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!

1010 km (luang prabang).

laos is really beautiful.

and hilly.

i've been in luang prabang for the past few days after taking the two day slow boat from houay xai. this all came after two days of biking from luang namtha on a brand new (hilly!) road (built by the chinese, intended to connect china and thailand, but still without a bridge over the mekong into thailand, so largely unused). i stopped at the village of nan phe on the way, finding a place to stay by making sleeping gestures to everyone i saw until a lovely family took me in. we made baskets and ate cucumbers. it was nice.

biking through laos has been really great, despite the hills. both the people i've met as well as those i just see as i pass on my bike have been so warm and friendly. there are small villages every ten minutes or so along the road, and often groups of kids come out to the road yelling sabaidee! (hello). sometimes i even get a high five. it's pretty great.

luang prabang has been a nice break from biking. i met two german women on the slow boat who introduced me to their swedish friend who grew up in laos and speaks both laos and thai. he, and the four laos bartenders we met through him, have been great guides over the past few days.

on the slow boat from houay xai.

there are lots of waterfalls around luang prabang. this was the first we visited - tad sae.

after this photo was taken, i got in.

bathing elephants in lower tad sae.

returning from the waterfall.

this morning i biked out to kuang si waterfall which was just spectacular.

after this photo was taken, i got in.
are there other ways you can pose in front of waterfalls? maybe i'll have to think of something more exciting.

tomorrow morning i'm going to start heading towards vangvieng, which will probably take about three days. i'm hoping to stay at an organic mulberry farm a bit outside of town, and exchange my mulberry picking expertise for free room and board. we'll see how that goes.

485 km (jinghong). and lots of photos!

surprise! things didn't go according to plan.

i ended up spending 5 days in yuanyang, and didn't really bike much between yuanyang and jinghong. i knew the road would be bad, but i didn't expect it to be that bad. big hills, frequent landslides, and a few points where river and 'road' became one meant i wasn't able/didn't want to be on a bike. i ended up hitching a bit, and taking a few buses, making my way to jinghong over two days.

i arrived in jinghong yesterday, and will be leaving to head south toward laos early tomorrow morning. jinghong is a really interesting city in that it feels so generically se asian. the autonomous region of xishuangbana (jinghong is the capital) is heavily influenced by laos, thai and burmese culture, although the chinese government only officially recognizes the dai influence (an ethnic group originally from thailand although now dispersed throughout laos, burma and china). the thick humidity of xishuangbana has been a huge change from the cool mists of yuanyang. i got up early this morning and explored the city and countryside on bike, and am now hiding this afternoon from the heat.

i ended up getting a bit stuck in yuanyang, when i stopped in the beautiful village of duoyishu as i was leaving yuanyang (or so i thought). there was a small guesthouse in the village run by a couple from guangdong, and i ended up staying with them for three nights, which included celebrating the mid-autumn/harvest festival on the 14th. staying in the village was wonderful, and i especially enjoyed an epic 8 hour hike through the rice terraces with the other guest, a chinese man named stephen (who actually lived in the us for 11 years).

here are a bunch of photos from the last month, going backwards in time. click on any of them for much larger versions!

duoyishu is in the right of this photo.

on the road between yuanyang and duoyishu.

talking to kyle in the middle of nowhere (during our hike).

making dumplings for the mid-autumn festival.

approaching tonghai, a city between kunming and yuanyang.
signs like this make me very happy.

(notice the characteristic factories/pollution)

clifford and i, dressed to impress, just before setting off from kunming.

with some friends i met during a quick weekend trip to dali (four hours nw of kunming).

sunset over kunming from my apartment.

below are a few photos from yangshuo, my first stop after entering china over a month ago. the last photo is identical to the one that appears on the back of the 20 yuan note.

well, that's it for now. i'm hoping to cross the laos border saturday and then make my way sw over four or five days to the laos/thailand border. from there i'll hop on a boat and head east-ish down the mekong over two days to the city of luang prabang. hopefully more from there!

365 km (yuanyang).

biking is hard.

i arrived a few hours ago in the small town of yuanyang xinjie after three days of biking through a much hillier landscape than i'd anticipated. in the interest of full disclosure (this is a safe space) i took a 30 km bus ride from the river valley below to my current altitude of 1600m (check out the map for my current location). today's views were by far the best - the 40 km downhill to the river valley had views that gave me goosebumps despite the intense heat.

yuanyang is apparently comparable to the great wall in terms of engineering feats. i'm not really sure what that means, but the photos i've seen are pretty phenomenal. this isn't the best time to view the terraces since they're currently full of rice (you want to see them full of water) but i made it before harvest season, so at least they won't be full of rice stalk stumps. i'll be checking out the surrounding area in the next day or two.

i haven't figured out how best to describe what biking through these areas feels like. each day is made up of so many little moments with different people in different environments that ultimately make up my larger experience. somehow turning all of this into a coherent explanation hasn't really worked, even in my head.

maybe i'll try again in a few days. for now, i hope you're all well.

0 km (kunming).

well, tomorrow (barring any unforeseen circumstances) is the start of the great bike adventure (woooo) '08.

my odometer is set to kilometers since this part of the world is strictly metric, but for those of you that may be metrically challenged, it's about 1.6 km to the mile. i'll trust that you can do the math from here.

i'll work my way south over the next few days to yuanyang (a town famous for it's rice terraces), and then head southwest through some hilly terrain to the town of jinghong. after a few days in what is supposed to be a very se asian feeling region of china, i'll head south to the laos border. if everything goes according to plan (something i'll undoubtedly say quite often but will, i imagine, rarely come true) this should all take about two weeks.

more soon, including photos, if i can ever get them off my camera.

a typical dining experience in small town china.

yesterday, i biked between anning and fumin, two small towns west of kunming. the route was beautiful and followed a river with rice terraces climbing both sides of the valley. when i arrived in fumin, i biked around town for a bit, in search of a place for lunch. drawing stares from every direction, clifford (my bike) and i worked our (not the last time clifford will help me use the first person plural) way through the small streets, finally settling on a small noodle shop just outside of town. as i pulled up, the entire restaurant turned to watch the waiguoren lock his bike.

i walked into the restaurant as customers audibly commented on every aspect of my appearance. i approached the kitchen, everyone watching, and ordered a bowl of veggie noodles. i was complemented on my chinese (this is VERY common, even if you can only say hello) and then i returned to my table. i sat, everyone stared. i drank some water, everyone stared. i sent a text, everyone stared. my phone beeped in response, those who had turned away looked back.

the owner of the restaurant, very impressed with my chinese, sat down with me and started saying something important really fast. in response, i said 'oh, i only speak a little chinese' hoping that this would somehow convey that although, yes, i can order veggie noodles, i still had no idea what on earth he was talking about. he shrugged, and walked off.

the table next to me was working on some delicious looking fried potatoes. i asked if i could purchase some. the owner went to the table, took their potatoes, and gave them to me.

on the way out, i asked for directions back to kunming. as i walked away, clear on which way to go, the woman who had given me directions yelled 'chinese!' at me in chinese. i smiled in response, trying to avoid expressing my utter confusion.

amid giggles and taigaoles, i pedaled off to kunming.

ps. i'm considering renaming this blog 'amid giggles and taigaoles.'

observations on biking in china.

china has been added to that list of countries in which the phrase 'oh insert country of choice...' is used as a way of staying sane in response to the multiple situations/circumstances/events per day that just don't make any sense.

here are a few things i have learned/seen in my two weeks of biking in china.

- as far as i can tell, china is a country of people in cars/trucks/buses on foot/bike/motorcycle playing a life long game of chicken. getting stared down by an 85 pound 70+ year old chinese woman is a frightening experience. she won, i swerved.
- the only consistent rule of the road i've observed in china is 'the bigger you are, the more you can get away with.'
- in keeping with this, red lights seem to be viewed as some sort of challenge by truck and bus drivers. red lights mean anything goes. green lights mean proceed with caution.
- it's not uncommon to be nudged out of the bike lane by trucks/buses that don't feel like waiting in traffic.
- it's not uncommon for trucks/buses to use the bike lanes as parking lots.
- i've had to avoid hitting a disconcerting number of unattended children between the ages of 2 and 5.
- i get a lot of attention on my bike. sometimes it feels like i'm in a race. except no one speaks english and no one is cheering me on. they're just yelling at me.
- things i frequently hear are 'laowai!' (literally 'old outsider'), 'waiguoren!' (foreign person) or 'oh! tai gao le!' (oh! too/very tall!). yesterday when i was biking through town a chinese woman who must have been at least 75 yelled, in english, 'oh! you're so tall! like a mountain!' that was unexpected.

somehow, despite all of this, things just seem to work. we all get where we need to go. it's just a bit more exciting along the way.

last night i read this quote about driving in india, and it feels very applicable to china as well:

'in the west, people take everything very personally.

in much of india, we still dont have traffic lights, and our streets are a throng of drivers, pedestrians and sometimes animals all trying to cross each other and only narrowly avoiding each other. drivers honk their horns constantly at each other to alert each other that they are there and to vie for position, but take it far less personally. we know that it is the roads and millions of people trying to live their lives and get to where they are going. our culture reminds us that sometimes life is impersonal. we all are subject to impersonal forces - like traffic.'