What priorities do the red stripes and blue stars really represent?

What priorities do the red stripes and blue stars really represent?

On a lonely winter night we go out for coffee. “How was your day” emerges into “Did you pay the mortgage,” and finally after all the routine mundane questions are spent we exchange them for dreams of summer, retirement, and travel dreams. “Where could we go?” “We could see what people do in the farthest possible place from here!” “When we retire, we could live in some rain forest in Costa Rica!” “Or we could own an amazing community school in a village in India!” The dull winter scene outside seems brighter with our mirage of dreams.

Why let the dreams float away with the clouds? We capture them like a child capturing bubbles with a net. And we do it with one single click of the computer mouse. Just like that we buy plane tickets and our dream becomes a reality.

Suddenly in June all the “Mrs. Cavanagh, is the answer to 4 times 5 twenty?” and “Mrs. Cavanagh, can I have a band-aid?” “Mrs. Cavanagh, he called me stupid!” “He tattle-tailed!” all go on summer vacation. Students pack up their books, brains, and back packs. I go home to pack, un-pack, pack again, and double check, oops, and pack yet again. I discover that packing for a cycling trip takes precise packing since everything has to fit into two small cycling side compartments.

“Did you remember to pack the extra inner-tubes?” “How many cycling shorts did you pack?”

“Uh… I don’t remember! I better un-pack just once more and double check!”

“What about the air-pump!”

Just as I am about to fasten the cycling compartment the final time, I toss in my pair of red striped and blue stared socks. I am a proud American citizen, a community member, and a proud teacher of future American representatives. I will cycle though countries and represent the kindness and openness of an American citizen and proudly wear my bright red, white, and blue socks J

…..A day of biking…

The sun bakes my body like a cake and my sweat creates a layer of sticky frosting. My shirt clings to me uncomfortably like plastic saran wrap. I thrust my body forward, one peddle at a time, one mile at a time.

Even in the course of a couple of miles, we stop and stop again to guzzle water. We even tie a five liter water bottle to the back of the bicycle. We go through over ten liters of water in one day! The first fifty miles of the trip are beautiful--narrow roads holding hands with bridges. Along the sides of the road, there is rice laid out to dry. While on Michigan backroads, we usually find peace and quiet on the rolling hills, here in Thailand we are ALWAYS surrounded by the zoom of motorcycles. We pass nearly all of the local bicyclers riding older three speed bikes. Kids yell, "Hello!" All day, we are greeted with Hello, hello, HELLO! We eagerly yell back and people respond with a shy laughter. That is pretty much the extent of my Thai communication skills-- zero-- we rely on their one word of English and end up with a two word pleasant conversation :)

Then I am taken by surprise. “Hello!” followed by “You biking..very good!” A man on a bicycle rides beside me and beams a welcoming smile.

“Hello!” I return his smile pleasantly.

“You must stop. I invite you for lunch. I welcome bicycler to my country. I must buy to you lunch!”

I am touched by his kindness. My legs welcome the stop as we pull into an open café on the side of the road.

“Bicycler always hungry. You must eat the rice and all you want. No problem. I buy for you.”

“Thank you so much. You are very kind.”

“I guess you are from Holland. Many biker are from Holland. Where are you from?” he asks.

“I am from the United States of America,” I reply proudly.

His smile freezes momentarily as he replies, “Oh well, Bicycler very good. American people very good, but American government very bad.”

“Oh ok.” I don’t know how to reply. Thank you didn’t seem appropriate. I take a bite of rice and sort of smile sheepishly.

“Yeah, you biker strong, but American government like the war. Why the American government like to fight so much?”

I chew on my rice to give me an extra minute to think and then, “You know, I really don’t know the real reasons for the war.”

I shake his hand and thank him over and over for his kindness in reaching out to us as foreigners. He leaves me chewing on his comment for the remainder of our bike ride-- American government bad… American government like war… I am startled that people so far away from my land are so aware of our political situation.

It has been a long day of cycling over seventy miles. I am so relieved to check into a humble guest house, shower off all the iced sweaty cake feeling and become “American girl” once again. We find ourselves relaxing in the guest house lobby in the evening. I sip on a coffee with condensed milk (in South East Asia it is custom to use condensed milk rather than creamer). I enjoy the company of the fellow travelers. “Where are you from?” I ask an older man sitting on the chair beside me.

“From Spain. Where abouts are you from?”

“The united States,” I reply proudly.

“Oh yeah? We are counting down the days until Bush is out of office!” I am expecting a question regarding our travel itinerary but quickly after the short greeting I am connected to the negativity of my government.

“Have you ever traveled to the U.S?” I ask.

“Oh yes! I studied once in California and it was really beautiful and I really enjoyed it.” He replies. “I just never really appreciated Spain’s health care until my experience in the United States. You must really worry about getting sick without public healthcare.”

“Well, yeah, I guess. But we have insurance and stuff,” I reply.

“I learned from people in the U.S. that if you get really sick, they can charge you personally. I feel safer in Spain knowing that no matter what happens to my health I will always be taken care of and I will be ok financially.”

Safer in Spain?! His words sting. I always thought America was the safest place in the world. The most advanced and suddenly my pride is challenged.

“Where are you from?” I turn to the lady sitting to my right.

“Germany. Nice to meet you.” She kindly shakes my hand and asks me, “And where are you from?”

“I am from the U.S.” I reply warmly.

“Oh wow! Is it true that gas there is only four dollars a gallon?”

“Only?” I think to myself. We’ve been watching in terror for the past four months as gas prices skyrocketed to an astonishing price of four dollars a month and the German girl said only. Not quite sure how to respond, I reply, “Yeah, uh, gas is four dollars a gallon now.”

“Wow that is amazing, ”She replies,“ In Germany gas is nine dollars a gallon!”

“WOW!” I reply astonished, “We think it is really expensive at four dollars a gallon!”

“I hear that America uses 25 percent of the world’s energy sources,” she states, “Are people starting to use more energy efficient cars there?”

I find myself taking a deep long sip of my coffee while flashes of sport utility vehicles that I saw gliding down the highway haunt my mind. “Uh, yeah. We do have the Toyota Prius, but not too many people can afford them.”

“Oh, in Germany many people are beginning to drive inexpensive diesel cars that get 50 miles to that gallon.”

“Well, I am sure that America will get some soon.” I state uncomfortable, feeling as if I am from a third world country waiting for technology to reach me!

“Nice to meet you all! Have a good evening and safe travels!” I dismiss myself kindly feeling somehow behind the times, as if from the third world somehow.

As I set out my cycling attire for the next day and re-pack my cycling bag I pull out my padded cycling shorts and a t-shirt advertising my community of Kalamazoo, MI. I would proudly wear the shirt from my home town. Then I pull out the striped star socks and decide to re-pack them. I begin to question what the red stripes and stars represent; Millions of dollars spent on war to secure oil supplies? America; a country with so much but yet strangely lacking the security of health care and a safe environment in the future. I am an American girl, representing the American people in my travels. My priorities are a safe environment for the future, secure health care, and acceptance for others across the world. I begin to wonder for the first time if my government really represents me. And I realize that maybe those red stripes and blue stars don’t represent the values that they used to.

Travel Log at a Glance

JUNE 16- Thank you, Gy, for driving us to Chicago. Departure for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with a layover in Tokyo Japan on ANA airlines. No charge for transporting the bicycles.

JUNE 17- 11:00 p.m. Vietnamese time we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and stay at Ha Vy Hotel.

JUNE 18- Official day one in Vietnam. We put together the bicycles and went sight-seeing in crazy motorcycle traffic on foot.

JUNE 19- First day biking! We cycled in crazy motorcycle traffic to the bus station and took a bus out of the city to a small town called Mi Tho. We rode 10 miles from Mi Tho to Ben Tre. HOT weather! We cannot speak a word of Vietnamese and there is NO English anywhere!

JUNE 20- We cycled 50 miles from Ben Tre to Can Tho. Lots of construction with NO SHOULDER to cycle on and heavy cement truck traffic. Difficult ride because of the heat and the construction.

JUNE 21- We took a tour of the floating market-- local people sell fruits, vegetables, and nearly everything from small canoes on the river!

JUNE 22- We cycled all day around Can Tho- lush vegetation, small rural communities, people were surprised to see us and said "hello!" and smiled at us as we passed by. 40 miles.

JUNE 23- We were aliens landing from Mars, cycling the rural long route from Can Tho to Chau Doc, Vietnam 100 miles.

JUNE 24- Bye to Vietnam and Hello to Cambodia-- boat ride on the Mekong River to cross the border and enter the capital city of Cambodia: Phnom Penh

JUNE 25- Wander/adjustment to Cambodia. We visited the Royal Palace and cycled to the killing fields 15 miles.

JUNE 26- We cycled out of the capital city of Phnom Penh to a small rural town called Skun 50 miles.

JUNE 27- We cycled from Skun to Kampung Thom and met a fellow cycler (Charlie from S. Korea) on the road. Scenery- rice fields and lots of friendly people waving at us as we pass 50 miles.

JUNE 28- Kampung Thom all the way to Siem Reap. Lots of rice fields and a long hot day of cycling 100 miles!

JUNE 29- Relax day, wander around Siem Reap and ate Korean food for the first time with Charlie.

JUNE 30- We explored the famous Angkor Wat Ruins with Charlie and enjoyed the gentle breeze riding our bicycles around the ruins 15 miles.

JULY 1- We visited the local life fishing museum and had a rest day in Siem Reap. We enjoyed Indian cuisine :)

JULY 2- We cycled with Charlie from Siem Reap towards the Thai border and stayed in Sisophone. The ride was on a HORRIBLE gravel road bumpidy bump the entire way.

JULY 3- It rained in the night and the gravel road become ankle deep mudd road. 50 miles out of Cambodia and Welcome to Thailand and its PAVED roads :)

JULY 4- We part ways with Charlie and head south on a quiet curvy road, stopping to visit a cave. We had a tour of the cave all in Thai language and didn't understand a word but enjoyed it anyway :) 40 mile day from Wattanapram Thailand to Soi Dao.

JULY 5- 50 miles from Soi Dao to Chantabury-- our first big city in Thailand. We stayed at a cute guest house on a river.

JULY 6- 60 miles from Chantabury to Ban Phe. First time at the ocean. We stopped at a store to get peanuts and water and met a scary Italian Mafia guy.

JULY 7- 60 miles from Ban Phe to the mystery dot on the map, Pattaya-- that should be renamed disgusting, nasty, sex tourist sin city.

JULY 8- Pattaya rest day

JULY 9- 40 miles from Pattaya, Thailand to near Samut Prakan. A frame cottage resort in the middle of dumpsville.

JULY 10- It rained all morning and turned into a light sprinkle around noon. We cycled into dark and stayed at a honey-moon suite in polluted-nastyville. I supose that even factory workers need honey moon suites?! 50 mile day.

JULY 11- Samut Songkhram to Phetchaburi 40 miles. While eating dinner, we saw a man walk by with an elephant.

JULY 12- Phetchaburi to Hua Hin 50 miles (where the loved King resides-- he really is loved-- his photograph is absolutely EVERYWHERE and on road signs). We enjoyed staying at a guest house built on stilts directly over the ocean. I could see the sea in between the spaces in the wooden planks on the floor.

JULY 13- Hua Hinto Pranburi- visit with Thailand peace corps volunteer, Angela. We rode our bicycles to the mangrove forest. 30 miles

JULY 14- Pranburi to Prechuap Khiri Khan (quiet fishing village with Buddhist temple on a hill owned by hoards of monkeys). We enjoyed a long walk on the beach and saw a HUGE jelly-fish! 48 miles

JULY 15- Prechuap Khiri Khan to Bang Saphan 60 miles- We got lost on the beach roads and eventually found a nice bungalow near the beach! I enjoyed veggie tofu soup for dinner after a long day of biking!

JULY 16- 72 mile day from Bang Saphon to Chumphon. We took a mid-night sleeper fairy boat to an island called Koh Tao

JULY 17- We landed on the island at the wee morning hours and road a few miles to a nice bungalow called SILVER BUNGALOWS, overlooking the sea. We spent the day hiking around the island.

JULY 18- Snorkeling tour where we met a couple from Sweden on their honeymoon. We spent the rest of the evening with them for dinner on the beach.

JULY 19- Relax and hiking around the island before taking the midnight ferry boat to Suratthani

JULY 20- 100 mile long cycling day. Off the fairy boat, sleepy eyed, we started the long ride across the peninsula and made it before night fall to Phang- Nga-- a beautiful town with cliffs everywhere!

JULY 21- Island tour in Phang Nga to James Bond Island

JULY 22- 60 mile day from Phang-Nga to Phuket tourist island (a bridge connects it to the mainland). We stayed at Karen beach and met an American, Tim, a retired man who lives in Phuket with his wife.

JULY 23- We cycled from Karen Beach the viewpoint and into Phuket town 24 miles. Beautiful views of the ocean on all sides.

JULY 24- Phuket to Phi Phi island rocky boat ride.

JULY 25- Swimming in Turquoise waters on Phi Phi Island

JULY 26- Boat from Phi Phi island to Krabi (VERY ROCKY boat ride, I was SOOOOO happy to reach land again!) We hiked up 1,254 steps to the Buddhist temple overlooking all of Krabi!

JULY 27- 80 miles from Krabi south to Trang.

JULY 28- 90 miles- a long cycling day to Satun -- our last stop in Thailand before heading to Malaysia by boat!

JULY 29- Welcome to Malaysia! Boat from Satun to Lankowi island (Malaysia). 15 mile ride from boat dock to guest house

JULY 30- Cable car ride and bike around Langkowi-- Lots of beautiful breathe-taking views 30 miles

JULY 31- Langkawi to Georgetown (Penang) 3 hour boat-ride. I got worried when they handed out black barf bags... and WOW was it a rocky three hour ride. I really don't like ocean boats! Again, I was REALLY happy to reach land! We enjoyed Indian Cuisine in Georgetown and a nice hostel for the night!

AUGUST 1- Crazy mountain ride from Georgetown to Gerik! The hills slowed us down so much that we found ourselves riding through jungle roads at night! We were so happy to arrive at a town at around 9:00 p.m.! 75 miles

AUGUST 2- 80 miles on hilly jungle ride with iron legs from Gerik to Jeli! We saw yellow warning road signs for elephant crossings and saw lots of monkeys!

AUGUST 3- 30 miles from Jeli to train stop town called Tanah Merah.

AUGUST 4- JUNGLE TRAIN!!! We put our bicycles on a train and spent all day on the jungle train! Gorgeous ride and a great way to see into the local life and small villages. We stayed the night in Jerantut-- the last small city before heading into the jungle national park!

AUGUST 5- We took a boat three hours up the river to the national park entrance and we left out bicycles in storage in a hotel in Jerantut. We hiked a few hours in the jungle and took a jungle night walk/tour.

AUGUST 6- We walked on the longest canopy walk in the world and enjoyed hiking and seeing monkeys. We took a night river ride, looking for glowing eyes on the river's edge. It rained at night...

AUGUST 7- The night rain invited the leaches to come out and they tried really hard to crawl up our legs on our six hour hike into the jungle! We pulled off the leaches with salted peanut shells and enjoyed a stay in a wooden hut in the middle of the jungle spying for animals.

AUGUST 8- We took a river boat back to town from the jungle and REALLY enjoyed a shower.

AUGUST 9- We hiked into a cave and saw lots of bats! we took a night four-wheel safari and saw jungle cat, birds, snakes, spiders, and a slow monkey!

AUGUST 10- Cycled from Jerantut to Raub 60 miles

AUGUST 11- 65 miles Cycled from Raub through the jungle (beautiful ride) to Kuala Lumpur. I really expected the ride to be ugly and polluted leading into the city but it was goregous!!

AUGUST 12- Visit to the Petronas Twin Towers and walk all over Kuala Lumpur..oh yeh, also my doctor visit to cure unhappy belly.

AUGUST 13- KUALA LUMPUR, capital of Malaysia We found boxes at a bike store and enjoyed shopping and eating in Small India



AUGUST 15- Fly from KL Malaysia to Bangkok, Thailand

We plan to enjoy a couple of days in Bangkok before...

AUGUST 18- 11:00 p.m. our flight takes off to Chicago U.S.A with a layover in Tokyo, Japan!

Malaysian memories

We cycle the last six miles in Thailand from Satun to the ferry dock where boats depart Thailand for the Malaysian island of Lankawi. I wear my knee length shorts and a conservative shirt instead of my usual tight-fitting bike short and tank top attire. Beads of sweat slyly expand into puddles. The sweat becomes a wet layer of Elmer’s glue and my shirt becomes a sheet of saran wrap clinging uncomfortably to me….

I was worried about cycling Malaysia. I had never been to an Islamic country before. Would the people judge us and not accept us? Would I have to cover myself and cycle in 90 degree heat fully covered? I shouldn’t have wasted the time to worry or write the previous sentences. It turned out that Malaysia was my favorite country out of all our travels in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Memories that sparkle in my memory that are meant to be savored to the last drop, the last moment….

Witch costumes-- Will I have to wear one while biking? I see some women wearing long black robes, long black head scarves, and even long black scarves that cover their entire faces except for their eyes. I wonder how they eat and spy on a woman on the street corner stand slipping her spoon underneath her face cloth. I never see her smile, nor her curved nose, nor her curved body- just the blob of her burka that resembles a Halloween witch costume. However, men that accompany the women, wear typical western attire (shorts, tank-tops, t-shirts). It seems strange to me that only women cover themselves so carefully, but that men look just like men from the United States. I worry that they are offended by my hideous bike attire (tank-top, tight bike shorts). We spend our first nights in Malaysia on the island of Langkawi at a guesthouse owned by a Japanese/Iranian couple. The Japanese lady seems modern-- dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and always greets us with a smile and advice on the best cheap local restaurants and markets.
”As a tourist, am I offensive for not covering my body like the women that wear all black?” I ask her.

“No problem!” She replies kindly. “The women that wear all black are tourists from Saudi Arabia with a different more strict form of Islam. The Malaysian women usually just wear scarves that cover their hair and often wear just jeans and t-shirts or skirts. You will be safe and comfortable anywhere you go in Malaysia. No worry!”

Sea sick on the Indian Ocean- I sit calmly on the seat of the ferry-boat ready to write in my journal about our island adventures on Langkawi island. I imagine writing stories and stories and stories more during the three hour boat ride from the island to the mainland of Malaysia. At first, the ride is calm, smooth, gentle. I write about the Islamic attire of the women and am deep into my thoughts when a man begins to distribute black plastic bags. A wave breaks our determined forward route and shakes us sideways, then another wave, and another… I look out the window and feel terrified as I see monster hungry waves trying to swallow the boat. The boat bounces between them, surfacing after each one. People begin to use the bags followed by gagging sounds that I will save my reader from experiencing. I do not like boats, SAM I AM! Not in the Pacific, nor in the Atlantic, Nor anywhere, SAM I AM! I like the land, yes I do!

The never ending night jungle bike ride

Steve sinks in the sewer- We make it up the never-ending mountain in the lowest gear 1 and finally are overjoyed to see the warning fast decline sign… down, down, down, carefully in the pitch dark with just the small glow of our eternal light flash-light… Yes! Finally there are street lights signaling civilization in the distance. Then, the street lights welcome us as we cycle underneath them into a small town. We look up at the buildings for any English clues for “Hotel” or “Guesthouse” and BOOM! “OUCH!” I look behind me to see Steve’s leg caught in a sewer hole. The grate is just wide enough for his foot to slip through and his knee thick enough to catch his fall. Several people seem to pop out of the store fronts. “You needing help?” “We bring you to hospital?” “You ok?” “You leg broken?” One man picks up Steve’s bike. Another helps him up. We all watch eagerly as the evil sewer hole lets go of his leg. We let out a deep breath of relief as he takes a first step forward. A swollen knee, a few scratches, but nothing is broken. It was a moment that showed us the hospitality of the culture. People are people and they came to our rescue!

Iron legs and enjoying it! Southern Vietnam is mostly flat. Cambodia is flat. Southern Thailand is flat with a few gentle hills. Malaysia must be flat too. FALSE! We bike UP, UP, UP winding hill roads which reward us with beautiful views, lots of monkeys, and iron legs!

Jungle train inside the life of the locals

Trekking with the loved leaches- We thought leaches only lived in standing water, but they hang out on the jungle floor and join us on our six hour hike into the jungle and snuggle in between our toes. YUCK!

…Vines are braided like a little girl’s hair. Leaves are bigger than a giant’s head. Tree trunks tower majestically above our heads reaching to Jesus, Zeus, or Buddha. I take in the pure virgin forest air. My eyes trace the trunk up, up, up and hang on the canopy leaves above. “What is that?” Steve’s voice interrupts my focus above. He stares at a small slimy creature catapulting up his shoe. We stare at it in unison as it magically disappears through his sock. “Yikes!” We freeze in amazement and pull back the sock. Within thirty seconds the hideous creature (leach) catapults onto Steve’s shoe, slithers through the microscopic pores in his sock, and sticks its suction cup mouth onto his ankle. “I can’t pull it off!” “It really has a grip on me!”

“Salt!” I remember. “We need salt!”

“Where are we going to get salt in the jungle?” We look at each other, completely defeated by the small evil leaches.

Then, it dawns on me. “I have salted peanuts in the shell!”

I pop the shell open, eat the peanut inside, and place the salty shell on the head of the leach devouring my Steve. It detests the salt and lets go as Steve grabs it using a leaf and tosses it on the ground. We are saved by salted peanut shells and rainforest leaves!

Night jungle treks, safari- The strong glare of the flashlight temporarily paralyzes snakes, monkeys, birds, butterflies, spiders, stick bugs, sloths, wild cats and all sorts of jungle critters. Their shiny eyes glow and reflect from the flashlight beam.

Is this really the way to the capital? We saw more monkeys cycling to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur than while trekking in the jungle!

Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia- A mosaic collage of people together create a piece of beauty

Malaysia welcomed us with adventure, culture, friendly people, and mean leaches! We flew from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, Thailand—Capital city hopping until catching our long flight homeward bound!

Made in Thailand...

MADE IN THAILAND

What is Thailand like? The travel guidebooks describe Thailand as the most developed country in South East Asia: a beach lover’s paradise, exotic fruits, and kind spirited people. This is only a part of Thailand. On bicycle we see EVERY corner. We feel and conquer every mile of the back roads and interact with the local people beyond the hotel fronted tourist boulevards.

While Pattaya gave us an eye opening experience into sex tourism, the ride from Pattaya around the Gulf of Thailand staying south of Bangkok taught us what “made in Thailand” really means. Industrial polluted stink grey concrete expressway. I felt like I was riding through Gary Indiana headed from Michigan to Wisconsin trying to avoid Chicago. While the ride was disgusting, it gave us a real picture of what Thailand really can be for many of its people beyond the tourist trail.

Getting dark around 6:30 p.m., we begin to worry. No hotels in sweatshop world.

“Hotel?” Steve asks a local outside a 7-11 store, holding his hands by his head as a form of sign language. The man nodds his head yes to our relief and points forward.

“How can there be a hotel anywhere near here?” I ask myself doubtfully. We cycle another ten minutes and nothing- only large shabby factories.

“Hotel?” Steve asks again, this time to a man parked on his motorcycle.

The man smiles and motions once again ahead.

“There must be something!” Steve says, “Everyone points us ahead.”

Dark, with a just a few dim street lights guiding our way. My butt hurst from the seat in spite of the hideous bike shorts and then bright flashing lights take away all my aches and replace it with hope. “Paris,” the sign reads.

“Maybe it is a hotel!” we pull our bicycles off the road.

“Hotel?” I ask the guard in front.

“Yes! You want room?” the guard replies with a smile.

I turn around to look at Steve and say, “Welcome to a luxury honeymoon suite in the middle of dumpsville!” The bed is circle shaped. The room is painted red and purple. We are served rice and stir fried vegetables in bed for just a few dollars on a silver tray! And the biggest irony…

“You wanna know something funny?” Steve asks after taking a cold shower.

“What?” I reply.

“My boxers say: MADE IN THAILAND on the tag.”

A dot called Pattaya

Have you ever been driving along on some long road trip desperate for a bathroom break, rest stop, or maybe it is nearing dark and your eyelids are heavy and it is time for a hotel. Whichever the occasion, you pull out the map and your search for the closest little dot in route indicating a town.

The dot labeled Pattaya

The sky is a flawless coat of baby blue—no splotches of white clouds. The sky is like a clear window… the sun has a strong heavy eye and it glares at us the entire day. I can feel the sun’s stare as it slyly turns my skin pink. At times I can see the ocean through the rows of palm trees to my left! My legs begin to complain about each rotation of the pedals. We stop at one of the many 7-11 general stores abundant in each town. A yogurt, a pack of peanuts and a large bottle of water provide petroleum for the body. A few more miles.. We look at the map. There is a big dot just a few more miles up on our route. It even looks like it is on the ocean front. PATTAYA labels the bold dot and becomes our destination for the day. Riding a bicycle through the country, I see and feel the changes in the land. I feel as if I have ownership over each mile. I pedal it, with my own power, and I conquer it. Yesterday’s ride, north, was hilly green and more remote. Suddenly in the last few miles, the hills are no longer riding with me. The two lane road multiplies into four lanes. Small humble bamboo huts on stilts have been replaced by massive luxury resorts and skyscraper condo buildings. We pull over on the gravel shoulder, sip some water. “Maybe this place, Pattaya, is actually in our guidebook,” I suggest. Steve pulls out the lonely planet guidebook.

“Pattaya is not in the index.”

“Let’s just go towards the waterfront. There are sure to be a strip of hotels and restaurants there!”

The countdown of the road markers is over. We are there. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I glance at the watch: 5:15 p.m. “By 5:45, I will be clean and showered,” I tell myself, eager to find a hotel. I search the signs and buildings for English words like, “hotel, hostel, or guesthouse. I see English letters and they spell, “Go-go Girls” and “Go-go Bar.” I see a foreigner. My first thought is to stop and ask if he knows of a good cheap hostel. He is an older male white foreigner—not the typical backpacker. Then another foreigner, and another. I look around to my right, my left, and behind me. The street is full of foreigners—all older white men and many of them are accompanied by young short beautiful Thai women. I glance down a side street. “Hotel” pulls at my attention. Two very sexy Thai young girls sit outside of the hotel in mini skirts.

“Maybe not.” I mumble

“Go-Go Bar”

“ “Girl Dancers Tonight!”

“Lady-Boy Bar”

“Night Dream Hotel” (all in English)

I feel as if I have somehow left Thailand and entered a different country. The road stops at a T in front of the ocean where it joins with a plam tree lined walkway. Beautiful palm trees, peaceful waves and sea, sexy young girls, and old wrinkly white men. I stand there leaning on my handlebars, surprised, shocked, a rude welcoming to the dot on the map: Pattaya. Little did we know that it was the sex tourism prostitute capital of Thailand! A wrinkled white hand reaches down and squeezes the butt cheek of the little Thai girl next to him as they walk around me. I am disgusted. In the moment, I hate Thailand. Lustful old white men, greedy girls, no integrity, anything for money…We stay in a cheap hotel and like every other hotel, there are sexy girls sitting in front advertising “massages.” We tell ourselves that it is just for one night. And the biggest irony: Steve would get sick in the night and we would be stuck in Sin City: Pattaya.

I walk to the English book store across the street from the hotel and a title, “My name Lon, you like me?” grabs at my attention. I read it while looking out of the hotel window, watching the strange white men interact with the beautiful Thai women. The book helps me UNDERSTAND (not to be confused with accept) the prostitute life. The white men are generally social outcasts, unattractive, lonely, or divorced men, yearning for love. The Thai women are better paid than any other job in Thailand. They make enough money to provide for their entire families. Parents even encourage their young beautiful daughters to become prostitutes so the family can have T.V., siblings can go to school, and the rest of the family can live well. Sometimes the white man wants to “rescue” the prostitute, marry her, and take her to his own country, but the nightly money is not the same. Some Thai women chose to stay in the prostitute life for the money. It is sad. It is complicated. I wish the world was just a long beautiful bike ride through lush green palm tree scenery for everyone.

Mud covered, we made it to Thailand!

I am way behind on my writing! I have been living in the moment and the world finds me in a small town of Thailand called Phang-Nga. I imagine going home and friends and family will ask, "So, where in Thailand did you go?" I will look back wide-eyed, take a minute to pull out a slur of strange letter combination from memory and finally, "Wattanaprong!" or "Hua Hin!" or "Pretchapuri-Khan!" will explode out of my mouth. It sounds like gibberish, and that is exactly what the Thai language is to me still- gibberish. I have learned only a few words such as Saw-wa-di-kah for hello if a girl is saying it. If a boy is saying hello, the ending on the word changes forming saw-wa-di-krap.

Unlike in my travels in Central and South America, here I have not a prayer of pronouncing anything. Wattanaprong is the first dot on the map into Thailand from crossing over the Cambodian border. "We can make it there in a day if we leave really early," I encourage Steve and our fellow biker, Charlie.
"The road line on the map is a dotted line. Maybe it is not paved," Steve wonders.
"Of course it is paved! It is one of the primary border crossings from Cambodia to Thailand!" I state boldly. We look at the map closely. All the other roads we have been on are marked by solid lines. Indeed the line marking the road from Siem Reap, Cambodia leading to the border of Thailand is dotted.
"Maybe it was a misprint. Or perhaps the map is out-dated." I state hopefully.
At 6:30 a.m., we meet Charlie in front of the mini-market. He is easy to pick out miles away with his six packs to label him as super-man world biker! We jump into the mini-mart quickly for some peanuts and yogurt energy and then we are off. Feet hammering at the pedals. I get a steady rhythm going and keep my pace steady. On the way out of Siem Reap, we pass luxury hotels, fancy restaurants, and just a mile further little bamboo hut dwellings. The road is gentle, smooth and paved. For the first half hour of our ride I think that for sure the dotted line for the road was nothing. And then all at once it happens. The strip of luxury hotels is behind us. The pavement is like a royal carpet and just beyond the royal tourist hotel ville, the paved road ends and we are greeted by dust that flies up to hug our faces. I hold firmly onto my handlebars, keeping myself steady on my bicycle as the dirt bumps threaten to throw me into the ditch. My eyes are glued to the road playing I-spy with the huge pot-holes. I swerve around them. A huge cargo truck passes, tossing dirt up like confetti. It plasters my hair and clothing. I click my gears down to the lowest number one. We slowly crawl like a line of turtles and we feel each and every kilometer in our legs. With each curve, we convince ourselves that it is the last gravel patch and just around the corner the gravel will unite once again with asphalt. However, Cambodia fights us the entire way as if it does not want us to leave.

"I must walk my bike," Charlie states, "All the bumps are breaking my bicycle pack. I have too much weight to ride this safely." We stop for some ice and tea at a corner hut. Our five minute break slyly becomes 10 and then twenty minutes. We all act buff, but really none of us are a match for the hot relentless sun and her partner in crime, the dry dusty bumpy gravel road. Finally, Steve and I agree to pedal ahead to the next small dot on the map for lunch and we will wait for Charlie there.
My sweat creates a layer of elmers glue and the dust, like glitter, sticks right to me. It just doesn't make me very pretty. I feel disgusting, but I keep on pedaling. My fingers even feel a bit tingly from clinging onto the handlebars too tightly. Little hut/stalls form a market in front of us, each selling strange Asian fruits like dorian fruits, dragon fruits, and leeches. Then there is a building with plastic tables and chairs. "That can be our lunch break!" Steve says.
I "unglue" my bicycle helmet from my head. It feels good to sit below an awning in the plastic chair. "cafee? ice?" I state slowly.
The lady smiles and repeats, "cafee, i?"
I nod my head and a minute later I devour the ice cubes in the coffee. The overly sweetened condensed milk doesn't even bother me. I just enjoy the cold drink on my parched throat. We attempt to order lunch by pointing to the vegetables on the cart and the rice in the pot. The lady smiles and indicates that she understands. We wait anxiously. We always await our food, never really knowing what we are going to get. Sometimes we manage to communicate well and are pleased with servings of stir-fried vegetables and steaming rice. Other times, we end up with a plate of pork on top of fried rice. Even though we are able to clearly communicate "vegetarian" in the language, sometimes it is too unbelievable that a white person could possibly not eat meat. As always the local people are really sweet and really want to please the foreign guest. The best way to please the foreigner is to serve them the best meat. The lady places two plates of fried rice mixed with onions and cabbage in front of us. At least it is not meat. Regardless, the food serves as our cheap gasoline. One more iced coffee. Then we look up and a small brown dot in the distance comes into focus. "Charlie!" He is bathed in his own sweat and coated with dirt. I glance at the watch. It is already 2:30 in the afternoon and it gets dark around 6:30--completely dark at 7:00. We are only a third of the way to the border. Cambodia will keep us as hostages one more night. Steve and I agree to move onward, biking another three hours or so to the next town. We will find a guest house and then call Charlie with the name of it so he does not have to waste time in town looking for one. Maybe the road will improve ahead. Nope. Cambodia fights us to the end. I begin to worry that we will be stranded on the dirt road in the dark. I push hard on my pedals, grip the handlebars. "I am tough!" I tell myself. "These bumps cannot slow me down." The road becomes an obstacle-course of a game. At five o'clock, we see buildings in the distance. At five thirty, we are coasting slowly in front of the buildings looking for any English words such as "hotel" or "guest-house." There are about three of them in a row. Simple concrete buildings with English writing on them. I pick one where there is a family sitting by a table outside of it. I smile at them as I approach. "You have room," I say. I put my hands together beside my head to indicate sleep. The girl gets up with a smile. While Steve holds my bicycle, I follow her up a dark corridor with only a figurine of Buddha lit up in the entrance way. She leads me up a flight of concrete stairs and opens a door revealing a simple room with two twin beds and a separate door inside leading to a shower head and toilet. "Yes!" I state with a smile. Really, it didn't matter. I was so tired and so relieved to hide for the night from the dirt road. It felt so good to shower. After biking all day, we appreciate the water even if it trickles cold from the spicket. I always shower with my sweaty bike clothes on the floor and sprinkle laundry detergent on top of them. I stomp on them while I wet my hair as if I am stomping on grapes making wine. We shower, wash our dirty clothing, and rest on the bed, and no Charlie. 6:58 p.m. The night swallows the daylight in one quick bite. "I am worried about Charlie riding out there in the dark." I state.
"Hey guys?!" I hear Charlie's voice from the stairs.
"Charlie! Yeah, you made it!"
"Great work, Charlie!"Steve greets him.
"Man! That was the worst road I have been on yet in my entire year of travel!"

Safety zone. One more plate of rice and fried vegetables and a million prayers to Buddha or God or Ala for better roads tomorrow. Just maybe the road tomorrow will be paved?!

JULY 3, 2008

Buddha wants to make us even stronger! Cambodia fights us with its horrible road to the very bitter end. With a little bit of rain to add to the excitement, the dirt road becomes muddy road. A moment to remember-- Charlie glances at his GPS on his handlebars and then looks up at us, "In 10 kilometers we will be out of this country!" We bike through ankle deep water. We stop in the mud-puddle holes called towns for iced coffees or rice. Finally, muddy, stinky, sweaty, sun-scorched under the noon sun, we cross the border and stand at the line for immigration. Our passports are stamped. Thailand welcomes us with PAVED ROADS and wide shoulders. I look up at Steve and at Charlie, "Welcome to Thailand Steve. Welcome to Thailand Charlie!"
Charlie looks up at me. "Welcome to Thailand, Teresa!"
"We made it!"

Angkor Wat Temples, Cambodia

I had seen pictures of Angkor Wat in National Geographic magazines and in the World Wonders Travel books at Barnes and Noble. I had biked with Steve and our newly encountered Korean friend for three days from the capital of Phnom Penh.
Finally at 5:30 a.m. on July 1st, we meet with Charlie in the center park in front of the large Buddha temple. The day before at our hotel a Tuk Tuk (motor-cart) driver told us that biking to Angkor Wat would be "sad tour" because the bad Vietnamese come with large clippers and steal any bicycle. We had showed him our multiple U-bolt locks and he said that the bad Vietnamese clippers cut any lock. Only with him in his Tuk Tuk could we have a "happy tour." "I give you discount for only 60 dollar for happy tour. No bad Vietnamese and no lose your bicycle with happy tour," he said. We smiled politely. Now at five-thirty a.m., we meet Charlie in the park, ready to see the famous ancient ruins ourselves, ready to fight off any bad Vietnamese! In comparison to the crazy traffic in Phnom Penh, the traffic leaving Siem Reap is relaxed with a wide shoulder. Biking without the extra weight of the packs on the side of the bicycle is easy. The road is flat, the sun is still resting, but my skin still glistens with a light layer of sweat. A row of vendors parked outside of the town hospital provides us with a chance to buy a few snacks to prepare for our adventure. Charlie and Steve buy some bread and I buy a bag of peanuts for just under a dollar. We pedal in silence, each one of us taking in the scene, photographing the details in our minds. I remember the barefoot children running along side of the road with baskets of bracelets and postcards. Men pushing carts full of pineapple and mangos. Women behind carts of steaming rice and chickens steaming hot on rods. The children yell out in English, "you buy from me, sir! Three for one dollar! Postcards, you buy from me, one dollar!" Last night, a lady approached me cradling a baby boy. She looked up at me with her deep pleading eyes shaking her empty bottle. In Kalamazoo, a good test is to offer food to the begging people. Most times, they refuse and demand money. Here, the people accept the food. I motioned for her to follow me into a corner store and offered to buy her a can of baby formula. In Cambodia, everything is fairly expensive in comparison to the wages that people make because nearly everything is imported. Just a small can of baby formula cost seven dollars. She was so happy and thankful for the formula. However, when I left the corner store, a pack of beggars were waiting for me. Apparently, they had seen me help the lady and thought that I would help all of them too. I felt overwhelmed, sad. I smiled at them sheepishly and walked away with all of them following me until I could hop on my bicycle and escape. Cambodia really overwhelms me with the extremes of poor and rich. So we keep on biking on the first of July until we reach the official entrance booth of Angkor Wat. While driving/riding on the road around and up to the ruins is free of charge, there is a twenty dollar charge to carry a photograph card in order to actually enter and explore them. While we hope that the twenty dollar charge goes towards preserving the ruins, it is quite possible that it actually goes towards the corrupt fund to buy government officials new Lexus! The paved road is narrow and the towering trees hang over the road providing us with welcomed shade. Then all of a sudden, there it is! The scene depicted in so many photographs.. the main temple of Angkor Wat is in front of us. Fat monkeys climb on the rock walkway, aggressively approaching the people, like stray dogs, they beg for food scraps (with preference to fruits rather than meats). Their bellies are like inflated balloons from being overfed from the hoards of tourists that pass through each day. We use the map to guide us from temple to temple and surprisingly it is quite a distance in between the temples ranging from two to five miles! If we hadn't brought our bicycles, it would have taken us too long to walk between each of the temples and we would have had to pay the expensive taxi/tuk tuk rate! Tucked behind trees, ruins and more ruins and each rock is intricately, delicately, carefully carved with lions, elephants, people... We park our bikes by a tree and lock all three of them together. Time of the present is lost while we explore the time of the ancient, climbing up and up the rock stairs. While I enjoy being able to see and touch and feel the ruins as close as I wish, I feel that allowing each tourist to climb with freedom all over the ruins will destroy them. I remember exploring Chichen-itza (spelling?) ruins in Mexico and also Machu Picchu (spelling) ruins in Peru and all had wooden stairs leading up to them or ropes at least blocking people from actually touching the carved details. Here, people can just touch anything as they please. Nature boasts its strength as the tree roots overcome the rocks. It becomes a war with nature and man's creations-- nature winning as the trees slowly strangle and break up the carved temple. The expansiveness of the Angkor Wat leaves me without words to paint a picture. From five thirty a.m. until six p.m. we wandered the maze of the ruins and only saw a portion of them. Carved rock temples built to tower over the jungle are like dots spread out across a page. A modern paved road connects all the "dots." Along the road, there are vendors and children selling everything from rice, to spicy/sweet curry soup, cola, post cards, bracelets, tea, and coffee. Children climb the temples and pop out of each and every nook and corner, "you buy from me post card?"

And I end this post with a question to you.... "you write to me email?" We love touring, experiencing, feeling the world and all the people, cultures, tastes, smells, temples, details that it has to offer. And we equally love the simplicity of hearing from our friends and family...

It's time to bike, bike, BIKE!

From Phnom Penh to the city of Siem Reap where the famous Ankor Wat ruins are the distance is approximately 189 miles. We biked it in three days.

Day one: Phnom Penh to Skun (a small town with a few guest houses to break up the long trip) About 55 miles
Once we escape the traffic mob in the capital, slowly the scenery changes and the cluttered huts on sticks become less thick until finally rice fields create space between them. Men in sarongs (plad looking skirts), bulls pulling wooden carts, and motorcycles pull EVERYTHING and ANYTHING! I see several motor bicycles with a long stick across the handlebars and another long stick across the back of the bike. Each stick holds roosters hung upside down! Also, there are motorbikes with wooden bamboo barrels with pigs inside. In Skun, we find a guesthouse/hotel with a balcony and we are mezmorized by all the overstuffed minivans and motorbikes hauling odd items. We really enjoy observing the local life from our balcony.

Day two: Skun to Kampong Thom
About 50 miles

The land is flat and all my practicing on Michigan hills has prepared me well! I keep up my speed and pass all the bulls, carts, vendors, and school children on bicycles. I glance back behind me to make sure no tourist buses are coming. I see it is clear and begin to swerve around a biker when I realize there are large packs like our own attached to the back of the bike! A GPS attached to the front of the bike catches the sunlight and twinkles! And so here in the middle of nowhere in Cambodia, we meet a fellow biker! "Well, hello!" Steve says.

"Where are you from?" the guy asks.
"We are from the United States." I say
"I am from South Korea." the guy responds, "My name is Charlie."
"I am Steve and she is my wife, Teresa."
"Are you going to Siem Reap?"
"Yeah! We hope to get there in two more days."
"Where are you coming from today?" Charlie asks
"We stayed in ...the dirt town that starts with an S...uh, oh yeah, Skun, and you?" Steve asks
"I stayed at the police station down the road."
"Where did you start your trip at," I ask.
"Well, I biked all of China, Vietnam, Laos, and now here and have been on the road for 13 months."
"WOW! That is awesome! How far are you going after Cambodia?"
"I want to go into Thailand, then cut South. Then hopefully I can get a boat or something to India and bike there, then to Africa, then to South America and finally across the United States in five years."
"You like coffee?" Steve asks
"Oh yes."

We all liked coffee. Charlie taught me to mix green tea with the coffee to create a "new" beverage. Some coffee, Some tea, the hours snuck away with the clouds while we were lost in conversation sharing adventures.

Charlie became a good companion and as it turns out we biked together not only to Siem Reap in Cambodia, but all the way across the border and into Thailand.

Day three: Kampong Thom ALL THE WAY to Siem Reap (100 mile day!)

A visit to the Killing Fields, Cambodia

Humans are my favorite animal and my least favorite animal. I can have close relationships with friends and family more than I could ever hope to have with my pet rabbit or dog. However, when I read about massive holocaust or I read about violent crimes, my heart trembles at the thought that a human being like myself could do such a thing. It seems to me that everyone has pretty much the same goal in life-- eat, sleep, and be merry. It seems simple enough of a bargain that if I let you eat, sleep, and be merry, you let me eat, sleep, and be merry and there are no problems. The more I travel, the more I realize that everyone is really all the same. Everyone wants to be safe and loved with their basic needs met.
So being here in Cambodia makes me think about my own kind. In history class, we all hear about the holocaust in Germany with the Jewish people. But, do we all hear about the horrible more recent holocaust in Cambodia? ...

Being in the tourist area of the capital city means having something different for breakfast other than stir-fried rice and vegetables! I look right over the strange little characters on the menu and directly at the English translations underneath. "I am having the cereal with yogurt and bananas!" While waiting for breakfast, I enjoy the scene. I am enamored by the lily pads hanging gently on the dark blue waves of the lake. The little bamboo hut/houses that cling to the ends of the hotel strip blend right in with the nature painted hues of blues, greens, and browns. At the very end of the deck there is a bright red stand with incense burning and a statue of Buddha. Just a few feet from Buddha is a sign in English that reads, "No swim." I take in the scenery. I like the simplicity of the little bamboo huts set against the backdrop of lily-pads and dark green/blue water. Dark water.. Then it dawns on me that the water is a dark color because most probably the houses and huts do not have any sewer system. ALL the waste goes directly into the lake, hence the NO SWIM sign. I flip through our guide book pages. "Activities to do in and around Phnom Penh." I read about the Royal Palace that has floors of silver and a crystal statue of Buddha inside and the history museum near the river front. Then "killing fields" pulls a nerve in my neck. "Killing fields?" I read about a ruler named Pol Pot who wanted to start a revolution and have a country full of equality-- a country full of peasants, hard working farmers. Pol Pot dreamed of a country that would produce everything from within. The idea sounds good. Pol Pot was even a teacher! He organized a group called Khmer Rouge to take over the country and to begin his revolution of a peasant/agriculture based society. In the end the Khmer Rouge killed between 2 and 3 MILLION people (educated or with glasses or supporters of the old government). The killing fields was a place where men, women, and children were taken to be executed and tossed into mass burial sites.

Biking through the chaotic mob of traffic, I keep glancing behind me just to make sure that Steve is right at my tail. The 14 Kilometers (8 miles) seems long swerving in between carts and vegetable street vendors, school-children, motorcycles, parked buses that are over saturating the small side-walks. We ALMOST become part of the traffic mob, only that our white faces make us stand out.

You would think that the "killing fields" would be a somber cold place. Pedaling down the last gravel pathway to the entrance, we are greeted by children singing. Directly to the right just a stone's throw away is a school where all the small school children sing songs. The school is only a few yards from the monument tower that holds all the skulls that were excavated twenty years later. A sign indicates the tree where many people were tied to before they were beaten to death. I think about how the children next door are clueless as to all the violent history that took place thirty years ago next to their school. How they, like myself, cannot begin to imagine. But the tree witnessed it all. There are still random teeth, bones, and clothing articles that stick up from the mass graves. It is eerie. I feel afraid of my own kind. Afraid at such horrible things caused not by nature, but by ourselves. Then a beautiful yellow and black butterfly flutters and rests calmly on a plant that grows out of the mass grave hole. I watch it for a long time and enjoy the peace it brings.


May life bring you peace

Lost in Cambodia (almost)

The bikes say that they were tired and need a day of rest. Well, actually it is us that need the rest and a boat ride down the Mekong river sounds like a great way to leave Vietnam and enter Cambodia! Leaving the border town of Chau Doc, we take one last peak at the culture-- the people and their fish farms. Their houses cling to the riverside on sticks. Underneath their houses, there are nets that trap in fish. The families collect the fish and sell them to the local markets or place them inside their canoes and row up and down the river selling them in the floating markets. I sit calmly in the small boat, wide enough to fit two rows of chairs, two rows of tourists headed to Cambodia for adventure. One couple is from Spain and another the girl from Brazil and her boyfriend from Australia. They met while studying in England half way in between their separate worlds and now live for two years in Australia and then two years in Brazil flip-flopping countries. Local people come to the river to wash their clothes and they wave warmly as we pass. We laugh as naked kids jump up and down waving to us. Men lead bulls and cows to and from the river to drink. We enjoy the day of transition from Vietnam to Cambodia. We stop for an hour or so at the border to get visas, pass immigration, and switch boats. The boat takes us three hours up the river into Cambodia, then suddenly our driver parks the boat on the shore and tells us that we all go onto a bus for the rest of the journey. We all expected to take the boat into the capital city of Phnom Penh. I feel disappointed as we take off our front tires and load our bicycles onto the mini-bus. We debate skipping the bus ride and riding our bikes into Phnom Penh, but the watch already glares a late 5:30--- only at most 1 hour of daylight left and still 60 miles to go. Arriving in a strange foreign land, we decide to take the mini-bus. Even with the bus, it is after dark when we arrive in the capital city of Cambodia.

Cambodia is a country of contrast--- rich and poor. Children in rags running barefoot roaming the streets. Ironically, these poor children share the streets with corrupt government officials driving expensive Lexus sport utility vehicles. Arriving at night in a strange parking lot, we quickly put on our front tires, attach our packs to the back racks of our bicycles and nervously cycle in the heavy night Lexus/motorcycle traffic. Headlights seem to come at me in all directions and I could not figure out the logic in the traffic. Stop lights flash red, but the traffic does not stop in either direction-- just swerve around each other in a chaotic mob. I pedal in front of Steve and slowly, bravely our first meeting with Phnom Penh is rough. I glance quickly behind me. Steve is right there. Some motorcycles and cars flow forward with me and others come at me. I try to hug the right as much as I can but it appears as though some cars and motorcycles are using the side lane as a parking lot. I swerve carefully around them, keeping my path predictable for those wanting to pass me. I glance again over my shoulder and no Steve.. NO STEVE! What? Wasn't he just there? Maybe I overlooked him. I look again over my shoulder and NO STEVE! My heart skips a beat. I stop in the middle of all the traffic, there I am frantic. I look to my right, to the left, behind and behind again. No Steve. A long minute passes. I cannot believe it. I thought that I might lose the camera or maybe a pack or something, but Steve? I pull over to the side. I turn around and begin to walk from where I came from. A group of guys sitting by a plastic table hoot at me. "Where you from my lady?" they ask smiling. I am nervous and I do not respond. A tear escapes me. My knees shake. Two minutes pass. I continue to walk against or with the traffic. I don't even care about the traffic. Motorcycles zoom around me. Then for a brief moment the street is empty. No Steve. Did he get mugged? Horrible thoughts flood my mind. Four minutes gone. Alone. Lost. Then, I hear something familiar. "There you are!" Steve's voice. I have never been so happy to see him! Happy ending. "What happened to you?" I ask, in relief.
"The traffic forced me to swerve far to the left and I actually had to pass you. Then when I looked back, I couldn't find you."

Somehow we had lost each other in the mob of motorcycles, but we found each other and we found a hotel to call home for our first night in Cambodia. To celebrate our reuniting (after only five minutes of panic) we had Indian food in one of the many Indian/Pakistan immigrant restaurants!

Last taste of Vietnam

My sweat acts as an adhesive gluing my t-shirt to my back. The sun fries the top part of my thighs and as I watch them turn from white to medium rare to medium well to well done. I feel them sizzle and notice little bumps forming. "Steve, I definitely need more sun screen." I rub the sticky white cream onto my thighs, but it just mixes with my sweat and the finished product does not absorb into my skin. Rather it creates a light frosting. The narrow ribbon of a road is outlined by bamboo huts on sticks with plastic furniture inside. We stop pedaling and let our bicycles coast to the front of one of the huts. A lady sits in one of the plastic chairs and I pantomime drinking coffee out of a cup. "Cafey?" I ask. She smiles. Luckily, there is a man drinking a cup of iced coffee with milk and I simply point to his and then hold up two fingers. Her eyes sparkle and in just a few minutes we are sipping iced coffees playing hide-and-g0 seek with the sun. We sip our coffees really slowly and even mix the coffee with green tea. Eventually the sun takes a break behind a cloud and we escape while it is resting. The ingredients of the country-side are too much bright sunshine with an abundance of rice fields, vendor carts selling red hairy fruits (lichas), dragon fruits, watermelons, guayabas, coffee and tea stands, and just a touch of shade from the coconut and banana trees. The day is full of smiling warm faces greeting us with "hello, hello, hello!"

After a long day of biking nearly 100 miles, we arrive at our last destination in Vietnam-- Chau Doc. The traffic gets denser-- motorcycles and trucks whiz around us. I try to breathe only through my nose to avoid too much of the exhaust but I feel it in my lungs as I can't avoid taking deep breaths as I lean forward into my peddles. I search between all the foreign symbols on the buildings trying to locate a hotel. A man on a bicycle pulling a cart rides slowly beside me. "Can I help you? You look for hotel?" he asks.
"Yes!" I say, happy to hear my own language.
"Follow me," he says with a smile.
I have trouble swerving to the left through the motorcycle "parade" but am improving at navigating through traffic with each day that we are in Vietnam. Within minutes he pulls over in front of a large high building that actually has one English word on the sign, "hotel." "is good hotel," he says, "cheap and nice people." Steve watches the bicycles, while I have a look. In Vietnam the rooms on the higher levels are cheaper so I ask to see the rooms on the third floor. I climb up a spiral staircase and a lady opens a door to reveal a clean room with a large bed and shower for just five dollars! "Perfect!"

Vietnam:
cone bamboo hats, rice, fried tofu and vegetables, dragon fruit, coffee with condensed milk, smiling faces, warm almond eyes, rice fields, rice fields, canoes, motorcycles, and the winding Mekong river, more rice fields, more motorcycles, a whole never-ending parade of motorcycles, green tea... Vietnam has its own unique flavor of a culture that I enjoyed to the last moment, to the last drop.

Can I have a motorcycle with my Cofee, Please?

MI Time: 10:00 PM
Local Vietnamese Time: 9:00 AM
Location: Listening to the hum of the motorboat on the Mekong River leaving Chau Doc Vietnam for Phomn Penh, Cambodia. Houses are built on sticks holding them above the water. It may not look like the family has a farm but under and around the house, there is a mesh netting to contain a fish farm. The families sell fish to the local market.

Vietnamese Food-- After seven days of being in Vietnam, we went from being totally illiterate to showing our "insurance card" (an English speaking lady wrote I am vegetarian on a small card) which enable us to actually enjoy the plethora of soy products, rice, stir fried veggies, sweet and sour soup. Since there are a lot of Buddhist people, there are lots of vegetable options. Although I still cannot speak understandable Vietnamese with the nasal tones, I can now read enough on the menu to get by. Our "insurance card" was written out by the Vietnamese lady that helped us off the boat in Can Tho and directed us to a hotel. She spoke great English so we asked her to write "I am vegetarian. I do not eat meat" on a card. That card has served us very well!
An example of how very bad my Vietnamese is-- I love the iced coffee with milk drinks available everywhere for about thirty cents. So an evening in Can Tho, we stopped by a corner cafe on the street and I said, "Cafey?!" and repeated it a few times. They understood me and brought us two coffees on ice. However, I wanted milk with my iced coffee. According to my phrase book, SUA is the word for milk. A three letter word is pretty hard to mess up, as so I thought! "Sua!" I said, pointed to my coffee. The man brought me a glass of water. I tried again, "SUUUUUUUUA!" Next, he showed up with a cup of sugar. I smiled this time, but I guess my face showed that it wasn't what I asked for. Then he brought me tea, and finally a cup of milk. Later on, as we passed by a line of motorbike repair shops, I recognized the word sua. It was spelled the same but with two dots over the u. So I'm pretty sure that I managed to pronounce a three letter word, sua, incorrectly and possibly have been asking for a motorbike with my coffee!
Chay=vegetarian
com=rice
pho=white asian noodles
mi=ramon crunchy type noodles
snacks=huge cashews
big spiky green fruit, the size of a watermelon with bright yellow individual pieces inside
hairy red fruit the size of a super ball, white flesh inside covering a large seed. You suck on the white flesh and spit out the seed.
coconuts are everywhere!
roasted finger sized bananas
soy milk, coffee, and green tea are sold everywhere!


Bon Apetit! (If I knew how to say it in Vietnamese, I would!)

Sweat and sunscreen cake frosting/70 mile bike journey

MI time: 7:52 a.m.
Local Vietnamese time: 6:52 p.m.
Date: 20 June 2008
Location: On a street corner, drinking an iced coffee with condensed milk in Can Tho city, Vietnam. At 5:30 a.m. this morning after fueling up with cashews and raisins, I actually put on my hideous bike shorts-- you know, the really tight ones, like the shorts they wear in the 70's exercise videos. However, with a long journey of nearly 70 miles, I didn't want a sore bootie. you would think that at 5:30, traffic would be non-existent. I think there was less traffic on westnedge Avenue at the early a.m. hour the day we left than in Ben Tre. Tho motos were already zipping down the street and by 6;10 the sun was already energetically dancing its song SOLO-without the accompanyment of the clouds.

It was only a few miles out of the town to the ferry dock. Even in the course of a couple of miles, we stopped and stopped again to guzzle water. We even tied a five liter water bottle to the back of the bicycle. We went through over ten liters of water today! The first fifty miles of the trip (Mo Cai to Vinh Long, Vietnam) were beautiful--narrow roads holding hands with bridges. Along the sides of the road, there was rice laid out to dry. While on Michigan backroads, we usually find peace and quiet on the rolling hills, here in Vietnam we were ALWAYS surrounded by the zoom of motos. We passed nearly all of the fellow bicyclers riding older three speed bikes. Kids yelled , "Hello!" All day, we were greeted with Hello, hello, HELLO! We eagerly yelled back and people responded with a shy laughter. That is pretty much the extent of my Vietnamese communication skills-- zero-- we rely on their one word of English and end up with a two word pleasant conversation :)

By the time we reached the town of Vinh Long, the sun was baking us and we had to stop! Everywhere along the side of the road there are cafes where the custom is to drink a class of 1/3 full espresso and filled up to the top with ice. They also put a pot of green tea on the table. After finishing with iced espresso, it is custom to refill the glass with the green tea; very refreshing and energizing. We felt ready to pump onward the next twenty miles to our destination of Can Tho, but little did we know that our next twenty miles we would be in FULL midday sun-- no trees for shade in a construction area with NO shoulder. Motos, bicycles, buses, vans--CRAZINESS! But heh, we lived to laugh and write about it. We were on the ferry ride to cross the river with only two more miles to go, beat red, dripping with sweat when a nice lady approached us with, "hello, where are you from?" She was very pleasant and spoke much more than the usually one word vocabulary. She chatted with us the entire ferry ride and asked us where we were going to in Can Tho. I pointed to a hotel name in my guidebook. She smiles and said, "Nice family in this hotel." Off the ferry at the entrance to the city of Can Tho, traffic was hectic with moto galore. Feeling overwhelmed without a map, I just went straight and figured we would eventually run into something interesting! Then I noticed our new friend was riding her moto real slow for us to follow her, "I show you hotel," she said with a smile. She went slow the entire way turning here and there, like a guided pac man race tour. At one point, I couldn't swerve left fast enough through the maze of motos and found myself stuck in the middle of traffic. Steve and the lady waited kindly for me to maneuver my way around, then down a short alley. I cannot really pronounce the name of our hotel, but it is off the main drag just a bit where the BRRRRRRRMMMMM of the motos is faint. The owner lady greeted us warmly, "I show you room!" We climbed a spiraling staircase to room four. The room had air conditioning, fan, private shower and bath, king bed, and balcony for ten dollars. "Yes!" I said, "two nights!" Downstairs, our lady friend that had so patiently guided us here showed us her map of the city and asked if we would like a boat tour of the floating markets tomorrow. She said that her uncles did tours for 16 dollars a person starting at five-thirty a.m. and lasting for about eight hours. Breakfast and coffee would be included. We warned her that we were vegetarian and shared with her our troubles of finding vegetarian food. "No problem," she said, as she began scribbling gibberish letters on the back of a card. "This card will help you. It say I vegetarian. I no eat meat."

After seventy miles of biking, we were caked with sweat-- not exactly cream frosting, rather with a mix of sun screen and dirt. The cold shower felt soooo good! Buddha had helped us so much today, but Buddha belly was hungry! We decided to try out the magic words on the card. Hopping into the local restaurant across the street, Steve showed the lady our new "insurance" card. She smiled. We anxiously waited and were so happy when in minutes she returned with a plate of white rice and stir fried vegetables. Finally we really enjoyed Vietnamese cuisine. Our success for the day--
TOI AN CHAY! (I AM VEGETARIAN).

Buy groceries on the Mekong river, Vietnam!

MI Time - 2:47AM
Local Vietnam time: 1:47PM
Date: Saturday 21-Jun-08
Location: In a local cafe in Can Tho Vietnam overlooking crowded street

Ladies with bamboo hats sell mini-bananas, motorcycles zooming by...epiphany, women do whatever men do. They ride motos and row canoes down the river, which is more than I can say for Honduras where the culture was very machista and women only stayed at home. Culture here also seems to be very non confrontational. I remember wandering the Chicago airport before departure and commenting to Steve, "this is the busiest I've ever seen it in the airport." There were business men in suits rushing here and there, women in high heels, clickety clickety click, familes scurrying with childern, long lines for starbucks coffee. Everything and everyone humble-jumbled together formed a large rock band of noise. In contrast, landing in the Vietnamese airport waiting for baggage and in the long immigration lines, I felt the need to whisper to Steve as if I was in the library. Vietnamese tend to be more soft-spoken. I don't see a lot public display of affection (hugging kissing, holding hands). Unfortuantely, the habit of carelessly tossing garbage out of bus windows or non-chalantely onto the street while walking is a commonality I've seen in all our travels, including Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and here in Vietnam as well. Even our boat guide this morning tossed his empty cigarette box into the Mekong river. Smoking! It pains me to see young men 14, 15,16 years of age smoking. Another custom that I've noticed is that a large percentage of Vietnamese men smoke or chew. I wonder when and why that custom was started.

Each day we are awakened by the concert featuring the motos and the alarm clock. This morning a rooster awkwardly joined in. We went downstairs at 5:30AM, the hotel lobby door was already open and a thin small-framed man greeted us with a smile and shy chuckle. He waved his hand as a greeting. We darted single file through the motos and bicycle traffic (not many cars) and followed him into a quaint coffee shop. "Blah blah blah...Cafey?"
"Cafey...yes" I replied with a smile. The little man disappeared and left us sipping iced coffee (belive me, you wouldn't want it hot here). Five minutes later, our tour boat guy returned with a bunch of finger sized bananas. "Banana?" he announced. I looked up banana in my phrase book. "Choo-ea" I stated proudly. Our communication was limited. To break the awkward silence, I had him read me the numbers in Vietnamese from my phrase book, and I repeated them over and over. "We go" he stated suddenly. We followed him out of the cafe and to the boat dock.

MI Time- 10:00AM
Local Vietnamese time - 9:00PM
Date: June 22nd 2008
Location: droopy eyed and in our hotel in Can Tho

So I'm not going to last long, but I wanted to gift you a beautiful snapshot of the floating market. Our guide steered the boat from the back using the motor most of the time and sometimes just the paddle. We went downstream for about an hour and all of a sudden...canoe...canoe...another canoe, canoes everywhere. Our guide parked us right in the middle of the canoe chaos. We bought some green dragon fruits (big red pink fruits with green spikes and white inside with tiny black seeds). The taste resembles a kiwi. Another wooden canoe pulled up beside us. A little Asian man (all Asian/Vietnamese men seem to be really short and small framed) was swimming in sodas and buckets of ice in his canoe. He held up a plastic cup already filled up with ice and motioned for us to pick a beverage. "Cafe!" I stated. He nodded his head and filled our cups with espresso/coffee and milk. In the middle of the floating market we were sipping iced lattes for 30 cents each. Canoes were filled with cabbages, carrots, dragon fruits, onions, garlic, even bathroom supplies and clothing. Imagine going to the supermarket and every isle's products packed into a Canoe!