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So there I was, left for dead, lying flat on my back in the middle of a Tibetan highway. China!
A quick inventory of injured body parts revealed a bleeding knee, a sore elbow, and a stiff back. But my injuries were nothing I couldn't walk off, so I got up and walked them off. (By the way -- Back in Lhasa I managed to find a new bicycle helmet. It apparently works.)
Unfortunately, my bike had not fared so well. The rear wheel was destroyed.
It would never go around again. I need a ride.
I was shocked that vehicle after vehicle just drove past me. I waved, I thumbed, I laid down on the road and pretended to be dead, I did everything short of throwing myself infront of the passing traffic but nobody would stop. China!
However, in defense of the unhelpful drivers, the Communist Chinese Government has made it a crime for anyone to transport a foreigner in a non-approved vehicle. Any driver caught with a foreigner faces a 2000 Yuan fine (a year's wages for a Tibetan) and the confiscation of their driver's license.
What kind of country makes it illegal to give a stranger a lift? The same kind of government that makes it a crime for a Tibetan to own a picture of the Dalai Lama!
A full four hours past before I spotted a truck load of Tibetans. Four men immediately jumped from the truck and hoisted up my fully loaded bike. They hid me under a tarp as we past through a Chinese checkpoint. One of the Tibetans climbed under the tarp with me. He dug into his shirt and pulled out a pendant of the Dalai Lama. Then he made what I can only assume were disparaging comments about the Chinese.
They dropped me back at the guesthouse I had left that morning. And in true Tibetan fashion they refused payment. They did however let me buy them a round of drinks!
It was no small miracle that I was carrying a spare rim with me. The nearest bike shop was still 2000 km away. I rebuilt my rear wheel, and did what I could to patch up the front one. Two days later, I was riding again.
I dropped down off the Himalayas and finally reached Kunming. What a city!
After months of instant noodles I was in food heaven -- McDonald's, KFC and Walmart.
I was devouring a Double Cheeseburger Meal Deal when the men at a nearby table started pointing and laughing at me. I tried to ignore them, but they moved closer.
"Can I help you?" I asked
"You very hairy man" the one man giggled. Then he reached out and plucked my arm hair. "You like ape-man."
"What?" I asked in disbelief.
"You hairy like ape." he explained and they laughed even louder.
Now let me point out that I may in fact have looked like a man who had just come down out of the mountains, but in my defense, I was a man who had just come down out of the mountains!
Then the man continued. "You proof that Chinese most highly evolved race."
"You've got to me kidding?" I replied.
"No. You proof that China man more highly evolved than white man."
With that I got up and left. I admit I needed a shave and a haircut, but suggesting I had de-evolved into a Yeti-like creature was a little harsh.
Walking back to my hotel, I was five and a half lanes across a six lane crosswalk when I was hit by a car. I wasn't hurt, but ended up on the guy's hood. The infuriated Chinese driver jumped from his car and started screaming at me. I pointed at the little green walking man which was almost directly above my head, and then pointed out the red light he had just ran through. He screamed some more and then got back into his car. I don't know what his hurry was, there must have been fifty people still crossing the street.
Now I admit to taking my own sweet time to finish walking past the front of his car. This no doubt infuriated the little man to no end, because the very millisecond I was out of his way, he gunned it. And two metres later, plowed into two old women.
I sprinted back into the crosswalk and was helping the one woman to her feet when the idiot started wailing on his horn. I turned and gestured for him to give me a break, but I couldn't see his reaction through his sunglass tinted windows. I turned back to the women. Again with the horn and then the driver lunged his car forward and clipped me in the back of knees. I spun around like I'd been shot from a cannon and hammered down on the hood of his pretty black Mercedes with a blow that Thor himself would have been proud of. I'm sure it left a dent!
Again the door flew and the screaming began. Again I pointed at the little green walking man and shared a few comments myself. Then he came towards me. I decided to meet him half way. He jumped back into his car and rammed his way through the crowd.
I have never wanted out of a country like I wanted out of China.
The ride to the border town of Hekou went smoothly enough, but once there, I caught the hotel manager ransacking my room. Then just when I thought nothing else could go wrong, I hit Chinese Immigration. Four hours and three interrogations later I was allowed to leave.
People are always asking me what my favorite country has been. Its a horribly difficult question (ie. favorite scenery, favorite sights, favorite wildlife, favorite people, ...) I usually answer with my top three, which in order of occurrence are South Africa, Norway, and Russia. Least favorite? Just one: China.
Vietnam, like Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia to follow, was infinitely more friendly and hospitable than their big neighbor to the north.
In Hanoi, I decided to go silly one night and I ate dinner at a proper sit down restaurant. It even had table cloths. The cafe was nothing special, but it did have an English language menu and that too was a novelty. In the opening paragraph it read in large print "None of our dishes contain dog, cat, rat or worms ... and no MSG."
Just my luck. Have you noticed its getting harder and harder these days to find a good plate of MSG laden worms!
Although the restaurant choose not to serve dog, cat, rat, or worms, it had no such reservations when it came to frog, eel, duck embryo, or my personal favorite, cock testicles. Mmmm, chicken balls!
I made it as far as the DMZ (the demilitarized zone between the old North and South Vietnams) before my next mishap. On my way to visit the Vinh Moc Tunnels, I was mugged.
Although mugged might not be the appropriate term, it fits.
There are far too many students for the number of desks in Vietnam's schools. As a result, the schools run in shifts. Every few hours there is a massive change over. Hundreds of students going to school and hundreds leaving. The vast majority of these students travel by bicycle. Now just as there aren't enough desks to go around, nor are there enough bikes.
Therefore, doubling someone on the back rack or the handlebars (or both) is the norm.
So it was that I found myself cycling through a mass of humanity driven crazy by foreigner frenzy.
"What your name?" "What your country?' "What your name?" "How old are you?" "What your name?" "What your country?" ....
Then it happened. The mugging that is.
Now I'm assuming here, but this is what I reckon happen. A young teenage boy, no doubt the class clown, saw me. What a waste he must have thought.
One person hording an entire bicycle to himself. I think I'll hitch a lift he must have thought. Then on a dead run, in a perverted leap frog maneuver, he must have launched himself airborne. Now let me stress that all of this was completely unbeknownst to me.
All of sudden, I was blindsided and ended up with a kid draped over my shoulders piggy back style. His ride was short lived. His momentum jackknifed my handlebars and over we went. With the idiot wrapped around me, I couldn't get my hands out to soften the blow and I landed straight on my right knee cap. I let out a blood curdling scream. The kid disappeared.
Then I was encircled by an excited, dumbfounded crowd of students wondering why the foreigner on the bicycle was sitting on the ground. But they didn't know how to ask that so instead they asked.... "What your name?"
"What your country?" "How old are you?" ....
My oft-repaired front wheel bent over on a thirty degree angle. I needed a new rim.
The search for a rim culminated in a 27 hour bus ride down to Ho Chi Minh City (aka. Saigon) and then back. I spent a couple days on China Beach (made famous by the TV show of the same name) recuperating. After my R&R, I cycled back to the DMZ, finally saw the Vinh Moc Tunnels (the Viet Cong -- aka. VC or Victor Charlie -- sure were a determined lot.)
On my way to Laos, I stopped in the middle of nowhere at the Khe Sanh Combat Base. It was hard to believe that this peaceful, verdant plateau, surrounded by jungle clad mountains was the sight of the American War in Vietnam's most bloody battle. In the fight for Khe Sanh, 500 American GI's and an estimated 10,000 Vietnamese died. Then the American brass decided to redeploy their troops elsewhere and up and left. After all, it was just a hill in the middle of nowhere!
"War! Huh. Yeah.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Say it again y'all."
War - Edwin Starr Laos is a dumbbell shaped country and I crossed it at the skinny part. I was nearing Seno when two men on a motorcycle roared past me. The driver immediately hit the brakes. I flew past them on the inside, but seconds later I could here them accelerating again. 'My spidey senses were tingling!" I knew something was up. The motorbike soon matched my speed and drew along side. The passenger reached into his coat, pulled out a gun, pointed it at me, and shot me twice in the head!
Fortunately, it was a squirt gun!
heard a "Happy New Yearrrrrr!!!!" as the bike roared out of sight.
Apparently, the fine folks of Laos celebrate New Years in the middle of April. And since April is the hottest month of the year in this part of the world, they celebrate with a week long, nation wide water fight! By the time I reached Savannakhet, I had been doused with water jugs, water balloons, entire buckets, and a vast array of super soaker water cannons.
However, when the temperature is flirting with 40 C, getting wet is not necessarily the worst thing in the world (nor was the resulting wet T-shirt contest).
I ferried across the mighty Mekong River and entered Thailand, but only briefly. I cut a diagonal and headed straight for the Cambodian border town of O Smach. Only a decade ago, this was a definite no go zone. It was last strong hold of the brutal Khmer Rouge. The red clay roads of northern Cambodia are among the worst on the planet (and I should know), but I eventually bounced my way into Siem Reap and visited one of the great sites from the world of antiquity.
Angkor Wat was built a thousand years ago. They say it is the largest religious building ever constructed. The wall around the main complex is a whopping twelve kilometres long. The sight was featured in the Angelina Jolie movie "Tomb Raiders". I found the place where she picked the Jasmine flower, but nothing happened to me. I even jumped up and down a few times, but I didn't fall into any tomb. I'm beginning to think some of that movie stuff is make believe!
I returned to Thailand and cycled into Bangkok -- a city with a reputation.
Incidentally, I have found surprisingly few places on the planet that truly live up to their hype. However, Bangkok did. In the four hundred metres between my guesthouse and McDonald's, I was approached seven times by touts offering ... how shall I put it ..... companionship. One man slid up beside me and in a quiet voice asked "You want girl?" However, before I could answer him he cut me off. "No. You big man. You want two girls, maybe three?" and he thrust a brochure into my hand. Inside was a photo of perhaps fifty girls all dressed in pink bathrobes sitting on what could have been a set of high school bleachers. There was also a photo of a big man and three young Thai girls in a bath tub. I politely declined his offer.
Two steps later he asked "You want boy?"
Like I said, the city lived up to its reputation.
After my proverbial One Night in Bangkok, I cycled to the bridge over the River Kwae. Although featured in the movie "The Bridge Over The River Kwae", the bridge over the River Kwae is just that, a bridge over the River Kwae. And its not even the one in the movie -- that one got blowed up real good! After a photo op., I moved on.
I snuck into Myanmar for a couple of days before continuing south to Phuket.
I ferried out to Ko Phi Phi and kicked back on an island paradise for several days. The Leonardo DeCaprio movie "The Beach" was set there.
Another ferry dropped me at Krabi. I polished off Southern Thailand, and just crossed the border into Malaysia.
So, in summary ... I'm still alive. Oh ya, and still pedaling.
Rob

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