Happy Christmas from Bangkok. We’ll celebrate by crossing the International Date Line on Christmas Day.
Bob and Claire Rogers prepare to return home from their adventurous tandem bicycle tour from Tibet to Bangkok.
Claire and Bob Rogers Read the rest of this article…
We were introduced to this magic plant in Queensland when we were riding Zippy, our tandem bicycle, around Australia. Claire noticed it here in Laos. The same magic works here. Read the rest of this article…
Activity on a Lao river near sunset. Children jumping from a bridge, boats, inner-tubers, motorcycles on rickety bridge, evening light. Read the rest of this article…
He got food poisoning in Laos. After five years of bicycle touring around the world, he was stuck in Luang Prabang. Then he met her, and his life changed forever. He found his Shangri-la. Read the rest of this article…
Chinese do not like to be photographed as a part of a crowd, and yet they always like to be a part of a crowd. I wonder if it has to do with how much they are under surveillance, or think they are? Read the rest of this article…
Bill Weir and Alice and Andoni, cyclists we’d met way back in Almaty in 2005, suggested we take a back road to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Read the rest of this article…
Is this part of China still Shangri-la? For many of the people content to live the simple life of farm work and devotion to Buddhism, it still must be a peaceful existence.
Are they the healthy happy people who live long lives, as in the novel? Their smiles as we pass indicate they are happy; as for their health, they must have strong hearts to navigate the near vertical hillsides all day every day. Their sanitary systems are nonexistent, but they probably adapt to some degree, and all consumed water is boiled. Many of them live as my grandfather lived in West Virginia more than 100 years ago. He was mowing hay by hand when he was 90 years old, worked working with horses, had no electricity, went to the outhouse, ate pork every day, and died peacefully at home at 93. Shangri-la? Not for us, but considering the challenges of modern life, and that American’s life spans are decreasing for the first time ever, perhaps lessons to be learned. Read the rest of this article…