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Rachael AndersonWhat an amazing photo!
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1 year ago

Bruce LellmanTo Rachael AndersonFun with panning!
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1 year ago

Brent HirakBruce this is otherworldly. It's as if those final moments in paradise prompted a departure into dreams.
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1 year ago

Bruce LellmanTo Brent HirakYes, Brent, I think you nailed it. Paradise brings on dreams like nowhere else.
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1 year ago

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Twice everyday anywhere in Thailand - 8:00AM and 6:00PM - the Thai national anthem is played on TV and radio.  On previous trips we have been in places where it has felt like, The Day the Earth Stood Still, when the national anthem played.  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stood at attention. Traffic even came to a standstill.   We thought this dedication might be dying out in Thailand but our very first night outside of Bangkok, in Ayutthaya, we were at the night market when the loudspeakers erupted with the familiar and jaunty tune (which the previous King wrote).  Everyone stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped tossing food in woks, motorbikes and cars stopped and we stopped.  It's quite remarkable when this happens, kind of like we are in an episode of The Twilight Zone.   

But it never happened again on our entire trip!  We heard the song many times and we always looked around to see how people reacted but, strangely, no one seemed to even notice the once sacred national anthem.  Toward the end of our ten-week trip we would say to each other, "Remember that place where we saw such and such....?  Then, in unison, we'd say, "That seems like a hundred years ago."  Remembering how everyone had stood at attention in Ayutthaya for their national anthem also seemed like years earlier.  Because we never saw such devotion to the anthem again it felt as if we had fast-forwarded to an entirely new era.  But that's just too freaky to think about and we, instead, chalked it up to just one more thing we didn't understand about the Thais.   

If our days were so full that our personal time/space continuum was disrupted, that's a sign that the trip was a big success.  At least that's how I interpret the time/space continuum in terms of our bike trip.  It was true, some days we had no idea what day of the week it was.  It was true, sometimes we briefly didn't know exactly where we were.  I'd wake up in the night and have no idea where I was.  I'd see my bike in the corner of the room but that didn't help me.  The time/bike/space continuum, man, it's a thing.  

Memory is also a thing.  The difficult or downright bad parts of a bicycle trip don't stick with me.  Sure, I know they existed but they somehow recede in my memory to the point where all their power is gone, emasculated, nothing.  This is how the terrible heat and humidity at the beginning of our trip is nothing to me now.   I mean, it's not worth remembering.  Yes, it was uncomfortable but the freedom and privilege to be on bikes on little roads in the countryside of an absolutely foreign-as-anything-country with birds everywhere and friendly people waving, well, why take up any of the very limited space in my memory brain cells with how the sweat ran down into my eyes.  The fascinating things far outweigh any discomfort.  And there were so many fascinating things on this trip that my brain is full and will remain full of them for a long time.  

Two restaurants remain front and center in my memory so positively that I'd like to return to them someday. They were true Thai restaurants that were on what felt like a different scale than most and by the way the Thais thronged them, they thought so as well.  It seemed the owners/cooks were channeling age-old recipes or something.  Something different was going on, that's all I can say.  The number of items on their menus was extensive.  The restaurant in Angthong was on our very first day of riding.  And only two days later was the second of these restaurants, in Uthai Thani.  Outstanding Thai food in each.  We also loved a third small restaurant, a more quiet place, with a lone woman cooking in the tiny town of Mae Phrik.  Certain people are gifted when it comes to cooking and it was fun to experience such artistry.

I remember kind people, lots of smiles and I remember drivers of cars and trucks who seemed to anticipate what we were about to do on our bikes and cautiously slowed way down to wait for it.  I remember several times when I realized we needed to be in a different lane and I waved my arm at a driver I was about to cut in front of.  What was amazing was that the driver had already intuited my move.  They had slowed and given us space.  It also seemed as though they were using their vehicle to block others behind them who might not be as sensitive or as intuitive.   They were our protectors and are definitely worth remembering.  Who could ask for more than the feeling of being protected while riding a bike in an unfamiliar place and maybe confused as to which way we needed to turn.  

I remember the ancient sites we wandered in and how I marveled and wondered.   My original inspiration for appreciating, admiring, honoring and learning about such special places was my art professor, Mac Gimse.  He and I visited cathedral after cathedral in Italy every day for a month, a long time ago.  At that time I stuck to him like glue because he knew so much about each cathedral and was a great teacher.  It was the first time either of us had traveled outside of the U.S. which is why we were as excited as little kids.  A half a century on, I'm sure neither of us has changed.  As I walked among the ancient ruins of Kamphaeng Phet one day I felt Mac there at my side the entire day.  What joy to be walking next to him again.  All day I kept silently thanking him for giving me such an appreciation for art and architecture and to keep wonderment alive forever.  What a gift my professor gave me.  What an art - to be able to instill such appreciation in another person.  My life, and this bicycle trip, has been richer because of him. 

There are so many things I'm grateful for on this, our fourth bicycle trip through S.E. Asia.  I tried my best to describe things in real time and now, safely back home, my real time is reflection - an odd concept when you think about it.  Is reflection real time?  

During the trip I didn't know if an accident or illness would befall us.  But nothing untoward happened.  This is amazing to me and I am filled with thankfulness.  I didn't even know if my back, which I had broken only a year earlier, would be able to handle a bike trip of any length but I feel stronger than ever.

To plan a bicycle trip through a foreign land is initially a lot of preparation.  Then there is all the work to get to the starting point.  But once on the bikes we feel an indescribable type of freedom we have never felt using any other mode of transportation.  I know this was maybe not the usual sort of bicycle journal.  Rarely did we mention names or numbers of roads or specifically where we turned.  We only kept the mileage because the CycleBlaze format has a spot to enter it.  We rarely talked about elevation gains or losses and never how our bikes were holding up.  So, it was not your typical bike journal.  

I guess what that means is that we feel a bike journey is more about diving into the culture.  The bike is a means to go deeper into that culture and maybe along the way we can slowly understand a bit more.   Like walking around ancient ruins in wonder of it all, we rode around a country and wondered about a lot of things the whole time.   That is what we wanted to tell you about.  To notice things... such as the wai making a comeback.  

The wai is the greeting where you put your palms together in front of your face when you meet and when you leave someone.   It means, 'I honor your existence.' The wai was dying out to the point about 20 years ago when few people were ever doing it anymore.  But it has made a huge resurgence.  I don't know if it coincided with the general population becoming more affluent and therefore more relaxed about life or if Covid had a lot to do with it making such a comeback.  But, let me tell you, the wai is back baby!  Big time!  And it's so nice - so Thai.

Thank you all for coming along with us.  Thank you, Andrea for always being there for me.  Thank you all for your wonderful, kind and generous comments.  I can't tell you how much they mean to both of us.  You can't see it but I am waiing all of you right now.  I honor your existence.

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