SE Asia 2007

The bus from the new Bangkok International Airport (where I slept) (sort of) dumped me very politely and unceremoniously by the side of the highway outside Chanthaburi. Looking around at the unkempt shops with the unreadable signs lining the other side of the small gravel lot I had to remind myself that I asked for this. No more airport. No more Miss Creamycheeks. And now, no more bus. It was just me and the big cardboard box sitting in the dirt at my feet. I remembered that moment in March 2003, standing in the middle of Phnom Penh with neither a clue what to do next nor the means to do it once I figured it out. But now I at least knew what had to be done: get the bike on the road! A single tree was the only blessed thing keeping the roiling sun off me as I tore at the tape holding my life safe inside its foamy, corrugated cocoon. As I began spreading bike pieces and parts all over the ground this leathery guy with a goatee that made me think of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid wandered over. He looked on as I pieced my tandem together, holding the saddle as I adjusted the brakes and laughing when I dropped my chain in the dirt. During the process a couple other men materialized, quietly interested in the odd machine Paleface was putting together. A tap on my shoulder as I was coaxing my brake cables into place brought my senses around to one of them holding my wallet in one hand and digital camera in the other. He more or less grunted and pantomimed his way through saying ‘Be stupid again and someone’s gonna walk off with your stuff.’ Thus went my first wake-up call of the journey. The bike finally together, air in the tires and bloated panniers locked onto the rear rack, I put my new ESPN baseball cap on Mr. Miyagi’s head for the here's-my-bike-ready-to-go-along-with-the-guys-who-helped-me picture. After saying cheese he shook my hand and said something that sounded like a thank you. Then he stepped back, adjusting my hat, around the short white hairs on his head. Evidently he thought I was giving it to him as a present. He seemed to like it, and I didn't have the heart to take it back. I never even had a chance to wear the thing.

It's possible to grow a beard waiting to cross certain streets in Chanthaburi.

Nobody warned me about the roller coaster on the west side of the island. That my chain didn't explode under the strain of pulling me and my stuff up those ridiculous inclines is a miracle worthy of the Pope’s attention. My chain has been creaking louder than a bullfrog in heat though, even under all the oil I’ve been bribing him with. Rolling south through one of the smaller, more palatable tourist villages on this side of the island I spotted a hand-painted sign that read "Bike Fixed." Just one? Was this a proud announcement? A message for someone, maybe in secret code? The name of the person living there? I pulled over, hope in my heart as I rolled up to the scattered tools and old tires and spots of spilled oil. But when I pointed at my derailleur the shirtless kid made a strange noise and dropped his dented air pump in the greasy dirt, shaking his head with a desperation that could only mean please don’t ask me to do this. That bike he claimed on that sign to have fixed must not have been very broken. I squeaked through a few more bungalow-littered stretches of windy, bumpy road, thoughts of spending one more night near the water scenery blocking out the sound in my head. In the tiny village of Ban Lai I found something appropriately run-down. The beach was rocky, the sand squishy under the water. The outhouse exuded a subtle odor as it sat defiantly devoid of toilet paper. Just my style - when traveling in a place and a country such as this. I took the first bamboo hut the girl showed me, hung my hammock out to dry and headed for the waterfront.

On Koh Chang, having a pile of coconut husks the size of a full-grown elephant in your front yard is nothing out of the ordinary.

Rode a gloriously flat half-day to Khlong Yai with Stephane, who has been on the road for the better part of a year. This far into the strip of Thailand that narrows as it stretches toward the Cambodian border the road is in great shape since there is hardly any traffic to help it disintegrate. A quick shower chased us under a shelter sitting in the tall grass among the trees along the side of the road – a seemingly random bit of man-made scenery until a small crowd of locals crawled out from the fields beyond that tall grass to take a break and stay dry. They looked surprised but not at all unhappy to see they were sharing their shelter with us and our bikes. More timely rain later on, as the heavens deluged Khlong Yai while we were sitting under cover of big plastic tarps eating lunch. We moved further back onto the front steps of a deserted cinema house when it really started coming down. After an hour the downpour wasn’t showing any signs of letting up and Stephane walked off to go find a place to stay while I played a reluctant game of tag with a couple of barefoot kids. They kept daring me to chase them around, and I could see myself making one of them wipe out on the cement steps and watching him crack his little head open. Later that evening, walking among the houses that stood on stilts above the putrid water along the shore (I swear the toilets around here amount to a porcelain hole in the floorboards)(sans the porcelain), a guy named Ott invited us up to his doorstep (but not actually into the big open room where everyone else was) to share in a watered-down birthday whiskey. Nice guy. Bad taste. I ended my night eating a fried banana thing at a table with eight camouflage-clad, automatic rifle-toting, mystery-beverage-drinking members of the Thai military. Walking home I wondered whether I hadn't accidentally been sworn in.

The word 'hotel' can be very loosely defined.

Resorts are okay in my book if they don't resemble a theme park. Sihanoukville, Cambodia is such a place. Good, low-key mix of comfortable beachside tiki bars and cafes along with local food peddlers, wandering pedicurists who don't understand the word no, and the occasional beggar – as often as not a land mine victim. Saying no to them as I sit with my waist pouch full of cash, credit cards and a digital camera worth more than their entire material world can be ethically troubling at times. One guy missing a leg was crutching his way along the beach with a plastic basket full of books hanging from his neck by a coarse rope that would have eaten right through my sunburned skin. But he just didn't have anything I wanted. He moved on without changing his expression. Anyway, having seen enough of the unfinished highway that would have taken three days to conquer, with no knowledge of food, water and lodging options along the route, opting for the boat from Koh Kong to Sihanoukville was an easy decision, though I felt like some kind of refugee what with the people and wrapped bundles of who-knows-what crammed in one big less-than-comfortable mound on the roof. Throw in the random kid trying to pocket an extra 20 bucks by telling you to buy a ticket for your bike and you've got the full Cambodian experience.

Having a teenage kid pull my chair out for me at an ice-cream parlor is unsettling somehow.

Long, arduous, beautiful ride today. Longer for the fact that I'm a guy and don't know how to ask directions. Plus Stephane was the one carrying a militarily-detailed map as opposed to my guidebook of hand-drawn, not-to-scale, bare-bones schematas designed for the ultimate amount of independent adventure. We had gotten ourselves irrevocably separated before we even got out of town, the culprit being an extended stop-off at Wat Leu, an attractive hilltop temple complex complete with young kids carrying younger, naked kids, people selling various drinks and snacks in front of their shanty village area and monks in their orange robes hanging out and smoking. The sun was out in full force today, baking the road and me and the huge dusty trading town I should have recognized was sitting at the crossroads I needed to be looking out for. Instead I downed some juice and more water and kept pushing toward Phnom Penh. After finally figuring out the scoop from a few uncommonly unfriendly people and backtracking into a headwind, I ended up doing an extra 30 irritating kilometers on top of the 110 it took people like Stephane to get to Kampot. Feeling a little pissed-off at myself and the lack of signs in Cambodia and the sun and the wind and the dust in my lungs, I just wanted the day’s ride to end. But of course, this being Cambodia, the kids are interminably excited to see you biking through their villages and the hellos never stop. Never, no matter how much I would have liked to hear nothing for a while. And you have to wave or say hello back when these kids drop their lunch or their dog in the dirt so they can wave to you as they scream away; you don’t want to crush their illuminated little spirits. Plus, I see being on the road in a foreign country as an opportunity to be an ambassador not just for my country but for mankind in general. And I’d like to keep believing I’m a halfway decent guy. When you are too tired to want to lift your arm for someone, though, it makes you think you should maybe take up a new hobby.

It is possible to swear you've been riding uphill for an hour, and then arrive at a place that is at sea level.

Theme for today: Free Booze. Quick ride out of Kampot’s unalluring central traffic rotary and south to a coastal town called Kep, which is slightly nicer than it sounds. Decent enough to stay two nights actually. A short distance outside of town we met up with a couple young kids riding along on a creaky bicycle, and it didn’t take much to convince the one balancing on the stubby ends of the rear axle to jump onto the tandem. His friend rode next to us for a while but then seemed to feel a bit left out and disappeared. Later, riding solo along the water to the swimming beach (as opposed to the mucky beach closer to our guest house) I stopped at the cries of a group of people having a picnic on the concrete sidewalk overlooking the rocky, typically trash-laden beach. The patriarch of the group - the only one with any English - invited me over for a beer. Tough call. An hour and three cups of beer on ice later, after they all suddenly started packing up to leave without any noticeable indication from anyone in the group that it was time to do so, I rolled down to the sandy part of the beach and went swimming. Actually just kind of bobbed around in the chest-deep water while keeping a close eye on my tiny pile of clothes conspicuously hiding my waist pouch which, if borrowed, would leave me as good as dead. Dried off in the sun and rode further down the coast past more simple houses and modest fields until I picked up a guy named Sopheak who took me to the former Queen's Palace (from those wonderful imperialist days) where his family was out eating on the front lawn in subdued new year's fashion. Warm beer over ice was again the drink of choice, and of course I couldn't think of a reason I should refuse. Barely made it back before the town went pitch black, and at the (mucky) waterfront restaurant saw a guy I'd seen a couple times in passing during the past couple of days seated at the next table. After a few knowing glances he turns around and puts a glass of wine in front of me. He and his Cambodian girlfriend of three months had just gotten engaged a couple of hours previous, and he couldn't help but share his joy with me, in the form of an Australian Merlot. He did most of the talking in our few minutes of fast-paced tourist-speak, then got back to plodding through his dinner conversation with his bride-to-be. Sipping on my Merlot, I wondered if I was actually going to end up at the New Year’s party Sopheak promised to take me to tomorrow.

Eating crabs is more trouble than it's worth (if there's no free beer included). And where’s the logic in pouring the spicy sauce all over the shell?

 My cyclist’s luck ran out today. Got my first flat tire, a pinch flat from constantly switching back and forth between the bumpy blacktop and the pebbly dirt, which was actually smoother than the road. And safer, since it's pretty rare that someone passing from the other direction will cross completely over into the opposite shoulder where you are riding. When they do they’re considerate enough to honk at you as they barrel toward your fragile existence, just to let you know you might be in for it and to say your prayers. Both my legs and my bike were coated with red dust by the time I reached a rather dull town called Takeo and the waiting Stephane, who hadn't gotten a flat and made it to town 90 minutes earlier. Once again we’d managed to get split up, this time before even making it off the guest house property, but he was a nice enough guy to wait at the edge of town for me – since there was a place to get some spring rolls and a coke. We rolled into town together, to the now-standard shouts and chuckles. Beautifully, the guy running the guesthouse facing the humorous Victory Monument standing barren and alone in the middle of the wide traffic circle was quick to let me use his hose to clean up – both me and my bike. His wife or sister or wife's sister or whoever - you never can tell how these people are related there are so many of them involved, but they're all related, of that you can be sure - hauled out a bucket, some detergent and a nice thick blue rag for me - which I proceeded to turn into an oily, irrevocable mess. Went for a walk through the slummiest part of town toward a trash-gilded park and a waterless canal before finding a crummy restaurant - then around the Victory Monument to the other side where, we discovered, the cleaner folks eat.

Brooms do actually exist in Cambodia. They just don't come with a user's manual.

There are 50,000 people in Takeo. And 50,000 ways to pronounce Takeo.

There were a few people cutting long stalks of sugar cane into pieces on the sidewalk outside the guest house this morning. Didn’t see any sugar cane fields around. Heading north toward the mountaintop ruins of Phnom Chiso, I thought I was leaving Takeo behind for good. After a mildly meditative morning and a free lesson on how to sprinkle sand on each of the five piles in the temple courtyard as many Cambodians do as a good luck ritual for the new year, it was time to part ways with Stephane. Going on my memory of his map – which he insisted I not steal from him – and my incredibly reliable instincts I found myself way out in nowhere under the searing midday sun on roads so bumpy they even made the cows irritated. I knew the Vietnamese border was that-a-way and I kept pushing onward, picking up an ambitious young kid going back to his straw home and ending up on a riverbank dead end. I was barely able to keep my composure in the face of a group of people who collectively couldn't figure out what me saying "Vietnam? Vietnam?" over and over while pointing in various directions meant I was looking for the way to Vietnam. I didn't expect them to speak a lick of English, though watching their confused, reluctant faces I began to think they didn't speak anything. I finally got through to one of them though, who was astute enough to then let everyone else in on the secret. After a bit of negotiation – suddenly they could communicate quite efficiently – I hired one of the guys to take me on his boat down to the border crossing, not thinking that this guy had probably never had to learn what a border crossing was, let alone need a passport to get through one. The 30 minutes on the water with his wife and some other random old man who seemed to be along for the ride was great; fishermen throwing their nets, farmers coaxing their water buffalo and women keeping house and garden with their naked children on their hips. Soon I began seeing Vietnam flags on the far side of the river and actually thought things were working out – until he dumped me on a crowded, hectic riverbank and hurriedly asked for his 10 bucks. I told him he’d have to take me to the passport station or whatever he indicated was lurking somewhere among the crooked rows of shacks with no electricity and the hordes of people that couldn't have been any more alive. The locals were whooping it up at the sight of us dragging the tandem off the boat, over the mud and up a crumbling set of concrete stairs. Then we terrified a series of old and very unsuspecting folks as we blew down the crowded street. Next thing I know I'm in some compound, nowhere near anything resembling even in theory a border crossing but certainly plenty official-looking what with all the green uniforms and greener plants around. After a lot of unintelligible discussion and several phone calls (by them, not me, I just sat and drank whatever water they offered me) a guy who spoke English finally showed up. I explained what happened, he told me this was not a legal border for crossing over and said I should thank the men around me "because you have no right to be here, and it is illegal, and they can hold you, or..." And I filled in the blanks myself: "...yeah, or throw me in jail, or fine me however much they feel like, or accuse me of something much more serious than hiring an idiot for a boatman..."  They basically told me to get out of their country and come back in a less jailable fashion, and I didn't wait around to see if they'd reconsider. A few more negotiated boat rides up river and one friendly but subtly confrontational conversation with the chief of police of some tiny Cambodian river village and I was miraculously back in Takeo - the very best I could possibly hope for at that point. I never thought I'd be happy to see that ridiculous Victory Monument again.

Ten Cambodian kids will ask you the same three questions ten times, even when they are all standing next to each other.

In a foreign country such as Cambodia, don’t bother with the police when you need help. Look for an ophthalmologist. Then ask all the questions you think you might need answered in the foreseeable future. The road SOUTH out of Takeo (also spelled Takao, Dakow, Takeev, etc.) was so beautifully smooth, bringing me through the idyllic farmland glowing gold and green in the morning sun and leading right around to a legal border crossing. Before heading for the exit station I stopped at a little roadside stand to use up my last few thousand Cambodian Riel and take a picture of some kids working or maybe playing in a field of black mud. Ah, it was so nice and peaceful, my last meal in this quiet, friendly place. Then I entered Vietnam, and it was like hearing the screech of a new piece of chalk on the blackboard when you are sleeping in class. Folks are positively on fire here, especially after lazy-legged Cambodia. When I saw that first traffic light, I momentarily forgot what to do. It had been that long. Guys yelled out to me, smiling and demanding I stop to satisfy their curiosity. Women shouted as I cruised by, thinking I might want to spoil my momentum for a bowl of their secret home-made specialty meat noodle thing. One man on a moped put his foot against my rear rack and pushed me along at 40km/hour. Then cruising along an unusually decent stretch of road I managed to hook handlebars with some old guy - the kind with the long beard you might expect from a leathery, 150 year old Vietnamese man - and took a real nice digger on the pavement. Only ruined a tire, I can't believe the entire front wheel didn't bend in half like a taco. Dusty and sweaty, I attracted a crowd trying to fix my tire. I messed up on the first patch job, then offended the guy who kept grabbing things out of my hands because he thought he should be the one to fix it. At one point we got into a tug-of-war with my bike pump. It wasn't funny. This would be my first real taste of the Vietnamese attitude. Once on the road again the day returned to normalcy and I reached the town of Chau Doc in plenty of time to find a hotel, exchange money, buy a decent Vietnam map (a recent priority), go to the market for a bite to eat and get rained on, all by 3 o'clock.

A nice hotel lobby doesn't guarantee a nice hotel room.

Wherever I go moms try to urge their little kids to say hello to me, turning their faces toward mine and shaking their little arms for them. Most of them don’t seem to like me or else don’t seem to be interested in the scraggly white weird guy. God bless them anyway. And so many adults ask me, all in the exact same grammatically-wrong way, 'Where you from?' Most of them seem intrigued and excited when I tell them, though I wonder if they are hiding memories and feelings about the war. I really do. It was a long time ago, long enough for a lot of people to not remember much if anything at all. But the history – and the scars – are still there, most noticeably in the form of people with napalm-related birth defects. And it is still happening, to kids born to parents exposed to agent orange or whatever once upon a time. And this is south Vietnam, the ally. What kind of reception is waiting up north? Regardless, the folks are by and large very pleasant - though I did get hit with a piece of fruit as I was riding through a traffic circle yesterday. And today some guy tried to send me in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go, just for kicks - or for some deeper, more misguided reason.  In My Tho (pronounced something like May Taw) tonight there was a brass band playing in the storefront next to my hotel, with tables of people lining half of the hotel's sidewalk. Any foreigner could believe it was a birthday party, or wedding reception perhaps, if not something related to the imminent New Year. Then the skinny old conductor put down his pom-pommed baton, turned around and started doing these cheesy magic tricks with props he could have gotten from the Vietnamese version of the Hobby Lobby. He did have a certain amount of showman's flair though, I had to give him that. When he finished, a guy sitting on a box platform to one side started in with some kind of long horn made from a tree root or something, accompanied by a small group of eager musicians with mismatched drums and clinking things. All the while the people at the tables are eating and drinking and talking. And praying in the storefront, apparently. I finally asked the hotel kid, who I knew spoke decent English, what was going on. (Not only to pick up a bit of Vietnamese culture but maybe get invited over to one of the tables and score a free drink or two.) Turned out to be not a party or reception, but a typical Vietnamese funeral. It would be going on for a while, I learned. Two hours later someone was scraping their nails up and down an electric guitar as I was trying to go to sleep. Without a single free drink in my belly.

No matter how thirsty you are, drinking a liter and a half of orange soda will not help in the long run.

Take New York City, replace all the taxis with motor scooters and you've got Saigon. Okay, not really. You don't usually see people in NYC balancing long poles on their shoulders, live chickens hanging from both ends, the abstract idea of escape in their eyes. And you just can't get a good bagel in Saigon. Probably not even a bad one. But Saigon has its luxury hotels and banks that close early; kids playing basketball behind chain link fences in Lao Dong (they'd get eaten alive in the Bronx) and fifty-somethings playing badminton inside faded painted lines in Hoa Danh; huge post offices and palatial no-entry government residences; small cafes and beckoning mom-and-pop shops; a glistening commercial district and a run-down waterfront; weathered old people still pushing their creaky wooden carts around, scrounging out a living and young people on fast, flashy motor scooters laughing into their cell phones and hanging out with their friends and lovers in front of the neon-coated shopping mall; pigeons and potholes, churches and construction sites, peddlers and prostitutes; blocks of excitement and neighborhoods of despair; malodorous fish and food markets at sunrise and kid carnivals that fill the dark evenings with the smell of popcorn and shaved ice; sharp-dressed outdoor restaurant staff eager to use their English to offer you a table and the specialty of the house and slow-moving seniors in tatters who’d just as soon spit on you as you pass on the sidewalk; tourists walking the worn path between backpacker central and the huge Ben Thanh market, toting bottles of water and wads of cash and avoiding the eager eyes and waving hands of the people bidding to sell them something; monster tour buses and packed open-backed pickup taxis; Gucci stores coming soon and wrinkled women who can’t afford to give up trying to sell overripe mangos on the corner; endless stretches of concrete and macadam and picture-perfect of tree-lined streets and manicured parks where nobody walks on the grass; people on mopeds barely slowing down as they turn the corner onto the main street, though nobody seems to notice; and a constant, permeating sense of controlled mayhem, though the traffic in Saigon never seems to get backed up. Barely slows down, to be more precise. I'm becoming quite adept at Vietnam's unofficial national art form: survival jaywalking. You just pick a small opening in the oncoming onslaught and start walking, and the current curves right around you – if you don’t suddenly stop or begin backpedaling. That’s when life becomes a precarious risk. It’s scarier than eating raw chicken for the first time, but once you get the hang of it it’s a pretty cool feeling. Tomorrow maybe I’ll cross the street a few extra times for kicks. I'm also getting better at declining offers of cheap, useless souvenirs and hour-long cyclo tours around town. These folks are only trying to make a buck, but right off the bat I had ten-year-olds following me down the sidewalk flipping piles of postcards in my face and women grabbing my arm or my shirt and physically trying to coax me into their crammed clothing shops. Before I knew it I was waiting for the next chance to snap at someone, thinking I could teach the general public some manners. My tolerance threshold, thankfully, is slowly on the rise.

You can buy a click-pen (that works) for 6 cents in Saigon.

Vietnam is a bit like a supermodel: really long and skinny, with the most interesting places separated by a lot of other parts that at first glance seem interesting but after a while lose their appeal. I threw the bike on a bus this morning and rode with a crowd of vacationing locals up into the hills to a town called Da Lat, surrounded by a beautifully green and mountainous landscape that - if you were to wake up there after being hypnotized or drugged - could easily be mistaken for some parts of Japan. Until the car or truck or motorbike behind you starts honking their horn at you like the chicken farm is about to close.  Da Lat was once a cool (as opposed to hot, not boring) mountain retreat for the French imperialists who decided, after the King of Vietnam invited them to visit, that they wanted it for themselves. So the architecture isn't quite the same same as most of the rest of the country. Which would make Da Lat which part of the supermodel? Horses, unmoved by cars and joggers and tandems, graze the mowed lawns lining the edge of the huge lake bumping up against the center or town and stretching off into the countryside. Universities and eclectic museums and sublime, spacious homes sit among the hills surrounding the city. Folks sit on the three-story staircase watching the rest of the town wander and hustle through the market. Proprietors of the astonishing number of guest houses vie boisterously in the streets for the scant tourist tumbling in from Saigon or Nha Trang or Buon Ma Thuot. Thus I was able to score a nice big clean room for less than the price of ten international postcard stamps. A good start, until the cable on my drum brake snapped on the way down one of Da Lat’s innumerable hilly roads. It was a minor annoyance, but it added to the other minor annoyances that had recently reared their pestering little heads: squeaky rear brakes, sticky cables, bus drivers demanding full fare for letting me throw my bike in the luggage hole… Under the quickly darkening evening I turned my back on the cleaner, more tourist-friendly streets and stumbled down a narrow, bumpy dirt lane lined with local daily shops and small eateries offering the standard spicy fare served in the standard friendly, bare bones manner. I bellied up, thinking about how insignificant those annoyances really are.

For what I charge people in Japan to practice their English with me for an hour, I can hire a guy on a motorbike and go anywhere I want from dawn to dusk. Then I get irritated when he refuses to bargain with me.

 Lan, my driver guy, took me to all those places I'd always wanted to see: a basement Vietnamese "wine"-making operation; a house designed on the whims of a privileged woman with too much unearned time and money and an apparent staircase fetish; a field of broccoli; a stripped and abandoned hangout for truant farmhands. Actually it was quite nice, seeing stuff that would never make it into the Lonely Planet not to mention getting away from the traffic I was beginning to think would never end until I finally hit the Laotian border. Elephant Falls were quite nice, though where the name came from eludes me. The girl with the soft, sweet voice almost got to me with her "Will you buy something for your wife and help the minority hill tribe people?" routine. And I'd never actually seen a coffee plantation, so that was a new experience to add to the list. Late afternoon we arrived at Lak Lek or Lek Lac or something, which means Lake Lak or Lake Lek. Small town with people living in long wooden or bamboo houses, doing their laundry outside on the ground, showering in communal stalls and otherwise managing to go about their business without stepping on any of the pigs running all over the place. The Lake was fairly attractive with the sun going down, though I was heartily dissuaded from going in the water. Something about cow and elephant feces and low tide. Yes, in a lake. After nightfall Franz Ferdinand came squealing through the speakers hanging from the scattered lamp posts, and Lan got drunk as he played cards with his friend for money.

`Cock-my' happens to mean something bad in a certain hill tribe language.

Just south of Da Nang lies the town of Hoi An, a World Cultural Heritage Site and a very nice, relaxing place to forget about a hellish 12-hour truck ride. The town was once an important port and trading town. Now all the attractively old buildings house art galleries, restaurants and shops of a hundred flavors. And hotels up the kazoo, though most of them seem to remain close to capacity for most of the year. I haven't seen this many white people since climbing Mt. Fuji a few years back. Though it's a vortex of tourism. it's quite nice. No high-rise hotels and no western imperialist franchises. Just a million locals all selling the same stuff asking you (or shouting if you are across the street) "Hello, you want buy something?" I'm trying to do my part to wean them off the hard sell approach but it just seems to be their way. "Hello, you want buy these shorts? You help me? No sell today..." The key to the situation, though, is how you react. Most people ignore them or (semi-)politely decline and keep moving. I've got a bit of my Dad in me. I have fun with them. I confuse them - as a sort of passed-along payback for all the squawkings and sputterings I've had to decipher. I give long, complicated answers that often bring a laugh of despair out of my poor victim. Unlike in Saigon, where I almost blew my top. Maybe I'm learning something from all of this...

You can get a draft beer for 18 cents in Hoi An - and you don't even have to leave a tip.

Look closely at a person's hands before you ask them to cut your mango open for you.

Woke up at 4:45 this morning for the privilege of visiting My Son in the early morning quiet. My Son (pronounced something like Me Shone) is basically a poor man's Angkor Wat, but nice enough for a morning stroll. My midday bike ride to escape the tourist vortex brought me out to a spread of rice fields, where only the very oldest of the area residents work, or so it seemed. Hearty folks out here. Or maybe they simply have no choice. Stoped for a snack of flat bread and a 7-up and ended up being treated to a beer and some dried squid from a couple up from Saigon on vacation. Then the three young punks had to have me over to their shaded plastic table for a few cloudy shots of a drink called (approximately) Dhanthanh. Fragmented conversation at best, then they asked me for three bucks for the drinks. Fortunately the lady running the little riverside joint put them in their place right quick. Then invited me over for a simple but very tasty lunch as her daughter did her very best to practice the English she had been learning at school. So sweet and nice, somewhat lacking in pronunciation ability but I let that slide. Back in town I took a two-dollar boat ride to see nothing I couldn't see from the riverbank. But ten minutes after I gave the woman her money I saw her coming out of the market with a small plastic bag in her hand. "Bought something," she beamed, making me think that maybe she was telling the truth when she said I was her first customer that day. And wondered what happened on days she didn't have any customers.

Is it possible for a 50-cent bracelet to be made of real, actual marble?

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful ride this morning, through bustling village markets, past massive rice fields and smiling faces, over rivers and alongside kids biking to school, all while winding my way between and over hills that by their mere presence made the flatlands surrounding them that much more interesting. Stopped for breakfast on the crest of one small mountain overlooking a coastal inlet bordered by fields that looked way too perfect to be a part of the subtly-haphazard Vietnamese way. A few young teenagers gathered around the bike while I ate - mostly looking and barely touching so I didn't pay them much mind - then backed away just a perceptible bit when I approached with a temporarily-satisfied gut and traces of sweat still decorating my bronzed skin. I was happy enough to get a smile and a hello in return as I pulled the bike off the picnic table it was leaning against, but then one of the girls held out a cube-shaped bundle of leaves tied with a thin yellow string. She obviously didn't know what to say, so just grinned and giggled, backed up by her friends. One of my bike seats cost more than any of their bikes, and here they are giving me stuff. What did I have for any of them? Not that they wanted anything save perhaps the feeling such people understand comes with generosity. I thanked them and took their picture. The rest of the ride to Hue was a breeze. Finding a room once in town was not. With the Independence Day holiday in Vietnam comes the tourist rush, something I wouldn't really have expected here. Apparently they aren't all too poverty-stricken for a little vacationing. After scoffing at the people who brashly, cynically told me nothing less than 20 bucks was going to get me a room, at their hotel or anywhere else, I finally found a guest house with a private room for $7 and a miraculous one dollar breakfast served up while my room was being readied. Settled and showered I headed for the widely-known Forbidden Purple City, a once-proud and apparently very beautiful center of government until it was damaged by unspecified natural disasters and very specified enemy bombers in the war. After a while a cloud cover brought relief from the heat that pushed down on us, followed by light rains that persisted into my pilgrimmage to the market and into the evening.

"Hey! Yo! Where you go?" is the sales pitch of choice for moto-taxi and cyclo drivers in Hue, Vietnam.

Already May. As is often the case, it seems time has both dragged on and flown by. Couldn't help but go back to the place that serves up omelet, bread, tea, crackers, sliced vegetables and fruit for 8,000 Dong (50 cents). I almost feel like I'm stealing from them. Having nothing smaller than a 10,000 Dong bill on me I had planned on telling the very pleasant girl serving me to keep the change, but she just seemed so darn happy to give me my change I couldn't say no. Still early so I went back to finish my book, and just as I was reaching the epikogue good old Lin Lin comes up and asks me if I want breakfast. "Extra special for you, what you want?" she asks with a look I could almost classify as one of those come-hither deals. Once again, who am I to spoil their fun? So a big fat banana pancake it was, with a pineapple shake and home-made pineapple jam. This for all of a dollar. Life is indeed good. In the evening, in my quest to satisfy my craving for a good salad, I found myself in this ex-pat bar called the DMZ. Salad was good, but for some reason I hate being in a foreign country in a place where everyone is speaking my language. Seems stupid almost, like what's the point of traveling? But as it is with living in Japan, sometimes it's good - therapeutic even - to just be able to shoot the breeze with someone without thinking of grammar and overemphasizing my pronunciation. Plus you do meet some interesting people doing some pretty cool things. So chalk one up for the occasional oasis of fellow travelers.

It's easier to find a bus ticket when you don't tell them you have a bicycle.

The guy sleeping in the seat next to me didn't know or didn't care (I suspect both) that his head was sliding incrementally further down off my shoulder into my chest as the bus bounced and swerved through the darkness. First I tried to let it be. Then I tried to shrug him upright, harder after each time his head came crashing back down onto me. I still can't believe the guy was sleeping through it. Finally I gave him a forearm across the ear and almost pushed him into the aisle. Seemed to still be asleep as he righted himself. Then he tried resting his bare foot on my leg, and I made sure he woke up. And stayed off me.    Today's ride was many things: Gorgeous, loud, bumpy, muddy, breathtaking, confusing, long, irritating, tiring and challenging to both body and mind. The night bus out of Hue was going all the way to Ha Noi, but I elected instead to get off 100km early, in a town called Nihn Bihn, for to the west was an apparent place of supreme beauty. And the scenery was quite amazing - Ha Long Bay on the ground as it is called. I could have enjoyed the scenery even more if not for crappy pavement, miles of mud-coated secondary roads and a short cut that almost turned into a terribly unfortunate scenario. And of course, at one point the sky started to spit on me, then waited until I dug out the backpack cover I'm using for my panniers and strapped it on before clearing up again. The last 40 kilometers threw me back into the Vietnamese traffic, and seeing the sign for Ha Noi was a very welcome sight.

A bowl of chopped-up chicken, bones and random organs and all, is not only considered lunch in Vietnam, it's also more expensive than getting just meat.

 It took a while and a fair amount of faith in the ability of the people hanging around the bus terminal to not only understand me but give me a real answer as opposed to a guess or the first thing that pops into their heads, regardless of whether it's correct or even related to my question. I keep reminding myself that I speak zero Vietnamese and therefore should have a bit of patience, but when I say "Noi Bai?" which is the name of the airport and put up my hands like I don't know what to do but really would like to, it's hard to stay unnerved when the person can't get a grasp on what I'm getting at. Fortunately some folks have brains and sometimes even some English, and I learned which bus would take me to the airport.    Mayumi's voice was kind of cracking when she emerged from the gate - I thought it was because she was so happy to see me and was on the edge of tears. "No, just a slight sore throat," she told me. But still, she was happy to see me. And I her. After a herky-jerky bus ride back to the city I had time to show her around the neighborhood and introduce her to some of the food I'd discovered before having to head to the train station for an overnight trip into the hills northwest of Hanoi. I would have been happy to give my pregnant wife a day of rest before going on our first tour, but we both wanted to see the market in Bac Ha that only happens on Sundays. So off we were.

Vietnamese people will often try to hide their money when they pay for something so the food peddler still has a chance to overcharge the foreigner standing next to them.

 We'd pulled into Sapa in the dark, so it wasn't until this morning when we caught our first glimpse of the surrounding mountains, covered in green and lined with rice terraces. Very beautiful sight, right from the balcony outside our hotel room - and the room of the two guys we'd begun this journey with but hadn't seen since the train. After breakfast on another balcony facing a slightly different view of the valley - scenery and tea free of charge, amazingly - we headed off on our scheduled hike, fifteen-year-old guide leading the way for the two of us. Sweet yet somehow sassy girl, from one of the nearby villages, dressed up in her particular group's duds and speaking a version of English that sounded fluent and slurred simultaneously. We wandered along the path, down to the river and through a village called Cat Cat, and on past hilly fields, very simple homes, little girls with dirty traditional costumes and little boys with dirty little butts because, for reasons we didn't understand, even after asking, they only wore shirts, no pants. All of them. At one point we stopped and sat in the grass as Ai, our guide, sliced up cucumbers, tomatoes and eggs for our picnic lunch. Sassy little thing told me to get busy helping at one point, holding a knife out for me.    The day actually went quite normally overall, with what we had been told to expect actually happening without much variation. The bus back to Lao Cai was on time. Dinner was not included. We ended up in another second-class cabin on the train back to Hanoi, instead of the first-class booking we'd paid for. But nothing came through the window, so we called it good.

Correction: the blaring electric versions of Happy birthday and Jingle Bells are not cell phones. They are people pushing carts of plastic junk for sale. Why they use those songs remains a mystery.

Today our 3-day Ha Long Bay tour began in classic Vietnamese fashion. Two guys from another hotel had to come to our hotel to wait for the bus, which we were eventually led to by a perky young woman using just enough English to make you wonder how much more she had. She actually spoke quite well, which was a pleasant surprise, and the ride to Ha Long City only involved one or two seemingly pointless turns off the highway, onto a bumpy dirt/gravel/eroded pavement road, through something resembling a place humans could possibly want to inhabit, then back onto the highway again. At the docks of Ha Long we lost half of the people from our van and gained a bunch from a couple others - I have no idea how they have this organized, if they do. Lunch on the boat started with a big plate of french fries for each table, right out of the Ore-Ida bag I swear. Then fried chicken chunks and fried fish bits. Then a bit of stir-fried beef and vegetable to cover the "Vietnamese lunch" claim. Ha Long Bay itself, of course, is a can't-miss thing of beauty, even under cloudy skies. After cruising to one particular island to check out a huge limestone cave - and running into the people we had lost from our initial group - we went kayaking, even though according to our guide-of-the-hour the tour we paid for might only include kayaking on the second day, which would mean we would have to simply stay on the boat for an hour and a half. We pretty much took advantage of his ignorance and grabbed a boat. Later we would learn we indeed didn't pay for the privilege of using an otherwise unused kayak on day one, but after some talk the guy gave in and told us the day's kayakig was free. Other things, though, like raising the sail on our tour boat to make it look like a real junk rather than a coughing Chinese engine-driven floating motel, was absolutely out of the question. "You didn't pay for the sail" was the indisputable reason. But Ha Long Bay itself is a can't-miss thing of beauty. Even better if you go kayaking.

They didn't serve french fries at dinner.

Sunshine (for over 30 minutes) for the cruise back through the bay! Then we slow-rammed our way between two other boats to get closer to the dock before the skipper gave up and we had to climg across the next boat anyway. Fries with lunch in the restaurant. And all the other food looked strangely familiar too. I hadn't had such little variation in my diet since my spaghetti-filled senior year of college. The bus ride back to Hanoi - which might have been a living hell for everyone, not just me, if that pineapple juice had been another week older - included a few people we'd ridden out with but hadn't seen since. Which somehow meant things were going as the tour companies planned. Back in town Mayumi and I decided on a big spaghetti dinner. It's very rare either of us will go for a meal that has nothing to dowith the ethnicity of the country we are in. I guess that's a testament to something...

If you refuse to pay a peddler two thousand dong for something, she might then try to offer you two for five thousand. Buyer beware.

Last day in Vietnam, country of extremes. And my meals sum everything up in a perfect microcosm of my time within these borders. Took a stroll around the neighborhood looking for something different. Found it in the form of a hole in the wall restaurant near a sharp bend along a sidestreet. There were two other foreigners in the place, finishing their breakfast beneath hand-written notes on plain white paper from foreigmers who had come and eaten before. All sparkling reviews of course. I took a seat across the narrow room from the couple. Though the food scribbled out on the menu was nothing different - same same, everyplace same same - the prices were right. And true to the words of those people from Ireland, England, Sweden, Israel, Canada and wherever else they came from, the food was fit for a king - at least one traveling on a limited budget. So good I ate two breakfasts, not wanting to miss the banana chcolate pancakes one man from Austria strongly suggested I try. I walked away a contented man, and one who believed he had something to look forward to - dinner. But when the time came for my last supper I indeed felt like I was being sacrificed. The lady may or may not have recognized me, but either way she didn't have any rice prepared for the evening yet, making my spicy fried beef and vegetables  an impossibility  - unless I was willing to go with noodles instead. Sure, why not? Well now I know the answer to that little piece of rhetoric: because the noodles are of the instant variety, straight out of the plastic package and equally as tasty. And after I put it away, elbows sulking on the table, she charged me for the rice dish anyway instead of the  beef and noodle dish on the menu which was 10,000 dong cheaper. So what's the big deal about 60 cents? In and of itself, nothing. But after three weeks of the people sneaking, tricking and lying extra dimes and quarters (and sometimes dollars) out of me as a mindless matter of course as far as they are concerned, well, I knew I was definitely ready to go. I saw a lot of Vietnam in my three weeks here. Biked, hiked and motorbiked through some fantastic scenery. Met wonderfully genuine people. Ate some damn good spring rolls. And saw my first water puppet show. These things I will enjoy remembering. Other things too will remain in my head - but travel, as with life, and as with Vietnam, comes with good and bad. How you filter things out is up to you.

The man who came to my hotel to bring me to the overnight bus took one look at my bike - in a bag though it was - and immediately started howling about how he couldn't take it unless I bought an extra ticket, same price as a person. I tried to talk him down - "I never had to buy an extra ticket for my bike, no way." - I tried to reason with him - "Okay, it's a little heavy, but look, I'm a skinny guy!" - and I tried my last resort, which rarely works but sure feels good: sarcasm. "So  you're gonna put my bike on a seat in the bus like a person, right?" The hotel owner made a half-hearted attempt at sticking uop for me but the little guy with the big attitude wasn't hearing any of it. And with three other people outside waiting for me, I gave in. Then I picked my bike up and threw it into the guy's arms. Seriously, he almost fell over backwards. You carry it, pal, now that you've got an extra 14 b ucks out of me. After that he tried to pretend we were pals, smiling and asking me where I was from. I told him I was from hell, and did my best to make him believe it. Just a last jab at Vietnam.

My bike ended up on a seat.

 Vientiane couldn't look less like the capital of a country, at least from what I saw. Nice enough, but more on par with a midwestern county seat. So the decision to leave this morning wasn't a hard one. The driving rain I woke to at 5am kept me off the road until 9:30, but even after a half hour under a roadside thatch-roofed restaurant waiting out another quick midday monsoon it looked like I might make it to Vang Vieng as originally planned. The small villages continued passing by under comstantly changing skies. I had never seen such variable, unpredictable heavens. The rolling hills weren't letting up either, punishing me for my ambitions. At 5 o'clock I found myself in a tiny town called Houay Mo, about 25 kilometers short of VV. I looked around and saw a guesthouse. Two, actually. Who ever stays in Houay Mo? Answer: me. Four bucks got me either a bathroom with a big black plastic tub for bathing one with a shower but no sink in sight. I went for the black tub, since it came with a red plastic scoop to pour cold water over my soaped-up self. Then I had to change rooms once I realized the spigot on the sink had no handle.

Finally, seeing cows along the side of the road has ceased to make me start involuntarily singing 'Wooly Bully' in my head.

What better way to see Vang Vieng's beauty than by kayak? Paddled for 10 kilometers at least, along with tubing through a cave, eating lunch off a banana leaf and trying out three different tarzan swings, each one higher than the one before. Great fun, although with all the beer and loud music the places seem to vying for a spot on an upcoming MTV Beach House series. Not exactly a vintage Laos experience but great fun anyway. On the way home tonight, as last night, I stopped for a banana-chocolate-coconut-peanut pancake. Gimme a break, they're so damn delicious and they cost all of a buck, no way to resist. Along one block there were about eight of them, all calling out to every passer-by. And all with a sign that reads 'Pancake Number 1'. I tried to tell them that was impossible, but they just laughed at me. Then I said they should each give me a pancake for free so I could judge who was actually number one - and they stopped laughing.

To me, something called 'Lap Beef' sounds like it should come with rice, but the lady charged me extra for asking for some. Kind of like being charged extra for cheese on your pizza I suspect.

 I had heard the stories about foreigners being assaulted (and killed) along the road between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, and for a guy on a bicycle and with a pregnant wife at home this is not something to take lightly. But after a lot of thinking I decided to push on. And yesterday could not have been any more peaceful. Today passed without real incident as well, though in the first couple of hours I passed several men walking along the road with rifles slung over their shoulders. A few of them just looked at me, some smiled and gave me a healthy 'Sabaidee.' Then on the beginning of a long descent I stopped to take a picture of the valley before me and a kid ten years younger than me walks up and waits for me to put my camera away. I gave him an emotionless nod and he made a motion with his hand, asking me if I had any smokes. "Sorry," I said, putting my hands out. Then he started looking over my bike as if he were looking for something else I could 'give' him. I threw him a half-salute and pedaled off, thankful for the thick morning mist that would envelope me and ruin his vision - just in case he felt like testing out his crosshairs. Nothing else but hills and smiles and a bit of rain to Luang Prabang. The rest of the day brought me a $5 room and plenty of cheap food and beer. And the Chelsea-Manchester United match to fall asleep in front of. A far cry from last night, waking up at 1am with my tongue sticking to my throat I was so thirsty, but the people at my 'guest house' decided to lock the door to the area where the rooms were, meaning I had to pray the pitcher of light brown liquid I found in the adjoining kitchen area actually was tea - the parasite-free variety. Because the piece of gum I found in my bag just wasn't sucking enough saliva out of my glands to quench my sticky thirst.

I can ride my bike 80 kilometers without realizing my room key from the night before is still in my back pocket.

My fish at the bus terminal wasn't nearly as good as the first time. At least the boat and tuk-tuk rides were largely uneventful. Then again, an uneventful vacation doesn't give you much to talk about later on. I did decide to be lazy and hire a guy with a sort of sidecar carraige thing hooked to his moped to give me a ride back to town. Another three or four kilometers on my feet wasn't going to kill me, but I figured I could part with the fifty cents I bargained him down to. Then a few hundred yards down the road he pulls over with a flat tire. I threw him 2,000 Kip (20 cents) and started walking. Had dinner with a carpenter from Ireland tonight - we agreed that the people in Vietnam need a good collective ass-whooping. Also met a couple from Spain who are biking the opposite way through Laos. We traded a few tips, stories and laughs out near the slow boat dock where they'd just gotten off before I realized they probably wanted to go find a room and a shower rather than talk to me till sunset. To top the night off I tested my bargaining skills with a few of the locals at the night market. Now I have to decide who to give the BeerLao (as it is called) t-shirt I practically stole off some poor woman.

Laotian dirt is mighty resilient.

Laotian women can count out your change and breast feed their babies at the same time.

Got my butt out of bed on time for my last chance to observe the Buddhist monks process and chant and collect alms from the locals. I was really looking forward to it, not only because it is considered one of the best experiences one can have as a tourist in Luang Prabang, but simply because I love to see a country's or a people's traditions in full living color, unaltered for the sake of tourism. And although the monks and the locals hold up their end of the bargain, there are plenty of idiot tourists to ruin what could and should be a solemn, respected moment. The only thing good I can say about them is that, standing around with their cameras ready, looking like they couldn't be any more proud of themselves for being up and ready for the show (which is how they collectively seemed to be perceiving the impending religious, spiritual ritual) I at least knew where I would be able to catch sight of the procession of orange-robed, shaved-headed men. The monks were nowhere in sight as of yet, so getting up close to where people would be kneeling on their straw mats to offer their rice or fruit or whatever out of their small woven baskets seemed a minor, forgivable transgression. When the long orange line appeared from around the corner down the street though, I expected - then hoped - that the people watching would have enough sense and respect to back off and let these people practice their religion in peace. But no, the half dozen or so jackasses didn't waste a second or a thought before going up and sticking their cameras right in these people's faces like they're at some kind of theme park parade or circus act. I couldn't help it. I got pissed off. And I walked up to them one at a time and whispered "You're being really, really disrespectful" in their ears and gave them each a look that I hoped would get the message across in case they didn't speak English or Common Sense. Then of course I felt like the rude one for getting up so close to things myself and went back to the far side of the street to continue trying to appreciate the moment in spite of the asses who thought nothing more of it all than an opportunity to take a few pictures they could be oh so proud of when they show their friends who didn't get to take a tour bus to Luang Prabang like them. Oh how I could go on about this...  Oh, and then a minibus, then two, pull up and park right in front of my toes and fifty-two retiree-aged tourists start pushing each other as they fall to the sidewalk and rush across the street to sit or kneel on the straw mats they'd paid to have put there so they could experience the spiritual fulfillment that comes with having their picture taken as they hand something they don't know the name for to the first orange robe they see. Then as they're all laughing and talking the tour guide starts barking instructions and jokes at them through the portable loudspeaker hanging from his shoulder.

Some people, as it has been said, shouldn't be allowed to breed. And some shouldn't be allowed to travel.

 Once again I was told a bicycle requires an additional human-priced ticket. The game has gotten old. They gave in and we puttered across to Thailand. Beautifully sunny skies to go with the beautifully quiet, impeccably-paved road to Chiang Sean. Mostly open forest and unkempt fields, interspersed with the occasional village, though all with electricity and a bit more hygienic-ness than what I'd grown accustomed to seeing in Laos. A kilometer or so outside of town I noticed this seemingly random ruin of a temple half-hidden among the weeds and trees reaching out toward the side of the road. Random, I thought to myself. Then I saw another along the main road in town as I was looking for a guest house. Turns out this little town used to be an important city around the 14th century, and a load of temples as well as a wall surrounding the city still exist in varying degrees of disintegration among the brick and cement buildings that have since been constructed all around them. Makes for an interesting atmosphere. Good thing, because there wasn't much else to the town save for the riverfront which in the evening became a great venue for three hundred yards of people sitting on straw mats around low tables, eating and drinking courtesy of the vendors who roll their carts up to the wide sidewalk and start cooking up all sorts of good stuff. I was only going to have a papaya salad - a popular dish among the locals apparently - but the sight of these big fat fish grilling away got to me. I couldn't resist. I went back to the papaya salad lady and ordered a nice big, uh, fish. With rice, of course. Then as soon as she set it down in front of me the sound of thunder rolled in from the distance. The skies looked amiable enough for the near future, but I ended up plowing through my dinner, finishing mere moments before the showers descended on the crowds of scurrying people. Later, sitting in the dim porch light in front of my guest house, run by a woman who seems to have a thing against emotions, I flipped a mental three-sided coin in my head: chance going for a walk under those dark cloudy skies, going a block away to drink beer and watch a Spanish League soccer match, or turning in early even though I wasn't tired and I had a short day of riding ahead of me. Then I spotted the stack of random magazines and ended up reading about the music of the 80's for an hour until that made me sleepy enough to really catch some z's.

Some kids learn how to use your digital camera really fast. And some adults don't.

On the map the trip from Mae Sai to Mae Salong doesn't look like much. And the road map in the Lonely Planet guidebook I found at the Monkey Island guest house (I should know not to trust those inept editors by now) showed a barely-wavering line leading to another almost-arrow-straight line that led to the road I could expect to be tough, as it would bring me up into the mountains and the Chinese settlement known as Mae Salong. Relieved I had decided to abandon the suicidal Doi Thon route - hey, I'm on vacation after all - I figured on a morning of backroad cruising followed by a couple hours of climbing. Then I made my fatal turn off Highway 1. The signs were correct - Route 1049 to Pakha (which can also be spelled Pa Khuai as I would soon find out) - but I was slowly, steadily winding my way up the side of a mountain that wanted to keep throwing me north. Onward I went, convinced I was right and those damn Lonely Planet people publish decent maps like Vietnamese give straight answers - they can't. A halting, humorous conversation with a few of the Royal Thai Police told me I was indeed on the right track - which was good and bad, since the next road was looking even more like the back of a dragon. Long story short, that was hands down one of the toughest rides of my life. The Thailand Highway Department needs to learn how to build roads that go around and along the contours of the mountains instead of creating insane switchbacks all the way to the top of one mountain and then an equally murderous drop down to the bottom of the other side to reach a little wooden bridge three feet above the river only to climb straight up the next mountain in the way. On the ups I had the bike in the very highest of its 27 gears. Couldn't have made it in 26th. No joke. But I made it - pedaled every inch of the way, around every switchback, over every false peak and up every single one of the hills that seemed to get steeper the closer I got to town as if they were becoming increasingly desperate to keep me away until I finally pulled into town and up to the guest house I was looking for - and then couldn't make it up the driveway. Had to push the bike up to the front door. Not a very impressive entrance. But I had done it, and rewarded myself with a shower and a stroll along the main street of this ridge top village, looking out over the mountains I had conquered - as well as those that were still waiting for me to the south.

Julian wasn't up to see me off this morning.

 And May rolls behind the horizon. Riding out of Mae Salong was another incredible experience; morning clouds and fog still floated and swirled in slow-motion around me as I descended, then climbed up one more mountain to race down again. Soon the slopes became more gradual and I could cruise along without so much as a tap on the brakes and still keep from flying off the road around the curves. I had to laugh out loud. Life is so good. Until you miss the turn for the town you want to go to and find yourself 25 kilometers later wondering why the sun is in front of you instead of behind. The plan was to take a longer backroad through Tha Ton and Fang and down to Chiang Mai, but rather than turn around and go slave away up the mountain rolling away behind me, I resigned myself to riding into Chiang Rai, a bigger town than Tha Ton or Fang for certain. And why not? I'd spent plenty of time in the Thai countryside; maybe a couple nights in a place with traffic lights - or any lights - would be a good change of pace. That evening, wandering through the maze that was the night market and sampling a dozen different kinds of food at the huge outdoor food court next door I figured missing your turn and having your plans turned upside down isn't always a bad thing.

With a decent tan I can pass for an Italian guy named Gino - at least in the tourist information center in Chiang Rai.

This was it. Unless I took some really wrong turns the 185 kilometers to Chiang Mai would be the last leg of my trip (barring the day rides to random places I just can't seem to keep away from). And with ten days left before flying out I could afford to take it easy. Two days, if not three, leisurely rolling through the hills and fields of northern Thailand, checking out the towns and the scattered waterfalls along the way. Setting off at 7am - nothing could be heard from Frenchie's room, he must have been real tuckered out from the previous day's seminar - blue skies and quiet roads made for an auspicious beginning. The flat countryside led me to my first stop in Mae Suai in just over three hours. More of the same brought me to Wiang Pa Pao (presumably rhyming with a Batman-esque Bang! Ka-Pow!) - the halfway point to Chiang Mai - at 1:15, not three minutes before the sky suddenly turned dark and opened up with a brief but frantic rain shower. Once again, the rain timed itself impeccably. Very, very eerie. Now, I had imagined Wiang Pa Pao might be an interesting enough place to stop for the night, but looking around it just didn't seem to have the punch one might hope for. And I still had hours of daylight. Continuing on I found that Mae Kachan boasted all the glitz and glamour of Bang Kapow, so I created in my head a hope that I could find a more appealing place to park my bike for the night. But that place never appeared over the increasingly undulating horizon. Tiny villages appeared and rolled away, then a national park with distantly polite people offering ludicrously-priced cabin rooms also dropped behind the hills that were now striving to become mountains. The sun, though seemingly still playing high above, would fall like a dying meteor before long, I knew from many previous afternoon rides. And though I looked tired enough to the nice people of a tiny village whose name escapes me to fill my water bottle for free, I couldn't nice-guy them into a free homestay with any of them. Time and options were dwindling. Not even a Buddhist temple in sight to bum a free crash in. I had Doi Suket somewhere up ahead, with a touristy hilltop temple and, as I'd heard, no guest houses. And not far beyond...Chiang Mai. Doi Suket and said temple were indeed glazed with fresh gold paint and souvenir shops, but I was so close I had to stop and climb to the top, from where I could see the road running straight into a thick gray-brown fog I could assume was the city's doing. Ignoring people's shouts and stares like never before, I put my head down, dug up the most testosterone-laden songs I could think of and began plowing down the road that had suddenly turned into a six-lane swath of bellowing trucks and whining, smoking motorbikes. It was dark by the time I bounced into the center of Chiang Mai.

Cursing at the mountains doesn't make them any smaller.

 I don't usually find myself walking into a coffee shop at home, never mind when I'm on vacation. But today that was what the Fates led me to do. With my biorhythms keeping me chained to my early-riser routine I decided to take advantage of the cool (i.e. not insanely sweltering) morning and ride up to the top of Doi Su Thep, a nearby mountain boasting a thickly gilded temple complex replete with tourists in shorts walking casually past the 'Please show your respect by wearing long pants' sign. Myself included - since I rarely wear long pants on a bike ride. Back in town I circumnavigated the moat lying in a big stagnant black square outside the ruins of the once-proud wall but found little to make me want to hang out for very long in the oncoming heat. The subsequent shower and easy stroll to the market for some fried Thai grub provided only a temporary respite, the prickling humidity seeping into my brain again, making me somehow miss seeing the bridge that was to be my landmark for turning back toward the center of town. Eventually a right turn threw me out onto the road I'd ridden along when I'd first gotten to town Saturday night...and got lost. Then there it was. My miracle. Literally. The tiny little place that looked so invitingly comfortable and relaxing - and would prove to be just that - was named 'Miracle Coffee.' Yes, I normally scoff at the mere idea of going to Starbuck's or O'Malley's Irish Pub or Mad Dog's Pizza (all actual places here in Chiang Mai), but circumstances being what they were I figured I could forgive myself this one minor transgression against my own principles. And what a beautiful betrayal it turned out to be. In minutes I was sitting in front of the fan with a big iced coffee and tea creation, a plate of pineapple jelly cookies and free internet access. Then extra Thai tea and crackers from 'Kom', the woman running the place for her sister. Two hours, more coffee and cookies and crackers and tea and a dollar-fifty later Kom and her sister 'Maeow' were waving and smiling as I walked back out into the afternoon, rejuvenated and very, very satisfied. It was a much cooler walk back toward the Wararot Market, and as darkness fell and I ducked into one of the plastic chairs at one of the eight dozen food stalls to get back to putting real, local food in my gut, the heavens opened up. I stood for an hour under a maze of corrugated tin eaves and roped-up tarps, the lone falang among the hordes of locals, until the downpour slowed to a steady hard drizzle.

Who knew fried coconut could taste so good?

Didn't come anywhere near, physically or mentally, getting out for the early-morning run up to the waterfall like I'd planned. Nor did I have any leftover desire to bike up to the pass up the road to check out the view of the surrounding mountains. I could justify it too. The waterfall probably wasn't all that great, and with the clouds hanging around not too far overhead the view probably wouldn't have been all that great. And I've seen plenty of fantastic scenery during my previous rides anyway. I did manage to goad myself into renting a chattery mountain bike and ride to another, closer waterfall - which turned out to be a nice enough place to finish off the kilo of lychee I'd bought yesterday evening. Then took a detour that took me through a few small villages on the way back down. Spent a couple lazy hours at the swimming pool the guy from Newcastle told me about when I ran into him last night, and more unambitious strolling around and sampling bits of food here and there and the day drew to a quiet, uneventful end. Such is a day in the life in Pai, Thailand.

When renting a bike, you really do get what you pay for.

A day of superlatives. Woke up the earliest I have all trip (4:45am) to get on the road by daybreak. Saw the best, most colorful sunrise of these past nine weeks (though I suppose I haven't seen many). Felt great to be cruising down the wide, quiet highway in the cool pre-dawn breeze. By 8:00 I'd ridden 60 kilometers and stopped for breakfast - and the most undercooked chicken I've been served to date. No exaggeration, the lady threw some raw chicken in my bowl of hot soup as if there should be no question that the heat of the broth would sufficiently cook it before it reached my mouth. I attempted a little show and tell but she just waved my words away with a slurred 'Okay, okay.' And then something inThai that was probably meant to further allay my burgeoning fears. Hadn't been that reluctant to eat anything all trip, at least since that old woman with the disgusting hands cut that mango open for me in Hoi An, Vietnam. I found a few edible crumbs among the noodles and vegetables I sucked down and pedaled off for Doi Inthanon National Park. The road was unsettlingly flat, since it was supposed to be leading to the highest point in Thailand. Then when I reached the actual entrance to the park things started getting interesting. But the road wasn't really all that steep - until the last fifteen kilometers. Luckily I had packed light, and before 2:00 I was cresting the highest paved spot of earth in all of Thailand. Then I dragged my bike up the stairs into the woods to the real 'highest point'. Couldn't go without him, of course. Surrounded by trees, though, the whole experience of being at the highest point of something was a bit anticlimactic. Even if the clouds weren't so thick the view wouldn't have been all that great. On the way down I caught glimpses of the flatlands far below, and in another hour I was back down. And with nothing of interest keeping me around - the scattered waterfalls notwithstanding - I decided not to stick around for the night. Found some cheap snacks, way high in sugar, carbs and fat, and started on back down the road to Chiang Mai. By nightfall I was rolling into the middle of the Chiang Mai Gate Market, capping off the longest ride of the trip, both in time (14 hours) and distance (210km). Why am I not relaxing on a pristine beach in the south?

The woman at the hotel was a bit surprised to see me.

Although I found plenty to like about Chiang Mai - including an Internet & coffee shop that almost made me think I like coffee - it feels good to be on the move again. From the window of the train bound for Bangkok tree-covered mountains rising up over brown and green fields turned darker shades as the sun beyond the French couple sitting opposite me dipped further behind the hills to the west. Flooded rice fields sit stagnant, separating dirt roads and dirty villages as they pass by in a blur. Villages where life goes on today as every day while we tourists barely glance, too interested in reliving yesterday, daydreaming about tomorrow, reading about people in other places, playing cards and chattering away and, soon enough, sleeping. Throughout this trip what I wanted to do more than anything else was get a sense of what daily life was like, wherever I happened to find myself. That is what leads me on walks down alleyways and into food stalls with no menus. It wakes me up early in the morning and keeps me out of the bars at night. Mountains instead of beaches. Solitary ventures instead of group tours (unless it`s beyond biking distance). Moments of loneliness over evenings of crowded, lively tourist hang-outs. Cycling through miles of countryside instead of watching it whiz by through a window of a bus. Or a train, which is what the situation demands. In two days I`ll be on my way to the airport to go home. And to take some time to find out what all this traveling will come to mean for me.

Time flies when you need to find a gift for someone before your train leaves.

The song coming out of the speakers and filling the airport cafeteria was perfect. I couldn't understand the words, but it just sounded right. A story about something great that has come into the person's life but now has passed - although not leaving him with complete regret now that it is over. I sat in the same room ten weeks ago, wondering what lay along the road ahead of me - and how I would deal with it. And while I can look back now at all the things that happened, all the experiences I had, all the moments that crept up on me or came crashing down on top of me, I can't understand yet how it all will affect me as a person. You can't spend ten weeks more or less on your own in very foreign places and not come away a different person in some regard, to some degree. Unless you are brain dead. Or hold on to your Lonely Planet tighter than Linus ever held his blanket. But how something affects you takes time to understand. I can't say 'I used to be like that, but now I'm more like this,' or 'Before I would do A, but from now on I'm the kind of person who would do B.' Because I don't know yet. I may not know for quite a while, after seeing myself living for a time as this person who biked and bussed and trained his way around Indochina and looking at how I act and react to the world. To life. To people and problems and opportunities. Life will keep coming, and only after weeks or maybe months or even years have passed will I be able to look at the way I manage my days and understand how I've grown. And I'm sure I have, at least to some measurable degree. Not that I am everything I should or want to be. But through all the moments and the miles, all the places and the faces, I do hope I've learned something about living in this world.

This morning, like so many mornings on this trip, I woke to promising skies. The rainy season hasn't proven itself so rainy. Not yet. Perhaps those pouring into town today, wide-eyed and eager to embrace their time here, each in his or her own way, will be the ones to get dumped on. But that didn't concern me. What did concern me was how I would spend my last hours. I found a few things in the market this morning I hadn't yet tried - or even seen before. I decided to go check out the Golden Palace, and brought along the proper long pants to assure my admittance into this hallowed place, but at the ticket booth found myself a few Baht short of the price of admission and, just like four years ago when I'd worn shorts, I found myself relegated to wandering the outer garden until the sun began searing my shrouded, clothed legs. In a nearby bookstore I found something I had failed to uncover during the previous twenty-four hours: a detailed street map of Bangkok. And with this the lines of my afternoon were etched into stone. I would bike to the airport. And it would be uneventful, the most interesting moment consisting of being invited into the staff room of the supermarket I bought some raisin bread and chocolate milk at to refill my water bottle for free. It would be anything but scenic, the blandness of the concrete city only sporadically interspersed with bits of green park and golden ornamentation. It would be a bit nerve-wracking, knowing that a flat tire now would present one final and perhaps urgent challenge: fix it with the aging patch kit in my bag or find a kind soul to haul me and 75 pounds of bike and bags out to Bangkok International. It would be hot. It would be dusty. It would be the perfect ending.

Another meal on the short flight from Seoul to Fukushima. Out of Bangkok I plowed through both my spicy beef and rice as well as the spicy beef and rice of the woman next to me, very friendly and perhaps too exited about her shopping expedition to Korea to think about eating. I've been thinking for days about what I would eat first upon returning to Japan. Now I don't think I'll be eating anything until I go back to the States for Christmas. I requested a window seat for the Bangkok-Seoul leg of the trip - sharp move on an overnight flight. There was nothing to see but clouds out of Incheon Airport either, but over Japan the skies cleared and I could see the land I left behind all those new memories ago. Six miles up there's not much detail to perceive, but still, looking down on what I knew to be the city of Toyama I thought I could picture what each street and house and building looked like. And as I imagined the scenes in my mind, I felt the calming sense of home. Not all of it appears as paradise down there, but it feels good anyway. And beyond, through the cloudy mists, the snow-capped Japanese Alps appeared. What excellence! Pure beauty. These are part of home too. If there were no beauty, this would not be my home. The coastline also curved into view, drawing a line between water and land. People on the other side of the plane were loolking down on the distinctive shape of Sado Island. I closed my eyes and saw it too. Then the black shiny sea disappeared behind us and the hills and houses and rice fields began creeping slowly upward, toward us, reaching for us, ready to guide us in. Soon we would be landing. I'd see how the Asiana Airlines crew decided to treat my bicycle. I'd declare nothing at customs. Then I would push my heavy cart through a space in the wall and walk into the bright, serene terminal. I would see Mayumi, pregnant and smiling.

And I would be home.