser. I am so bad about it that when I have been sailing in the Caribbean and run out of floss, I have taken apart the seams of a nylon jacket to make my own floss. I then used, and washed it, diligently. But I have all my own teeth (minus one).

So I am flossing after eating in an outdoor cafe. I turn my head away from the others, but no matter. Three men gather around, VERY CLOSE, and stare. When I look up, they continue staring. Their faces have shock and alarm. Now in Vietnam, everyone uses toothpicks. No one flosses. The men keep staring. I might as well been some monkey in a zoo hanging by its tail playing with its crank.
So I give them my floss container. They study it, take it apart, examine it like some fine mechanical device. I tear off a piece of floss for each of them and demo how to use it. They try, laughing all the way. One of them gets results and shows the others. They become instant converts.

Time to leave. I put on my bicycle helmet and start to go. Just as I am feeling triumphant, I bang my helmet hard into a 5′6″beam that they all pass easily under. No hurt, other than pride. They are really laughing, for this is the second time I have done this here.