losing a friend

the hotel arranged my transport to bangkok. they said 10 hours by bus. i needed to buy 3 tickets to take the bike with me. they discovered this by calling the bus company and specifically asking them.

next morning i was taken by tuk-tuk to the bus pick up location. the bus arrived and was already full of folks, then they loaded the other 12 people waiting with me along with their bags. clearly, me and the machine weren`t about to fit.

i hung back and waited for some sort of problem solver to show up. he said he`d find a pickup truck to take me to the border. tuk-tuked to another spot, where a cab showed up. there were 3 peeps in the back seat already. there was no way of fitting the machine in the trunk of the camry, so i put it up for sale. the problem solver gave me $30 for it. i let loose a quick tear and climbed in to the ride.

at the border, some dude put a sticker on my shirt, walked me to immigration, and said there would be someone waiting for me on the other side. either they weren`t there or we just never found each other. i waited around sweating for a couple hours, then booked another cab for bangkok. i stayed with dave and krista.

the next morning i got to the airport at 4:30 to see three days worth of passengers trying to get on my plane. apparently the fedex crash at narita had held things up. i didn`t get on that one, and was instead rerouted through hong kong. made it to tokyo at 8:30 pm, too late for the bullet train. i stayed with makiko (anne`s old conversation partner) and her boyfriend.

thursday morning makiko took me to tokyo station and got me on the shinkansen. super fast! arrived at shin kobe about 3 hours later.

glass ankles

almost exactly a year since spraining the right, this time it's the left. not nearly as bad though. i can put weight on it and get around pretty good on the bike. happened as i was leaving angkor wat, stepped on some uneven ground. bummer! i still have 5 days left on my park pass, and loads more to see. instead, i think i'll call it a trip.

i was able to change to an earlier flight. now i just need to get my ass to the bangkok airport within 34 hours. japan baby! i'm pumped.

sweatin to the oldies

today marked the beginning of my exploration around siem reap. there are a shit load of temples and what not. it had been a while since bike riding, so i figured i'd head about 15 km out of town to "the roluos group". i estimated that it would take most of the day to check them out, so i rose early, went to purchase my week-long ticket, then backtracked and got b-fast. made it to the temples sometime between 8 and 9. i was back in town for lunch. while much shorter than i predicted, really quite remarkable. i took plenty of pictures (see below)!

being in the presence of such ancient primitive architecture truly stirred the white man in my soul. my first reaction to the sheer simplistic beauty was conquest. i started slow at first, bartering with the natives, trading paper for water and so forth. after earning their trust i decided to cut the shit, and immediately claimed the temples and all surrounding lands as my own. i left booze, some bibles, and a magistrate. i plan to return later with week with guns and disease.

Tequila!

wow. i'm just going to assume that everyone's familiar with pee wee herman's big adventure. you know that scene where he knocks over all the bikes at the biker bar?

about 15 minutes ago i was just cruising siem reap, familiarizing. there was a solid line of parked motorbikes, making it nearly impossible to use the "sidewalk". i tried to sneak through a pair, but my loose fitting shirt caught one of the bikes' handles and toppled it. right into the next bike, which toppled into the next one, which toppled. amid onlooking gasps, the fourth stood it's ground, and to my suprise, no one started throwing 'bows. i quickly righted the bikes and kept walking. good times!

brief rant:
pedestrians have zero fucking rights in thailand, vietnam, or cambodia. it blows my mind. the rule is simply bigger = better. busses run cars onto shoulders, and cars run motor bikes and cyclists into ditches. when it comes to travelling, i've never seen lazier people in my life. sidewalks are seen as parking for motorized transport. i don't understand how people are so fit.

some asshole ran over my foot yesterday in his benzo just to beat me to an intersection at which he waited for more than a minute. i saw it coming and it was partially my fault, but i was engaged in vigilante pedestrianism. i had no choice. when i banged on the back of his car and shot him the sarcastic thumbs up, he looked more confused than a bush supporter in a library (drums please).

i guess i'm happy that it's 150cc motorbikes all over the place instead of SUVs. it's just mighty frustrating trying to walk here. maybe i got spoiled in portland.

laxin

to ensure preparedness for the upcoming week of biking around ol' angkie, i drank a whole bunch of beers and then got another rub-down. frivolous? maybe, but easily justified as part of my plan to redistribute Dubya's stimulus check to foreign economies.

P.P.

phnom penh's pretty sweet, a lot of it smells like urine though. it's much smaller and less congested than saigon. walked around and sweated yesterday, checked out a bunch of the city. today i got a massage, then sweated a whole lot walking around. i got some silk scarves/wall hangings/throws or whatever for the new apartment, which i haven't seen. i think i found some pretty gender neutral colors.

i realized today while sweating and dodging touts that i'm pretty much done with southeast asia. it's not all the same, it's just that none of it is very different. on to the wats tomorrow!

sunrise over tonle sap this morning from the hotel

they produce a couple of stouts locally, which is an inviting (maybe too?) change from the standard lagers dominant in the rest of the region.

royal palace/silver pagoda compound. almost toured it, but they wanted $6.25, and i was very hot. ol' pallie they call it.

Le' phant!

indepence monument. i think they call this one ol' indie.

Plan A

I've been a quitter my whole life.

It occurred to me the past few days that I could not physically replace the water leaving my body. The belly remained full, while signs of dehydration persisted. Anything over 12 km per hour ensured immediate exhaustion, and I nearly passed the F out a few times. I devised several moves to combat the ass pain, but all were temporary. My favorite was the ol' cheek swap, with a high gear-stand combo every now and then. Unfortunately, I never mastered "ridesies no handsies".

The novelty of being novel wore off quickly in the heat. The locals were great, but it all ran together after a while. I'm fairly certain that the road from here to Thailand will be just as straight, flat, and littered.

To keep in the spirit of phenomenal experiences, I've decided to return to the original plan, or at least a hybrid of the two. After a few days of massage and air-con* here, I think I'll load The Machine** on a bus bound for Siem Reap. I'll spend a week or so biking around Angkor and the rest of the Wats. Afterwards, I figure I'll head to the nearest Thai beach in search of fecally contaminated game fish.

Maybe I'll drink some snake blood or something, to not fully disappoint my adventurous supporters.


*'Tis a strange land where abbreviations, like everything else, are slightly less developed. "Air-con" is the currently accepted abbrev for air conditioning. I imagine they'll evolve to "A/C" in about 5-10 years.

**So dubbed after my good friend Doug Sheldon (A.K.A. "The Doug Machine"). While maybe not the biggest and meanest looking of it's kind, I'm fairly confident that it can succeed in all situations.

Exit Saigon

bear with me, this is a long post. i had loads of time to think about what to write.




took about an hour and a half to clear the loud smog. it was fun as always ripping around saigon, where there are almost no rules. i must have broken the only one, by riding to the front of the thick pack at a stop light. some dude on a motor bike smacked my ass as he took off and left me with a menacing scowl. wierd.

apparently cu chi (famous for the tunnels) is considered a district of saigon, although it's about 25 km away. the sign pictured above didn't appear until about 2 hours in. the stretch of vietnam between saigon and go dau was heavily bombed, maimed, and murdered during the american occupation, and i caught a whole lot of evil looks. some old-ass dude even tried to grab me as i biked past. it was a sticky situation indeed.

i'm a bit farther from shape than i had estimated, but i arrived at the border after about 6 hours of pedaling to find this rediculously out of place hotel/massage joint, pictured below.

i wasn't sure what was beyond the border (and i was friggin exhausted), so i decided to stop for the night. noone spoke much english outside the big city, but i was able to procure some pho ga by pointing to a picture. the nice looking hotel had a 1'x1' window, bugs on the bed, and "laughing" geckos in the room. served it's purpose though.

the next morning i remember that i had procrastinated on the atm action and had to back-track about 10km. after that it was on to ol' cammie. i was only slightly overcharged at the border. i didn't much care, because i was previously unsure that i could even cross on a bicycle (see border establishment below). security was mad lax, and i easily could have left the nam without ever having my visa stamped.


bavet is the first town across the border. i haven't seen any casinos since, but there were easily 25 of them here. almost immediately in cambodia, i was attacked by friendly people yelling "hello"and "i love you"from their front yards as i cycled by. that was the scene the entire trip. i estimated about 25 hellos/km. very friendly folk. these two dudes even slowed to my pace on their motor bike, yacked it up, and then flagged me over at the next food establishment. they bought me lunch, water, and soy milk.

i got to svay rieng yesterday afternoon, the last chance for a hotel for probably 60 km. it was good (view below), but still with bugs. i walked the town in search of internet and food. the former didn't look like much of a possibilty. in the process, i stumbled into a book store where the shop keep was holding an english lesson for 3 university students. he immediately asked me to help out. i talked to them for a while and answered their reluctant questions, then read an article about how the developed world (MAN) is keeping cambodia down. the students informed me that i speak way to fast. i walked down one made-up street and was solicited for "boom-boom". it didn't really sink in until i saw the sign on the next house that said "100% condom use".




left there early this morning to try and avoid heat exhaustion. this was one of the circles in town:



this was the scene for pretty much the whole trip. straight, flat highway:


i had pretty much made the mind up that i would bike to neak luong and the mekong river. i was desperately in need of shade, internet access, and a large meal full of known ingredients. biking to the front of the ferry line, i inquired at one of the fancy air-con busses. "full full". luckily a van driver offered to cart my ass and the machine to the capital for five american dollars. it was a sweet trip! below are some live tied pigs on the ferry:




now i'm in phnom penh. i checked into a sweet joint with all kinds of english cable channels and a window. there's internet, multiple food options, and english. i think i'll hold here for a few days.

wheels

picked up a bicycle today. after days of shopping around, deliberating, and getting multiple price quotes for the same bikes, i decided to go with the local brand. perhaps you've heard of Martin 107? they make a pretty mean one-speed, but i decided to go with the hard frame mountain style. after test riding, i got them to throw in a rack and call it an even 1.6 mil. i was close to getting one of the sweet western suspension rides at some of the other shops, but they were quite costly.

saving on the bike left some room in the budge for a few mod-cons. got a helmet, a lock, and a badass little north face napsack with a hydration port. it even has a rain fly! heading out later to pick up some moisture wicking duds and malaria medication.

i'm losing my counterpart in a couple hours. it's been almost three months since i've spent more than half a day alone. just me and ol' bikey. with some luck and a good tail-wind, we'll be crossin the border sometime tomorrow.

caving

i got another suit.

i've always thought of my life in phases. the next phase, regardless of its defining characteristics, will undoubtedly be the best dressed yet.

sunday funday

so on sunday morning we caught a bus to nha trang. we went right to the train station and booked the sleeper car to da nang. we spent about 4 hours at the only brewery i've seen since singapore. we'd read ahead of time that it had a swimming pool, hence the perfect place to kick it and wait for a train.

view from the bus

nha trang

the train itself was a fun experience. the trip lasted from about 7:30 pm until 4:30 am. we had "hard sleepers", standard platform beds in a six-person room. our flatmates were all friendly vietnamese, none of whom spoke english. mostly we just slept (not so good, as we were on a train, but it was ok). we met this dude in the beverage car who ran a mini bus service from da nang to hoi an, our eventual destination. score!

hoi an is the shiznit. very pretty old town now known for it's fabric and tailors. much quieter than places we've been. by my count there are roughly 25 tailor shops per block. every one of them tells you to come inside and buy something as you walk past. it's quite the experience. these folks could sell golf clubs to tiger woods.

so far i've made a custom suit, one pair of custom shoes, and two pairs of custom linen pants. I CAN'T GET ENOUGH SHOPPING!!! psyche, nah. i think i'm about done. sara, you need to come to this town. every place i pass is full of clothing that would happily join your wardrobe. just bring a seriously limited amount of cash.

we're here for a couple more days. flying back to ho chi minh shitty thursday night. we're planning to visit anne's aunt's family in the mekong delta. should be a blast! after that, i'll have about one more day to wine anne, dine anne, and find someone to sell me a G.D. bicycle, cause then it's cambodia baby!

this dog pissing on a roof in hoi an. probably top 10 coolest things i've ever seen. he came out on to the porch, snuck through the railings, did the biz, then went back inside. whether he was trained in this fashion or not, it's one hell of a trick.

one woman operation.

view from the balcony at our new hotel. the first night we stayed at this joint that was slightly less pleasing. they delicately scented our room with some kind of death, and some things didn't work. they didn't have vacancy for more than one night. on the up-side, they had a pool, and it forced us to find our current place of transience. it's the shit. across the river from the main section of town, much quieter, waterfront. fan-cee! i feel kind of like bill paxton, only with a decent paying job.

"japanese covered bridge". there were japanese people on it!

hoi an

hoi an

view in front of the (new) hotel.

♪ there's no vietnam like french vietnam, it's the best vietnam in the land ♪

got to dalat yesterday night at about 6, and it was already about 75 degrees. nice up here! one of the more popular domestic vacation destinations, dalat sits at roughly 4,620 feet above sea level (says so right here on my watch). anne's post pretty much sums it up (see link at right). apparently there was a gentlemen's agreement not to conduct any warrin' here back during the american invasion. that way the really rich people from both sides could continue to visit and not have to worry about the hundreds of thousands of deaths.

not so much in the way of pineapple in these parts, but it sure as hell is coffee country. they make it strong, brewed right on top of your cup. i think that's part of the french influence. i've heard this place likened to towns in the french alps (except everything's in vietnamese). it's mad cheap as well, sweet hotel room with like 70 channels and 12' ceilings for $10/night. we went to an awesome dinner last night, each had two drinks, and parted with about 11 dollars and change.

i'm hoping to find a mountain bike here, although i'd then have to cart it around vietnam with me until anne splits for kobe next sunday. there are plenty of bike tour agencies that will probably sell me one of their used western bikes. i need something sturdy enough to make it from ho chi minh city to bangkok over about 14-20 days. i'm pretty excited about that leg of the trip. haven't had any cardiovascular exercise (other than walking) in a while.


Pictures of Bangkok:

these are my money rented kicks. i was lookin pretty smooth.

me, anne, and krista, about two hours into clubbin'.

yup. it was like that.

a huge friggin' monitor lizard. we saw more cool wildlife in this downtown park than in most other parts of the country.

Pictures of Ho Chi Minh City (saigon):

view from a rooftop bar at this swank-ass hotel downtown. drinks were like six bucks each! never goin back there...

a fine example of infrastructure. this sort of scene is all over the place. you have to do a lot of ducking.

"sidewalk". i don't know if there is or ever was a vietnamese translation. this is one of the quieter ones, but walking is clearly not the intended purpose here. these planters blocked the path about every 25 feet. on most other "sidewalks", people just park their motorbikes, wash their dishes, or sit around and suck their teeth (cat-call) at the western girls. either way your best bet is to walk in the street and ignore the onslaught of horn-honking honda dreams.

The 'Nam

spent a couple of nights in bangkok with anne's uncle's bff. amazingly accommodating. it was good to recharge for a bit. hit up a "super club". in anticipation, i borrowed some sweet pants from dave to meet the dress code. upon arrival, however, i was told that my flip flops (the real fancy leather kind) were not welcome. in anticipation, someone was there to rent me a pair of shoes! pretty sweet.
most folks in thailand get what's called bottle service, where you just get an entire bottle of whiskey, a bucket of ice, and a few mixers at a bar. pretty nice, considering we all got drunk at a really fancy place for about $80. i certainly remember paying $60 for one round of weak drinks at clubs en los estats. the best part was how i got to dance! i LOVE dancing.

yesterday we flew to ho chi minh city (saigon). this place is absolutely fucking crazy. there are roughly 3 million folks on motorbikes ripping around. as in thailand, there don't appear to be any traffic rules. as in philly, the horn is the favored form announcing your presence. quite loud, also quite silly (see this oldie but goodie). touts (folks selling you unnecessary goods & services) don't take kindly to "no thanks". i'll probably soon find out if they understand the Finger and all of it's wonderful connotations.
i'm excited to be in a new country, and a communist one to boot! i think i actually overheard some peeps discussing how much they hate freedom. there is definitely a western influence here. most prices are listed in USD, and the currency is interchangeable. most of the time you pay with dollaz and get change in dong. haven't gotten used to the conversion rate yet. i withdrew a cool 2 million from the atm this morning and promptly made it rain all over the street.
not sure what we'll check out here. today i might hit some bike shops, as i'm in the market for one of the mountain variety. there are some cool museums around with plenty of graphic reminders of the war. not sure if i could stomach it. we'll most likely get the F out of this crazy town tomorrow morning and head out to where the buffalo roam.

Bob Barker

someone should remind thailand to have their pets spayed or neutered.

easy ridin'

here are some pictures of the cycle trip we just took. spectacularrrrr! also, notice the ****MAP**** link to the right. i've been updating it with our travels.


first, doi inthanon, the highest peak in the 'land. cruised up there early this morning. good views, although hindered by all the smoke in the air. very cold riding up there on the bike while it was still dark, but worth it. i also somehow managed to escape the 100 baht entry fee. maybe the guards don't much care at that time of day.







these were a couple of spires near the summit. one was built to commemorate the king's 60th in '87, the other for the queen's in '91:

felt like this one was meant to be (for me and a few million other people).

not really much of a view from the exact top. kind of in the middle of the woods. king inthanon died in 1897, and the mountain was named for him. i think he must have liked the smokes/booze. at one of the shrines there was an open beer can and all these cig butts burnt ceremonially.

sunset behind the place we stayed in last night.

me where we ate dinner last night. it was a wierd string of about 4 resorts in the middle of nowhere. start of the low season i suppose, as there was nobody else staying at ours.

action shot of anne

large pond centrally located in mae hong son, looking across to the wat.

this was at a restaurant in mae hong son! glad to see it's a global movement.

good view of one of the roads we travelled. almost the whole trip was like this, steeply up and down with many 200 degree switchbacks. mom, it kept us moving pretty slowly!

reveille

in a few of the towns we've stayed, there are a bunch of loudspeakers all over the place. in some of those towns, they think it's fun to wake everyone up. before it was mostly in muslim villages, where they would pump up the volume with morning prayers. those were at like 4:30 am, and easily the most annoying. here in pai, it was some sort of dude singing some sort of song. kind of funny. as we never really adjusted to the time change, we're up at 7:00 every day anyway. the problem is that none of the stores open before 8:30 or 9, even those serving breakfast. wierd.

pai early in the am

we rented motorcycles yesterday in chiang mai so we could explore northern thailand for a few days. first leg of the trip took us to pai, winding around through the mountains and whatnot. the picture below was taken when the trusty watch altimeter read about 4,200'. we eventually climbed up closer to 5,000. pretty good scenery, although a bit dimmed. apparently the hill tribes all over the region are currently burning the forests, maybe for agriculture. we passed some rather large flamage on the way to see a geyser.

me and the wheels yesterday, all reppin' the flyers. yes, those are flames on the side of the helmet. two words: BAD ASS. it was my first time taking a manual bike out of 1st gear, and i was quite proud. got her up to a buck ten (kph), but i'm pretty sure i can beat that today.

'nanners

me in chiang mai about to enjoy hawaiian fried rice. picture worthy 'cause it was served in a halved pineapple. a word on pineapple: probably one of the best fruits ever, my love for it grows daily here. it's abundant and cheap (like everything else). pineapple fried rice is slammin', as well as pineapple shakes.