After pedaling through a thunderstorm, we were exhausted and sought shelter in a school room.
We quickly ate and crawled in our tent for the night.
But the locals had other ideas. “This is not comfortable! You must come and sleep by the village headman” they declared.
We tried to reassure them, but an hour later the chief arrived. It took nearly an hour to convince him that we were fine.
The only guesthouse in town had just a single room over.
We tossed a coin as to who got the bed. I won.
My sleeping mat is comfortable and above all, clean!
Blue is a ‘calming’ color yet our hotel room was anything but.
Paul opened the door for some ventilation. In wafted the scent of the toilet down the hall.
Then he opened the window. “Honk, honk! Bam, bam, bam!” echoed through the room.
We gave up and went into ‘meditation mode’, repeating the mantra; “Tomorrow we leave at daybreak!”
When they can no longer be repaired, they’re brought to Dhaka’s rickshaw graveyard.
It’s an eerie, yet strangely beautiful sight.
Every inch of a rickshaw; from the handlebars to the saddles and awnings to fenders, is embellished.
But it’s the frames where the artists go wild. Film stars, gun-toting heroines, villains, lions, ships, birds, planes and even flowers can be viewed on rickshaw undercarriages.
We could hear the brass band blasting. Then came the dancers, whirling around.
Bolivians love performing in parades, even when there isn’t a spectator in sight!
Bolivians flocked to the Independence day celebrations, turning the town into a great place for people watching.
Dull, plain busses are just so passé.
Why not do as the Bolivians do and jazz up public transport with some bad photoshop.
These rolling works of art regularly screamed past us.
They were also a godsend when after pushing 8 hours through the sand and washboard we declared, “Enough is enough!”
During the midday heat, we would sit in the shade of a famous temple. (Note: deserted pagodas are atmospheric, but touristic ones have vendors selling ice-cold drinks.)
Then when the temperature cooled, off we went.
Our favorite time was sunset.
It was magical, riding past fields of pagodas bathed in the golden evening light.
We’re just Western cyclists.
But for the girls, we were foreign, new and exciting!
They wrote down our names and beamed while standing next to us.
In Yangshuo, Chinese tourists rent bikes to see the sights.
Their happiness was infectious as they pedaled through the gorgeous karst scenery.
Yunnan’s steep gorges are filled with ancient villages and terraced farmland.
We saw all of it as we pedaled up and down and up and down again over each succeeding mountain ridge.
What’s in the pot? Who knows?
Sometimes it was delicious. But other times, we discovered beaks and chicken claws.
There were also restaurants where the stench was so horrendous that we had to hold our hands over our mouths as we hurried by.
Upon seeing the windshield covered in flowers we thought, ”public transport isn’t running during the festival.”
How wrong we were…
Lazy Louie was a legend on the Trans America trail that you didn’t want to miss.
In Hartville, Missouri he built the “Lazy Louie bicycle camp,” a popular rest stop for cross-country cyclists.
On his old Gibson guitar, he played his unforgettable bicycle touring songs such as Biker’s Dream and My hard bicycle seat.
Our hotel room overlooked the bus stop.
