2845 km (kratie).

i'm in cambodia!

cliff is pretty upset with me these days. so far, he's broken 14 spokes, and gotten two flat tires. i did teach myself how to true a tire on the side of the road today. that was fun.

we've spent a good deal of time in the past few towns with bike/moto mechanics. i think, though, i've started to enjoy sitting on the side of the road at random bike shops as much or more than visiting sites. it's a great way to melt into the surroundings and just watch the world go by. today, after replacing three broken spokes, we completely took apart the free wheel (layer cake of gears on the back tire) and repacked the ball bearings inside (all things i didn't know were possible until about two hours ago). the mechanic/father was careful to show his son all the steps involved as he repaired it.

southern laos was wonderful - it was hard to leave. heading south out of pakse, i met a bicycle gang of thai grandpas who i joined for most of the ride to cambodia. they were a lot of fun (not much english - lots of arm waving and broken thaiglish), and one of them even started calling himself my papa. i spent four days in the four thousand islands, exploring the thin dirt paths that crisscrossed the islands, and living my life long dream (i have other more admirable aspirations) of sitting in a hammock with a stack of books on one side and a beer on the other. i met up with a few scripps grads (jill helped connect me with mollie royer) which was lovely.

anyway, i'm still moving (as quickly as cliff allows) towards phnom penh. i'm hoping to be there in time for halloween. then it's southwest to the coast before turning east towards vietnam. i'll put up some photos when i have a faster internet connection in phnom penh.

2425 km (pakse).

i try to avoid writing long posts, because i don't read them, and don't expect you to, but this is sort of the culmination of what i've learned during my time in laos, and although it goes against a consistent positive/optimistic energy i think i've done well to maintain thus far, i wanted to get this all down before i head into cambodia (if this sentence exhausted you, it might be better to wait for my next post).

traveling always makes me (sometimes painfully) aware of how ignorant i remain of much of the world's political/social/cultural history. that's a big statement, and unrealistic, but i'm a cynic and expect too much of myself. being in laos has been really difficult at times, because i've learned so much about the enormous impact the united states had (and continues to have) on this country that is simply not taught in schools. sadly, se asia is not the only region this is true of.

i was hesitant to talk too much about my plans for the past week, because i really didn't know what to expect. on the 16th, i headed east from savannakhet, despite it being out of the way, because i wanted to see a part of laos that was and continues to be heavily impacted by the second indochina war (the vietnam war in the us, the american war in vietnam - actually occurred in vietnam, laos and cambodia for much longer than the us involvement, from 1959 to 1975). two days out of savannakhet i reached the small village of muang pinh, intending to head south on route 23 to the town of salavan. i wanted to take this road, originally built in the 1940s, because it at one time served as part of the ho chi minh trail (much of the trail didn't go through vietnam at all, but ran through eastern laos and northeast cambodia) until the us bombed the two major bridges along the road in 1966, forcing the vietnamese to find a new road, which they did. without bridges, the road quickly fell into disrepair. with this much in mind, i knew the road would be in very very bad shape, but that was when i was still operating under the assumption that i'd be dealing with a road. no one in town could give me any information on the road, but they did laugh at me when i said i wanted to take it. not a good sign.

the road ended up being 140 km, 55 km of which was on a treking trail. in the place of the two bombed out bridges (mind blowing to see these huge bridges in pieces in the river) i paid people to take me in small boats. the first and last thirds of the trip were on bumpy dirt tracks, but still pretty usable. after crossing the first river at the village of tad hay (after 35 km) i lost the road, and took off on a trail into the forest. although i was never, distance-wise, that far from larger towns, this 55 km leg of my journey was the most out there i've ever felt. the impact of the bombing was most obvious from the way people responded to me. multiple times, teenage girls ran from the road and hid in their fields as i approached, parents scowled at me and grabbed their children, and at one point, as i asked at a laos home for directions, a young child sobbed and rocked in the corner until i left.

needless to say, these interactions (in contrast to the incredibly warm reception i've received elsewhere in laos) left me shaken and confused. the reason, i, as a foreigner, am still viewed with fear and suspicion, has to do with the fact that almost all of the bombs dropped on laos during the indochina war were by american planes trying to stop the transfer of goods from north vietnam to south vietnam along the ho chi minh trail (pause: despite being largely a neutral force during the second indochina war, laos was the victim of the largest bombing campaign in the history of the world (1964-1973). of the 260 million cluster bombs dropped over laos during this period, it is estimated that 30%, or 78 million, failed to explode. these uxos (unexploded ordnances) still present a real and devastating risk for a large majority of the laos population. it's estimated that the 2 million dollars a day the us spent on 'the secret war,' or the bombing of the ho chi minh trail in laos, only affected about 15% of the cargo being transfered. the us army contributes nothing to the seriously underfunded clean up efforts.)

20 km into this 55 km leg i met buela, an english teacher (being an english teacher in laos doesn't mean you speak much english) who joined me for the next 35 km, intent on visiting his family he hadn't seen in a year. despite their being separated by only 35 km he rarely takes this journey due to the quality of the path (with at least 15 river crossings, it took us 7 hours). that night, after i had covered 90 km in 13 hours, buela and i stayed with his family in their small village. they were, as always, incredibly hospitable, and it was great to have buela serving as translator. at this point, clifford was a mess, and i spent much of the next morning trying to get him working again. with the bike vaguely in working order, i said goodbye to buela and his family and completed the rest of the trip, arriving in salavan around noon.

some photos:

the (still good) road passes through tad hay.

the morning light made this hard to take, but gives you an idea of bombed out bridge #1.

river crossing #7?

buela waits for me on the other side of river crossing #12.

it always takes a group to get clifford back on the road.

from salavan i headed into the bolavan plateau, a mountainous region famous for its coffee (plants originally imported from costa rica and colombia). i spent two nights in the plateau at, you guessed it, two more waterfalls (tad lo and tad fane) before heading down to pakse. one highlight was a stop in paksong at 1200 m (clifford needed some more work) where i spent the hottest part of the day with a dutch man who taught me how to 'wok-roast' coffee. he didn't let me leave until i got it down.

i apologize, that's a lot to handle all at once. i've learned so much since i've arrived, and since i know (and many of you know) i have a habit of getting a little obsessed, i'm going to stop there. it's going to be hard to leave laos. despite the persistent shadow of the second indochina war, i've had such a wonderful time in the past five weeks and have met so many accommodating, warm and friendly people. i've gotten attached to more than the sticky rice in a way that sort of snuck up on me.

clifford is in pretty good shape now. i can only use my top 16 of 24 gears, and i still have a back spoke that can't (for now) be fixed, but i'm hoping we'll limp along to phnom penh, where we might be able to get him back up to 100%. in my last few days in laos, i plan on visiting wat phu champasak (a famous temple south of paxse) and the 4000 islands, an area just north of the cambodian border where the mekong fans out and is filled with (during the dry season) 4000 sandbar islands. and then (both sadly and happily) it's on to cambodia.

1950 km (savannakhet).

have you ever tried a custard apple? i feel pretty mixed about them.

well, i'm back in laos after a quick trip through thailand. i didn't stray too far from my original path; i just followed the mekong on the other side. i decided, rather last minute, to do this, because i'd heard the roads and scenery on this leg were better in thailand.

the two (tourist spot) highlights from my six days in thailand were the sala keoku sculpture park, just outside of nong khai and wat phu tok.

sala keoku is a collection of sculptures created entirely out of concrete by one man (ban leua sourirat) after spending several years studying buddhism in a cave with a hermit whose lap he fell into one day (or so the story goes). the park was really unexpected, grotesque and fantastical to the extreme. the highlight was an interactive wheel of life sculpture that you had to crawl into, but photos of it didn't really turn out.

the temple at wat phu tok is nice but not the reason i visited. the monks of wat phu tok have built seven levels of meditation huts into the limestone hill that rises behind the temple. the different levels are connected by a rickety maze of wooden bridges. i spent the night in the town of ban phu tok with a family who ran a small restaurant on their front porch. the restaurant owner's husband was pretty excited about my bike trip and would occasionally tell my story to fellow diners, pointing me out and yelling 'you! bicycle! vietnammmmmm!'

my favorite meditation hut, on level 5.

i also really wanted to see northeast thailand as it is by far the most remote area in the country (as well as the poorest). called isan, northeast thailand is actually more lao than thai, and maybe more lao than laos itself (in the late 1700s, vientiane was sacked by siam and thousands of lao peasants were forcibly moved into northeast thailand and reduced to serfdom. now, many more ethnic laos actually live in thailand than in laos itself. this was further compounded in 1893 when the french created an administrate unit, named laos, that was half the size of the former kingdom known as lan xang). to me, isan still felt very thai, although there were a lot of things that reminded of laos (what does it mean to be lao?). the most noticeable difference is the wealth, though, creating a social and economic infrastructure that is still impossible in laos.

with that being said, it feels wonderful to be back in laos. savannakhet is a beautiful town on the mekong, famous for its crumbling french colonial architecture and palm lined dirt roads (reminding me constantly of st. louis in senegal). yesterday (as so many of you remembered! thank you!) was my birthday and the full moon festival. it made for a great evening. a few other travelers in my guesthouse joined me for an evening along the river, eating street food, drinking beerlao and watching hundreds of lao families place candles and incense on the mekong. unique and wonderful.

before i go, i'll leave you with two photos from rock climbing in vang vieng, and two photos from na nam, a village i stopped in on the way to vientiane.

limestone cliffs outside of vang vieng.

i really do almost always wear a shirt - this is a hot country though.

ang nam ngum reservoir.

rattan ball in na nam village.

the festivities continue today with boat races, street food and more beerlao. tomorrow i'm off again, heading east towards vietnam, before turning south. my route is more uncertain in this part of the country, although i'm aiming to be in cambodia within about ten days or so. thanks again for the birthday wishes! more soon.

1505 km (vientiane).

change of plans. i'm going to thailand (briefly).

hopefully i'll be back in laos in time for my birthday, which also happens to coincide with one of the biggest festivals in laos (bun awk phansa), marking the end of the rainy season.

short for now, but hopefully more from thailand!

1275 km (vangvieng).

'ten weeks with clifford (a love story)' continues.

it's strange to be so far away during the madness leading up to the us elections. now more than ever, i feel like fellow travelers see me as such a representative of the us. i've actually gotten hoorahs when i've said i'm absentee voting for obama. as if it was a hard choice. i guess i shouldn't be surprised, when the vice presidential debates i just suffered through are actually taken seriously. my dad sent me this about a month ago, but i'm reminded of it daily, as i'm questioned about the us elections.

i wanted to use this post, not to rant about politics (you at home are probably tired of it) but to talk about my recent obsession with sticky rice. and to also talk a little bit about the biking i've been doing.

i've really been struck by the warm reception i get as i bike from town to town. as i wrote previously, people frequently come to the road and say hello, give me their hands, try out random english phrases ('my name is' without the name, 'good afternoon' at 7 in the morning).

i tried to take some video as i passed through a few of the villages, none of which worked all that well. the one i tried to post didn't work for some reason - i'll try again in the next few days. too bad i didn't have my camera out when i had 30 kids running beside me through their entire village... so much for subtlety.

i've decided (after much consideration (and i don't use 'much' lightly here)) that my favorite response is the occasional one i get from people over 60, mostly because it's so unexpected. usually, older people see me and probably think, 'pshhh, just another 2 meter white kid on a red bike with a yellow helmet and short shirts.' but then, occasionally, a 72 year old woman with a machete will make eye contact with me, give me a look that says 'what's wrong with you?', and then, just as i'm passing, throw me a thumbs up and a hurried sabaidee! it's those moments that make me happiest to be biking. and the downhills. oh, the downhills.

when i bike uphill, i think about sticky rice. biking downhill has become meditative - the wind has a calming and clearing effect.

the most common response i get after people hear about my bike trip is 'whoa. ok. i assume you've done a lot of biking before?' to which i usually respond 'um, no. well... no. my bike is red, though.'

what this has actually caused me to think about, though, is whether i see myself becoming a 'biker,' whatever that means, in the future. in the first few weeks i would have said definitely no, but as time has gone on i've really started to fall in love with biking as a mode of transport. halfway between luang prabang and vangvieng, i got stuck in the village of kioukacham due to a pretty intense rain storm, and spent the afternoon watching buses full of tourists stop, grab a sandwich, and move on. i was surprised to find myself quite content to watch them pass through, knowing i'd be spending the night in the middle of nowhere, and biking on the following morning. i'm not sure this is something i could have said two weeks ago.

i also realize i've been talking a lot about 'hilly' biking but haven't really told you what that means. so, courtesy of the lonely planet se asia biking guide i found in a book exchange in luang prabang, i give you an elevation guide of the two day ride i did between luang prabang and vangvieng.


it's a little confusing because i've done the ride in reverse. i started in the upper right hand corner in luang prabang, and biked to kioukacham the first day, then continued to muang phukhun and on to vangvieng (along the bottom) the second day. elevation is marked on the left, and distance on the bottom.

anyway, that's probably enough for now. it's been raining a lot today. writing felt like a nice alternative to getting wet. over the past few days i've been eating more mulberries than i ever thought possible, and tomorrow i'm going rock climbing in some limestone caves. should be exciting. and then i'm off to vientiane - i'll hopefully arrive by tuesday. hope you're all well!