|
hello again, thank you so much for writing again! i am so happy to come here and findmessages from you!we are now in louang prabang, ~400km away from vientiane. since last time i wrote to you, we have been tavelling thruogh mountainscontinually. i thought thailand was hard sometimes, but i now realize thatthailand was just practice for laos. i really don't think i could've donethis if we had started our biking in laos. the hills here are long, often10km or more continually upwards; this, thank god, is usually followed bylong downhills where we can stand up and let the wind cool us off whileenjoying the speed...the other day ed made a comment that i seem to be only taking pictures onthe uphills, never on the downhills. well, i figured since i'm going only7km/h uphill, i might as well stop (sometimes it feels as if i'm moving atthe speed of a snail - the dogs/ mongrels can usually outrun me when i'mgoing uphill. going downhill is different though. top speed ever attained by moi was60km/h. but usually i go slower than that, ~40km/h, enough to cool off butstill see the scnery. the other day, on a downhill, i ran over a chicken. this is not funny, iwas really traumatized. ed was riding in front of me and the chicken gotall disoriented by his passage i guess, because it kept changingdirections and at the last minute ran directly in my path. there wasnothing i could do about it....but i don't think he was dead, because ilooked back and he was still running i think, just a bit ruffled. ofcourse, this scene was witnessed by the entire village we were passingthrough at the time, who was laughing at the stupid ''farang'' - me.today we were also coming down a steep hill, and this time we sent a herdof cows in a frenzy. usually cows are so peaceful and cool, they'rerelaxed even when big trucks pass by, just hanging out in the bushes bythe side of the road, but this herd, for some reason, was set off by ourbikes. as they heard us coming, they started running down the hill infront of us - a real stampede. we eventually passed them, but we couldstill hear them running even after a while. i never knew cows can run thatfast.pigs can also run very fast. the other day there was a huge pig by theside of the road, and he took off pretty quickly as i got close to him.it's amazing how fast he got all that mass moving.well, since i seem to be stuck on animals, here's another story. this issad though.a few days ago, as we were riding, we saw a saw with 6 little pigglets bythe side of the road. they were so cute, so i had to stop and take somepictures. as i was adjusting my camera settings (this usually takes awhile), i heard ed say ''óh no'', and i said ''what'', and he said''nothing''. but it was too late. i already saw it - one of the piglets,much smaller than all his brothers and sisters was paralyzed on half hisbody. the rear half of his body was completely limp, and he walked arouldusing his front legs only and dragging the rest behind. it was so sad!!what was really hartbreaking was that he was trying to suckle his mother'smilk, but she kept moving around, and because of his legs, he could nevercatch up with her. he would get stuck behind a log or a rock, and everyobstacle took him so much longer to get over than the rest of the piglets.we didn't think he was going to survive too long, he was already thesmallest one of the litter by far. it was so so sad! ed wanted to lightenthings up, so he said that we could help him by giving him wheels. nicethought.... one author i read recently, p.matthieson, said something to the effectthat you cannot escape the suffering of asia. i find this to be sotrue....i guess there is suffering everywhere in the world, but i think that insome places it is better hidden than in others. in asia, so far, it hasbeen in plain view. it's ironic, because in a previous email i was sayinghow happy the people seem here. and i still think that. the people seemhappy, but the suffering is still there: the mentally retarded kids, dirtyand in rags, in the streets, people with various deformities, animals likethat little pig, all this right along with everything else.i told ed that this trip, for me, is very different than anything i haveever done before. it's really not a vacation at all. it's too difficult,emotionally, to be a vacation. sometimes i don't want to see any of thedirt and the suffering any more, it's too hard, and i feel too impuissantagainst it all. but i also realize that i can't just come home and pretendthat it doesn't exist, pretend everyone lives as we do in the us andcanada and a few other fortunate countries. i knew about this all along,in my head, but now that i am actually experiencing it, it is verydifferent. i don't know what the answer is, but i am still here...and on this note, now that everyone is going ''what was that all about?'',i will end, thanking everyone for sharing this with me.thanks again, very much, for the replies.cu drag,raluca ps. we'll be in luang prabang for a few days, during which i plan to visitsome wats and do some touristy things. i will tell you about them later... |
|
