| hello again! well, it's been a while since i've written, but email has been scarcelately. we are now in china, and have been here for a few days.since the last time i wrote, many things have happened, and somehow theyare still fresh in my mind, which is unusual, so i will share them withyou.last time i wrote to you we were in louang prabang, in laos. ed got sickjust as we got there (food poisoning), so we ended up staying until he gotbetter (5 days total). i was actually happy to spend some time therebecause lp was the nicest city we had visited so far. very indochinese incharacter, with many old beautiful wats, some french colonial buildings,the mekong river running through, lively markets and nice cafes - all thiscombined really nicely and gave the town a very distinctive character. ispent my days walking and visiting wats, reading on the banks of themekong, relaxing and having cofee and some excellent food at little cafes.we also stayed in a really nice and cheap guesthouse, which happened to beowned by the doctor who treated ed (a really nice laotian lady), so it wasvery convenient.after we left lp, we headed north to the chinese border. we knew that itwas going to be pretty tough, because the 3 places for sleeping we knew ofwere spaced far apart (80 to 100km) and the terrain was reallymountainous.well, the first day we rode ~100km, through the mountains, but as we gotplenty of rest before that, the going wasn't really too bad. the secondday however, i felt pretty wrecked, but we rode the 90 km to the next townnevertheless. on this ride, the road conditions started to deterioratesignificantly. for the last 20 km, the road was just loose rocks and sand,with sporadic patches of pavement. we were both really tired when we gotto the town, so we decided to take the next day off and rest. i forgot totell you that on this ride i got stung by another bee. as i was biking, itjust crashed into my head (a lot of bugs do this actually, they just crashinto your face; i guess we don't notice this at home because we usuallyhave a windshield in front of us). anyway, this bee crashed in the insidecorner of my left eye, and it stung me in both my upper and lower lid.nothing happened right away, other than a little pain and some frustrationon my part (i was going uphill at the time, so i wasn't exactly in themood for a bee sting), but the next day my eye was huge and at fist icouldn't open it at all. it got better throughout the day though, and bynext day it was completely normal again. that's when we left anew, headingfor the boder with china. this was an 80 km ride from hell. first of allit was raining and it kept raining for most of the day. the first 60 kmwere uphill most of the time, and the road was terrible. all rocks andsand, no more pavement here. it was really bumpy and the whole thing couldhave been a nightmare, but for some reason i was in a really good moodthat day, and i decided that getting pissed off at the situation is onlygoing to makke me even more miserable, so i kept my spirits high andthings weren't so bad after all. i also thought at the time: 'it can't getworse than this. from now on everything will be easy. the hard part isover'. well i was wrong, but at the time, thinking that made me feelbetter. the last 20 km of the ride were much better. close to the borderwith china we got back to paved roads. there were also many springs comingout of the side of the mountain, and as everything we had includingourselves, was caked in mud, we stopped for a quick shower in nature. wealso learned to take advantage of these natural sptrings to wash wheneverwe can, as the washing facilities in the places we sleep vary from bucketto fawcet to actual shower head... next day we crossed into china. at this point our odometer read 1750km.we stayed in the little border town that was right there, changed somemoney, cleaned and adjusdted our bikes a little, ordered 5 dishes forsupper by mistake (language barrier...), read, etc. this place was alittle hole in the wall, it doesn't even appear on any maps we have, andthe pigs are running around with the chicken all over the place. yet onething that struck me right away is how nicely dressed the women were. itlooked strange in such surroundings to see these beautiful women wearingsilky dresses and high heeled shoes. now that we've been in china a fewdays, i can say that this has been the case everywhere we've been.sometimes we'll be riding on the road, through a rubber plantation, and wesee these women caring buckets of rubber fluid on their shoulders, and itlooks like hard work, so you'd expect them to be dirty and tattered, yetthey are dressed in light shear fabrics, of vibrant colors, something iwould wear maybe to a wedding or something similar.so far, in china people seem a lot more reserved than in laos or thailand.whreas in laos the whole village would be raised when we went through,here people don't say hello, they just look. if i say hello ('ni how'),they usually answer, but otherwise they seem a lot more reserved and lessexcitable than our prevoius experience.our first day in china we rode 65 km, and got to a big town where we founda really nice hotel. the first thing we did when we got into town is stopat the bank and exchange some money. ed was inside and i was sitting onthe steps outside watching our bikes. something seemed strange, but icouldn't tell what. and then i realized that it was the pavement. it wasso weird to see everything paved, no bare earth anywhere and i had becomeunaccustomed to this in the past weeks of travelling. travelling through the yunnan province of china has been nice - yunnan isspecial, as it has the most plant, animal and people (minority groups)diversity in china. the region we are in right now is sub-tropical, withgreen everywhere and mountains covered in dense impenetrable vegetation.there are pineaples everywhere, and we buy them for 5 to 10cents each, andhave them for snacks in between biking. i am convinced now that pineapplesare the food of the gods. they are so delicious! i can go crazy on them.fortunately i haven't suffered any bad consequences from overeating yet. ihave also learned to cut a pineapple, like the locals, the real way. theonly thing is that i need a machete or a butcher's knife to do it, whichthe locals are happy to lend if we are nearby. ed just asked if i'm going for the longest email ever. i guess i missedwriting. and who knows when we'll find internet next? in thailand it waseverywhere, in laos a lot less, and here in china it is very hard to find.what's not hard to find here is green tea, which everyone gives you forfree whenever you go to a hotel or restaurant. it's really good and i amhappy. i finished reading the lover (what a book!) a long time ago it seems (i'dlike to read it in french as it was written). recently i've just finished'trouble in paradise', a book about laos and its people (mountain tribesmostly). it was really interesting and good to read as we're visiting thecountry (although some parts were quite disturbing).i now got 'the mistress of spices'which reminds me of tara so i am reallylooking forward to reading it. still have tor ead '7 yrs in tibet'.ed and i are also reading 'on the edge', a compilation of travel story puttogether by lonely planet, some of which are really good, some reallyfunny. well i think this is it for now. i hope all is good with everybody. enjoythe summer and write me how you're doing when you have some time. oh yeah, one last thing. there were some changes in my family's affairs,so i will have to cut this trip short and come to montreal in midseptember. ed was really disappointed at this, and i am too becausealthough we'll be able to do south-east asia, it doesn't look like we'llbe getting to go to india or nepal this time. but this is how thingsare... we'll make the best of the next 2 months. bye to everyone, i hope to write to you again soon,raluca |
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