From C.

“I can’t watch the news after last night’s reporting on a five year old girl who was going to either have her leg amputated or die from the infection and the mother said, right there in front her daughter, to let her die. The girl cried out and extended her hand to her mother – the doctor had to tell the mother to take her daughter’s hand. I can’t stop crying after seeing that.”

My reply:

C, I’m not directing this at you, but your heartfelt pain made me think:

The mother was making a decision for her other children. In the third world, they live close to the edge every day, a child that cannot work the fields, or the streets, a child that must be cared for, could take the whole family down. It appears cruel to us, but we are not faced with that mother’s decision. I suspect the reason the mother would not take the child’s hand is self-preservation, her own sanity.

The thousands of mothers are making these same kinds of decisions daily around the world, not just Haiti, not just today. We were recently in Laos, where the anti-personnel “bombies” America dropped during the “American War” are still maiming and killing, 40 years later; such heart wrenching decisions are still being made by mothers.

Part of the pain you feel is from being so far away and seeing it through the flickering eye of a TV screen. If you could be there to hold that child’s hand while she died, it would probably be less painful for you, you would be doing something, involved, not just watching.

We were able to save a drunk who crashed his motorcycle in Vietnam recently. He was going to drown in his own puke, or burned from the gasoline his cigarette would have ignited. All it took was a willingness to do something. We were lucky to be there (that means actually traveling to such places) and be able to do what comes naturally. But, that man, his family, and bystanders will never feel the same way about Americans.

Americans travel so little, and when they do, they wrap themselves in the cocoon of cruise ship or tour bus, and are denied the opportunity to actually touch and be touched by the people. I’m not saying everyone should travel by bicycle as we do, but a few simple choices in travel planning can make the difference between seeing a country through a filter of luxury, or making direct contact.

Don’t take a predetermined tour. The tour leaders are sure you don’t want to meet the real people, but a sanitized version of folk presentations. Travel independently, and  don’t always stay in the travel destinations, the tourist towns; stay in smaller towns or villages, spread your money around. Look that street vendor in the eye while you negotiate some mystery meat on a stick. Return her smile. Not only will you have more fun, more memories, but that street vendor will remember that some Americans actually cared enough to want to see her village, and how she lives. Small things make a difference.

Market Vendor in Cambodia

TV is unfortunately a one-way street. We can see. We can hurt, but we can’t give our selves (two words purposely) to that little girl, or the crashed drunk or… because we aren’t there.

We owe the World more than feeling its pain through our high-def screens. We need to be there as they live their day-to-day lives, so they know we care enough to come see them. Donations of supplies are necessary in time of crisis, but a better thing is to go to places like Haiti between disasters, spend a little money, shake a hand, laugh together, eat together, breathe their bad air, drink their boiled water, sleep on a board, defecate in an outhouse as they do.

Then come back and give some money to a micro credit organization that will help them help themselves, or maybe work to see that our government does not drop more anti-personnel weapons on innocent rice farmers. It all makes a difference. Watching and empathizing with a flat screen TV doesn’t change anything.

Happy Christmas from Bangkok

Happy Christmas from Bangkok, from Bob and Claire and Lucky. P-bear, Lai Lai and Foster send their best wishes from Tucson.

We’ll celebrate by crossing the International Date Line on Christmas Day. Does that mean we get Christmas twice?

Happy Christmas

Claire and Bob Rogers

PS. See a video of us having a look-back at our Shangri-la journey from Bangkok, Christmas Eve day.

Shelter

Bob:

In our last video post (scroll down and watch it first) we’d made quick work of a 7,000 ft climb to a 15,252 ft. plus pass, and were feeling pretty chipper considering the troubles other cyclists had encountered with the steep grades and high elevations. Our regular climbs of Mt. Lemmon (close to 9,000 feet elevation) in Tucson, had prepared our legs well, and we took enough off days for good acclimatization. After a nearly two weeks of our legs getting accustomed to the 80 pounds our so we carry, the climb was not as difficult as expected.

However, rather than the long descent to lower elevation for rest and a decent camp spot, we found the road stayed high, rolling up and down 1,000 feet or so as the weather deteriorated to rain, wind and sleet, and then climbing again. We knew that a night of rest at lower elevation would be essential for the next pass of 15,475 feet, but this was not to be.

Staying High

We stayed high as the clouds lowered and the sky darkened. We were shivering from the wet and cold and the effort of the pass. We knew we had to find shelter, high altitude or not, and hope our light sleeping bag would be enough. We failed to find a flat spot; this is called the Tibetan plateau, but it is riddled with 1,000 to 2,000 foot mountains with steep gorges and very few spots flat enough for a tent. Just as we were about to give up and camp beside the road (not something we do unless in dire circumstances) we saw a Tibetan settlement, and decided to see if we could at least get water. We were low and there was only some snow to eat, and maybe find a place behind a house out of sight. We would have to sleep at well over 14,000 feet, but we needed shelter.

Warmth and Food

As we rolled up to a small stone house/barn, an older looking woman smiled at us and made the international sleeping sign: prayer hands laid next to her head bent sideways. Nothing ever looked so good to us. A young woman, whom we took to be her daughter, and her child were in their small barnyard with their small herd of yaks preparing for milking.

She motioned for us to bring Zippy into the house, which was on the bottom level, the barn. We leaned him up against the stone wall, unloaded our bags and followed grandma (we’ll never know her name) upstairs. Their living quarters was one large room with a small hearth and a cozy fire. There was not a chimney, but a stovepipe reached just as far as a roof hatch, and the space was filled with a blue haze of smoke that softened all shapes and colors.

Home for the Night

The floor was rough cut slabs and the roof was supported by large log beams, but in the stone walls were set modern aluminum windows with latches. Various food items were drying on feed sack material and the beds were rolled up in one corner along with corn husk pillows. The hearth held all the pans they owned, and all the cooking was done on top of the fire. The daughter hurried up from her milking to prepare our meal and grandma sat and smiled at us and attempted to communicate.  She knew no Chinese, only Tibetan, and our communication was by pantomime.

Eating Yak Butter, Grain and Sugar

First, we were served a liquid from a pot that seemed to have a permanent spot on the hearth. It was yak butter tea. It’s pretty much as its name describes: water, yak butter (lots), and a few tiny leaves of tea. Now this sounds awful, but we found it quite good, and warming after a trying day.

Snowy Morning

Our first course was a white crumbly substance that Claire likened to the curds we had in Wisconsin, only they didn’t squeak in your teeth as much and had a very fermented flavor. I looked over and I could see a large pile of what we were eating drying/fermenting on the floor near where we would probably sleep. We ate from a communal bowl, grandma first, showing us how with the fingers of her right hand (this is important to remember). We are not prone to insulting the hostess, so we imitated her. We both liked the unusual texture and fermented flavor. I could see uses for it in other genres of cooking.

Grandma prepared the next course while the daughter finished milking. She sliced potatoes French Fry style and fried them in a huge amount of an unidentified oil poured from a large plastic container stuffed with a rag. Then she added some water for a steamed finish. This was served with rice, and more yak butter tea. It was quite satisfying, and enjoyed with the company of a Buddhist monk who’d dropped in for a meal. Apparently you feed a monk when he shows up at your door, anytime.

After dinner, and another couple of rounds of yak tea, we both needed to relieve ourselves of some liquid, and asked (don’t ask how we asked) for the toilet, which we expected to be a short-drop, i.e. a shallow pit with weather shelter over it. Not here. We were pointed to the guardrail and over the hill to the village toilet. It wasn’t as bad as you might think. Such places in America are littered with toilet paper, the white of which announces each deposit. Here they do not use toilet paper. Remember how all the eating and touching of food is done with the right hand? Yep.

The next morning, just at first light Claire and I both felt a need and headed past the sleepy yaks, over the guardrail where we each found – recently at least – an unused bush. It had snowed overnight and we had two inches of something much better than toilet paper to use. Chilly, but refreshing.

During the night we slept like the family, fully clothed on the floor on light pads with husk filled pillows. We went to sleep to the sound of grandma reciting her prayers on her prayer beads. Breakfast was – guess what – yak butter tea, leftover potatoes and rice, and an addition – yak butter rolled in a mixture of rough meal and some sugar. Again, strange sounding, but good and filling. The little girl of three or so got her breakfast from mom, two teats worth.

Friends

Claire:

It sounds romantic: going to sleep to the sounds of chanting and waking to the sounds of milking. But these women’s lives are a gritty existence that our culture hasn’t known for generations. Hauling wood, water, and food up the ladder to the living space, making butter and curds, grinding grain, hand washing clothes, keeping the fire going, cooking… Mundane, routine, weather-dependent, smoke-filled and layered with years of grime. At first, we were both a little uncomfortable with their aboriginal way of life (we even took some Pepto-Bismol as a prophylaxis against any reaction to the yak butter). It’s kind of like going feral in Australia, at first, you try to avoid the bull dust, then you live with it, until finally it becomes your outer layer.

Wonder What She Thought of Us

The five tiny calves at the bottom of the ladder were the future for these women. Their house was smaller than most in the village. I wondered where the men were? What would the little girl’s life be like? Would she get an education? Would she look at that post card of the horse those people on the bicycle gave her and realize someday what a big world this is? We used Bob’s jacket printed with a map of the world on it to try to convey where we were from, where we’d been and where we planned to go. I have no idea if they’d ever seen a map before. It doesn’t really matter to them, their world is an isolated village along a road between two passes and 50 kilometers from the nearest town. An occasional bicyclist may pass by their house or ask for shelter. To us, these women will always be a part of our world, and I don’t ever want to forget them.

What lies ahead as the yaks are put out to pasture.

Bob:

And it’s not over yet. We left the family as the snow began to melt, expecting the second 15,000 foot pass to be a few kilometers further since we had slept so high, and also expecting the weather to turn.

The Road To Shangri-la is not always what is expected.

It looks like guru John Hoyle found a fix. If you need a website, see his link at the left. He’s a fixer.

Despite jet lag we got Zippy put together with a couple of problems that were solved with a little patience and some muscle. Lucky was particularly helpful, supervising and giving encouragement. We went riding around town today, and it is crazier than Beijing, more like Baku, Azerbaijan. We attract quite a bit of attention on the tandem, something they appear to have never seen.

We were starving on arrival and went wandering for food around our backpacker hotel, which serves mainly Western food to the less adventurous youth. We saw a hutong (alley) and it reminded us that the best food we found in Beijing was in hutongs. We saw an inviting pile of vegetables and were drawn by a cute girl working the street in front of her family’s three table fandian. We pointed at some noodles and green beans.  They brought us paper cups of  boiling water, for sterilization, and I ordered a beer for us. Both no name dishes were wonderfully spiced (dried juniper berries in the green bean dish)  and the heavily hopped Chinese beer was  just as good, and cold, as I remembered it. Total cost for dinner and beer, $2.19

From Claire: I’m hoping our taxi ride from the airport was the most adventure we’ll have on this trip. Sure, Bob was having fun in the front seat–he had a seat belt. Zippy and I clung together for dear life in the back seat of the van. For the driver to have hit a bicyclist on our way from the airport would have been very bad karma all around.

It is odd how the very distinct smells (all except one) are somehow comforting because now they’re familiar from our first trip. Mostly food, but also some incense and lots of other unknowns. And my ears perk up to the language, trying to pick out recognizable words. Already, I’ve found there is an accent to deal with, so that’s why, once again I’m not picking up much of what people are saying. I feel a lot more relaxed this time, we got a good night’s sleep last night and Zippy is back in one piece.

Bob: While Claire was in a grocery today, reacquainting herself with the joys of shopping when none of the packaging is readable, I stayed with Zippy and had a conversation with a Chinese man. He was middle aged, a bit soft looking, in white t-shirt, black shorts, black socks and black shoes. He asked for a light for his cigarette. I think he was testing me, because he immediately produced a lighter when I indicated I didn’t smoke.  Odd to shrug my shoulders in apology for not smoking! Then he asked my age. I knew because it happened so often on our Silk Road Crossing in China. We each drew out our ages on a bench, and used finger counting.  He was 53, and showed shock that I am 65. Then he wanted to see how hard my legs are, a reaction to Zippy as usual, and even went so far as to make me flex my arms for him, and he slowly traced my large veins down my biceps and forearm. I suspect he doesn’t have such good circulation. He complained about the pollution (bad) in Chengdu, between deep draws on his cigarette. He was just curious about me, and not shy about it; Chinese seem to be so shy that they pretend not to see you, or get very personal. All this was sign language, helped along by Claire when she arrived.

Then we had an exciting ride back to the bingwan. Now it’s time for dinner. What unknown dish will we have tonight? I’m ready for that pejo!

Zippy shrink wrapped and ready for China. The wheels are in two other boxes, along with tools and sharp objects, a third bag will carry tent and sleeping bag for the high mountains. We’ll carry cameras and the computer in carry on. We hope all of this gets to Chengdu at the same time we do, unlike our first experience with China and air travel.

The packing is always such an epic. But since these trips are usually Zippy’s ideas, we can’t very well leave him behind.

One more day to get things done.

Claire and Zippy on Cable Beach, Broome, Kimberly, Western Australia

We rode our tandem a few thousand kilometers across and through the middle of Australia, through the Kimberly, in the far northwest. The Kimberly region is the size of California with 41,000 residents. Think of that. We rode for two to three days without seeing human habitation. There are bulbous baobab trees and bush fires on the land, crocks and huge snakes in the billabongs and camels stomping around the tent in the night. Lovely.

We arrived in Broome probably the most remote town in the English speaking world, just in time for our anniversary, so it holds a special place in our hearts. The coast there is like all the coasts in Australia, spectacular. But the Kimberly coast is special for it’s remoteness and the austere red rock beauty and beautiful, but often violent weather.

We can only hope the spill in contained before it ruins one of Earth’s special places.

For more on the Kimberly and our 20,000 kilometer ride around Australia, see the link Around Australia by Tandem on the Home page, or click here

Tea in Turkey with the girls who turn silkworm casings on hot days. This day was 40C.

Another think came to me. This one is long. I think I like it. When I told it to Bob and Claire, they looked at each other, smiled and hugged a little hug. I think they know about wheresoever and go and heart too.

I like the picture Bob came up with to go with my new think. He said it was from a place called Turkey, and Claire said the girls were fun, even if she couldn’t understand anything but the laughter.

I still wonder where these thinks come from. Does anybody out there know?

My head fluff is acting up again. I’m doing more of the think thing. I kind of like this one, since I’ve been seeing really pretty country lately. But I know I didn’t think this by myself. Somebody really smart thought this first. Bob and Claire think I’m a smart panda, but I think I think these thinks are coming from another place. I wonder where?