Post 382: Boonville Bound: California USA

The last few months have vanished, gone in the blink of an eye and it’s time to move on.  The monsoon rains of Thailand I certainly won’t miss, but the people and the place I will, especially Nongnoo. The book; ‘Poor Circulation Ashes to Boonville’ is now finished and should be available in the UK within the next couple of weeks. I’ve got to thank so many people for making it possible, all of whom get a mention in the Book, but a special ‘Thank You’ goes to my sister-in-law Torrey for having the ability to polish the detritus that I called a manuscript.

I’ll be flying to California at the end of April and spending a few months with the family in Boonville. It’ll be good to be back there, hanging out with friends and hopefully lending a helping hand with the final stages of the house build and with the animals around the farm. My nephew and niece Sam and Willow are growing up quickly, and after six months away it’ll be amazing to see how much they’ve grown. I’ve bought them clothes and shoes that I’m taking with me, but I’m useless at shopping for myself never mind others, especially buying clothes for kids who always seem to be taller and broader than you remember, so I hope they’ll forgive my taste in fashion and sense of size. I'm also missing my daughter Hannah who I haven't seen for far too long. She'll be leaving college and starting university at the end of the summer and I want to be back in England around that time. Birth to University in the blink of an eye! If I ever needed one, it's a reminder of how old I really am and a motivator to get the things done that I need to get done while there's still enough time and mobility to do them.  

In Boonville I’ll be writing/finishing/polishing the second book; ‘Poor Circulation Homeward Bound’ and hope to have it finished and available before Christmas 2013. Writing and rewriting the first book so many times has taught me some valuable lessons, one of which should be never to promise a delivery date, but hopefully the peace and quiet of Boonville will help me to concentrate and get this one out on time.

Thanks for following, and internet permitting, I'll be back here soon.     

Post 381: Laos, Vang Vieng

My original intention was to ride up to Luang Prabang, about another 250km to the north. But, I’d originally planned to be riding a motorcycle with slightly longer legs than the Suzuki Smash. The bike’s casings tell me that it’s blessed with an engine capacity of 110cc, but from the feel and sound of the motor, it seems to have a 100cc piston slapping around in its oversized bore - a piano playing in a great cathedral. Luang Prabang will have to wait, but the charms of Vang Vieng are drawing me in.

The hills surrounding Vang Vieng are not really mountains; they’re what my old geography teacher always referred to as ‘hummocks’. Tall fingers of rock with rounded peaks covered in vegetation and marbled with natural cave formations. At the undisclosed entrance to one of these caves, I find a local entrepreneur who wants to be my best friend and guide. At each of the caves, the price is always the same, 10,000 kip ($1), but it’s a price worth paying. Without the local guide you’ll struggle to find the hidden entrances and if you haven’t brought your own flashlight and large ball of string, then you’ll likely get lost inside, or fall down a chasm and die.

Inside one of the cave complexes at Pheung Kam, the air is strangely cold as chilling currents flow from somewhere far below ground. Stalactites hang from the high and not so high ceilings, and stalagmites rise from the ground to meet them. The tunnels are narrow, the floors are well trodden and unannounced gullies threaten to swallow the incautious tourist. And then, around a corner, ducking to avoid another collision between forehead and rock, sits a substantial image of Buddha. Too large to have come in through the entrance, it must have been constructed where it sits. It’s old but not ancient and according to my guide, it dates back to the 1970's when these caves were used by ‘People’ to shelter from the almost continuous US bombing raids. I’ve no idea if that’s true, but being here now feels quite claustrophobic and I can’t imagine what it must have felt like in a time of war with bombs raining down on the mountain above. Actually, I don’t think Laos and the USA were ever technically ‘At War’, which seems surprising, because in the 1970's America dropped more ordnance on Laos than the total amount of ordnance dropped on the entire world during World War II .... mai pen rai kap. 

Back on the roads around Vang Vieng, sandy tracks that cross dry river beds and shallow flowing streams, the majority of the people in and between the small hamlets are young. School kids ride from school to the river on their bicycles while younger kids hang out of their clothes and around their grandparents on the bamboo porches of lopsided homes. Apart from those people working in hotels and restaurants, the people here are either old or young, there's nobody in the middle. The parents of the kids, I suspect, are away making money in the city while the older folks take care of the family.  I’d earlier joked about feeling like the poorest kid in town, but that had been back in Vientiane. Here things are different, very different, worryingly different. The shirt on my back makes me feel rich and I suspect that tonight I’ll be eating far better than many of the people that I’ve seen around here today. I don’t feel guilty for being here, I just feel ‘aware’ of my surroundings. Laos is clearly experiencing a period of rapid economic change and in Vientiane that new wealth is visible, often rudely so, but it’s an economic surge that appears to be bypassing these rural communities to the north. 

The town of Vang Vieng is now a community dedicated to the service of tourism, but thankfully, not in a trashy kind of way. In Laos there are no McDonalds, Starbucks or KFC’s, and aside from fuel stations and convenience stores, most small businesses seem to be independently operated. I like that, it gives a degree of uncertainty and character to a place and makes everything feel just a little more genuine. 

Outside of the small towns, agriculture is the main activity and it reminds me very much of Thailand back in the 1980’s. It’s a manual economy that runs with the seasons and still employs more buffalo power than diesel. It’s nice to see that some things haven’t changed, but that’s very easy for me to say. I’m not the one who’s bent double in a field beneath the burning sun thinning-out the rice crops.

Post 380: Laos, Vientiane to Vang Vieng

Memo to Self: ‘Keep Right Stupid’. Yes, here in Laos they like to drive on the right side of the road. Riding on the right isn’t a challenge, it’s forgetting to ride on the right that seems to create the problems. Hopefully I’ll remember and not become another painted outline on the road.

Vientiane is a great city, but leaving it is easy, Highway 13 North. The roads are busy, busier than I can ever remember. Congestion, lots of cars, many of them shiny and new. Billboards to the side of the road explain why. ‘Cars 4 Cash’ - ‘Cash 4 Cars’ – ‘No Deposit + Easy Payments’. The world of Easy Credit has arrived here in Laos and I’m suddenly feeling like the poorest kid in town. Laos is starting to mirror Thailand, but with longer skirts and slightly shorter smiles. Even the rural farmers are the same. Each and every one of them is a pyromanic with a penchant for setting fire to anything that’ll burn. I twist the throttle wide open and try to outrun the choking smoke, but all I seem to get is a lot more noise. It’s another 150Km to Vang Vieng, but fortunately I’ve got a 30 Day Visa .... No need to hurry.

The density of buildings reduces and the road imperfections increase, but the Suzuki Smash just seems to fart along like a vegetarian grandmother. Random detours down sandy tracks and across bridgeless streams add interest to a maximum speed of 80Kph and away from the tarmac, the Suzuki starts making me smile and reminding me that I’m free. All is good in the world. 

Vang Vieng is an interesting town with a local populous of older grandparents and younger kids, and a tourist population of twenty-something Europeans who appear to be strangers to grooming. I feel like the oldest Farang in town riding the slowest scooter in Laos, and it's probably true. Vang Vieng reminds me of Goa thirty years ago, but without the beach and the blow. It’s a good place to kick-back with cheap rooms, stunning views and a relaxed approach to everything. Beyond the town, rough tracks lead to swimming areas, deep caves and tall mountains. With a total disregard for Health & Safety, Kids jump from high bridges into not so deep rivers below and European travellers swing from high rock faces on unreasonably skinny ropes. But, nobody dies and everybody seems to smile.     

At the side of every track, I find constant reminders that life in Laos hasn’t always been quite so carefree. Shell casings litter the area, hopefully dormant or defused, but there are no guarantees. During the Vietnam War, the US dropped 280,000,000 bombs onto Laos, that’s 47 bombs for every man, woman and child in the country, and according to the Mine Action Group, at least 20% of them failed to explode and many remain deadly to this day.

Post 379: Accidentally Into Laos

Entering Thailand from Cambodia at the small border town of Ban Laem, is normally an administrative breeze. However, experience tells me that even the easiest of border crossings can be unpredictable:

Official: ‘Your Thai visa expired on March 11^th, today is March 12^th and your visa is invalid’. 

Me: ‘Please look at my passport, my Thai visa expires tomorrow, March 13^th, my visa is still valid’.

Official: ‘The computer says 11^th March. Sorry, entry is denied’

It was like a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, but for a traveller with very little money, it was slightly more serious. Unfortunately in this particular version of the game, it seemed that ‘Computer’ trumped ‘Passport-Stamp’ every time. I was clearly on an administrative hiding-to-nothing and decided to cut my losses. After much discussion, they finally compromised and allowed me to enter Thailand for just 14 Days. It wasn’t the 60 Days that I’d expected, but it was certainly better than the alternative: ‘Entry Denied’.

It’s always surprising that a task’s appetite for time can ebb and flow according to the amount of time that’s available to complete it. So, after just 12 Days in Bangkok, my tasks were finished and it was time get out of Thailand. At Bangkok’s Mo Chit bus station, I boarded the overnight VIP Coach to Nong Khai and 12 hours later, I crossed the ‘Friendship Bridge’ into Laos.

Welcome to Laos, or to use its fuller name, the Laos People’s Democratic Republic. Any nation that feels the need to include the words ‘People’ and ‘Democratic’ in its name, always makes me slightly suspicious. Such inclusions often reflect a gentle misinterpretation of the facts, like a chocolate bar described as being ‘Fun Size’ or a tent that ‘Sleeps 4’.  But, when applied to Nations, such misrepresentations are probably slightly more serious. North Korea is officially called The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I rest my case. 

Democratically speaking, the 6,500,000 citizens of Laos are represented by 132 elected members of the National Assembly.  Every five years, National Assembly members are elected via a national ballot, a ballot that seems to include everything but choice. It appears that all electable officials are members of the only legally recognised political party in Laos, The Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. Thus, I suspect that the words ‘People’ and ‘Democratic’ in Laos’ name are as silent as the letter ‘S’ in Laos.

So here I am, an Englishman governed by Cameron and Clegg, a man living in a world shaped by Bush and Blair, and I’m questioning the true level of democracy here in SE Asia. Shame on me. 

Moving on, in order to travel in Laos, I’ve secured a rental scooter from a Vietnamese food vendor here in downtown Vientiane Capital. It’s a little red Suzuki Smash with a big chrome exhaust pipe and four evenly spaced gears, all of them down. What else can I say? Well, what I should say is that before leaving Thailand I’d pre-booked a rental bike, a 250cc Honda Baja, but when I’d arrived to collect the motorcycle from Jules Classics they’d denied all knowledge of my reservation. I’d shown them the booking request and their subsequent confirmation, but the man from Jules Classics had simply said ‘No’.

Having collected the unfortunately named Suzuki Smash, before leaving Vientiane I stopped to visit a chirpy gentleman who sells handmade wristbands on the pavement outside of Jules Classics. Yesterday I’d left Jules Classics feeling slightly pissed-off with the world, but this man had put everything into perspective. As a youth, he’d lost the use of his lower legs in a landmine incident but had smiled, got over it and got on with it, making the most of what he could do and ignoring what he couldn’t. I chat with him for a few minutes before selecting ten of his beautifully crafted wristbands and handing him a sum of money equal to the cost differential between renting the Honda and Suzuki. It felt good to make someone’s day, but I also introduced him to the wonders of Marmite and that was quite a different story .... a different story for another time.

Post 378: Iron Butt Asia

The Iron Butt Association (IBA) has been around for many years and boasts more than 50,000 members worldwide. As the name suggests, the IBA is all about covering Big Miles on Big Motorcycles, so of course, it all began in America. There are several different qualifying events on the IBA's menu, but the poster-girl for the Association is probably the ‘Saddle Sore 1000’: Riding one thousand miles in 24 hours.

As a Despatch Rider, I’ve completed many accidental ‘Saddle Sore 1000’s’, but as a relatively sane man, I’ve never intentionally set out to complete one. To be honest, unless you’re undertaking an Iron Butt Challenge in order to raise money for good causes, then I’ve never seen the point in trying one. I can understand why Members of the IBA wear their achievement patches proudly, because a thousand miles in a day certainly takes its toll on the body, but I’ve always believed that those patches should really belong to the horses and not the jockeys.       

Then, following the January 2013 Horizons Unlimited travellers gathering in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, I found myself almost 800km from home. Looking at the map, my preferred route home would take me west towards the Thai/Myanmar border where I’d turn left and meander south until I reached Bangkok. It looked to be a journey of approximately 1,000 kilometres or 600 miles. If I made the journey in 24 hours it wouldn’t qualify as a recognised ‘Iron Butt’ ride, but the motorcycle I’d be riding wouldn’t be your typical Iron Butt weapon of choice: Big BMW’s or Harley Davidson’s.

 My motorcycle was the Tiger Retro 110, the Thai produced copy of the iconic Honda Super Cub C90. Producing 4.5Bhp at the engine, the Tiger Retro has 3% of a BMW 1200 GS’s power but it’s carrying 40% of the BMW’s weight.  The Tiger’s top speed is 82kph (50mph) and the cruising speed is somewhere slightly below 75kph (45mph). Theoretically speaking, riding flat-out for 24 hours it would be possible to cover a total distance of 1,200 miles, but Theories are for the Classroom and the Road prefers Reality.

 I set out from Chiang Mai early in the morning and with so little power the hills were quite challenging. But, the Tiger plodded on and seemed to take everything in its short but steady stride. With a fuel capacity of just 3 liters, the Tiger's tank is small, but that matches it's thirst. At around 150 mpg, the journey might be slow, but it would also be relatively cheap.

The new seat that I'd had built for just $10 in Bangkok was an absolute delight and the hours and miles passed with far less pain than I'd expected. Then, just as everything was going unreasonably well, the Tiger began to wobble. The bamboo POORATECH luggage began shaking violently, the narrow handlebars started oscillating and the Tiger dipped down onto its haunches. A puncture in the rear tyre. Bollocks!

As I pulled to a halt, I saw the 'Sign' that I needed. A large tractor tyre painted white with red stripes. The elderly owner of the tyre-shop wasn't big on talking, but after handing him 100 THB, he rode away and returned fifteen minutes later with a new inner-tube and a small bottle of Lau Kow (Rice Whisky). The valve in the original tube had torn out and the replacement product was perfect. Thai's are very proud people and the elderly engineer refused my assistance. I should have stopped him, but I'm far too bloody polite. He only had one tyre lever, which for a tyre fitter, is unusual.  He hummed, he harrrred, he struggled, and he sweated while turning a simple task into a complicated exercise in incompetence. But, eventually the new inner-tube was in place, the old tyre refitted and perfectly inflated. The only remaining fly in the engineering ointment was the absence of the security bolt to the rear brake's torque arm. Together, we searched high and low but the missing bolt was nowhere to be found. The elderly man pointed to his dogs ... 'Soonak mai dee' .. His dogs must have eaten it.

Five kilometers deeper into the journey, the wobbles returned. Another rear puncture. Once again, the God's were smiling and another painted tractor tyre was just a few meters behind me. Here, the tyre-fitter was younger, he had several beautiful sets of tyre levers and within seconds of removing the rear wheel, he was grinning like a Cheshire Cat and taking photographs with his smart-phone.  

The missing security bolt had been found. It hadn't been eaten by the elderly man's dogs, it had been hiding inside the rim of the wheel, wedged between the tyre and inner-tube.

                                       
 Mobile again, the boredom of the slow road was broken by random weirdness. For reasons unknown, the Thai's choose themes for everything. In this case, a roadside cafe is based upon the town of Bedrock. Why? I've absolutely no idea, but it does make me smile.

 As darkness arrived, the coolness was welcomed but the mosquitoes and the darkness were not. I'd chosen to wear my open-face helmet and forgotten to bring my goggles. 500km from home, and I'd be squinting all the way.
In relation to its speed, the lights on the Tiger are best described as adequate, but my modifications had caused unforeseen  problems. I'd fitted s screen, a screen that reflected the light and gave me a heads-up display of everything that I didn't need to know. I shouldn't really blame the screen for destroying all night vision, I should blame the idiot who fitted the front basket right in front of the headlight. That idiot I'm afraid ..... was Me.

 After nineteen hours and a few minutes of riding, I pulled to a halt outside of my apartment and killed the Tiger's tortured engine. 1,027km in 19 hours. I'd averaged 32mph and consumed fuel at a rate of 140mpg. An average speed of 32mph sounds quite slow, but I will guarantee that at least half of those miles were competed at full-throttle and the diminutive Tiger never missed a beat. It wasn't an IBA Saddle Sore of 1,000 Miles in 24 Hours, but given the equipment used and the condition of the roads in Northern Thailand ... I'll take it as an achievement.

Post 377: Dangerous Fact or Flimsy Fiction?

     Back in 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, in 1977 Elvis definitely left the building and twenty years later, along with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, Princess Diana was killed in a terrible traffic accident in Paris. I really don’t have much time for conspiracy theories and there supporters. While some of them might at first seem interesting, on closer inspection they all appear to be short on physical evidence and long on innuendo. If they contained more of the former and less of the latter, then we wouldn’t call them ‘Conspiracy Theories’ at all, we’d simply refer to them as ‘History’. 

     So, when the activist group ‘Anonymous’ claimed that they’d prevented Republican operative Karl Rove from stealing the US Presidential Election away from Barack Obama, why hadn’t I just turned the page and moved on? 

     On the evening of November 6th 2012, thanks to the BBC’s live streaming of their ‘Election Special‘, I’d watched the election results rolling in. As the state of Ohio had ‘Declared’ in favour of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney’s race to the Whitehouse had effectively ended. Although not all of the votes had been counted, nor all of the States declared, mathematically speaking Obama had secured a second term in office. 

    Switching to ‘Fox News’ I’d chuckled at Karl Rove’s reaction to the disappointing news from Ohio. His Titanic had sunk, but instead of reaching for his life vest, he remained steadfast in  trying to convince his fellow passengers that it was an unsinkable ship. As the icy waters had lapped around his ample waist, Rove had insisted that the Ohio result had been declared prematurely. There was still a chance, a strong chance, a very strong chance that the Republican Party would still win the election.

     Every news network in America had declared the 2012 US Presidential Election in favour of Barack Obama, but Karl Rove held his ground, argued his point, and waited. Did Karl Rove know something that others simply didn’t?

    Back in the 2004 Presidential Election, George W Bush v John Kerry, at 11:13pm, with most of the votes counted and exit polls suggesting a clear victory for John Kerry, the Ohio electoral computer system had crashed. The fail-safe system had taken over as planned, a system based in Tennessee and operated by SMARTech. The SMARTech arrangement had been engineered by Mike Connolly, the head of GovTech and Karl Roves’ personal technology guru. When Ohio’s electronic reporting service had eventually come back on-line, the results had unexpectedly flipped in favour of George W. Bush and Ohio was declared for the Republicans. 

     Were Karl Roves’ actions on Fox News, his refusal to accept the blindingly obvious, based on the knowledge that another miraculous turnaround was about to happen?

         I have absolutely no idea if Karl Rove attempted to steal the 2004, and or 2012 US Presidential Elections for the Republican Party, but ’Anonymous’ suggest that he did. Anonymous claim that within the Ohio electronic voting system, they found tunnels through which Karl Rove’s "worker bees" could enter and change the results of the vote. They claim to have secretly developed and installed a new firewall within the Ohio system, “The Great Oz”, a device that they claim ultimately kept those worker bees out of the system. They claim to have evidence, evidence that will lead directly back to Karl Rove and by default, to Mitt Romney himself. 

     If this is true, and Anonymous are indeed working for the greater good of the people, then surely this evidence must be released. "Anonymous" claim to have prevented something happening, but as it clearly didn’t happen, then without and physical evidence to the contrary, we must logically conclude that it was never going to happen in the first place.

     As for the 2004 election, Mike Connolly of GovTech did provide written details concerning his involvement to US Authorities, right before he died in what is described as a “mysterious air crash“. Sadly, that evidence appears to remain ’Sealed’ as lawyers argue over its ownership. The people would argue that such evidence belonged with ’The People’, but it appears that the new owners of GovTech believe that it's their property alone and wish for it to remain sealed. 

     Perhaps the thought of a Presidential candidate, or in George W Bush’s case a President, committing what amounts to treason is too far fetched to believe. I can almost hear John Grisham sharpening his quill, but there are certain historical precedents for such wayward actions. Thanks to the freedom of information, certain ‘Conspiracy Theories’ have in fact now been written into ‘History’. 

      Back in 1968, Republican Presidential candidate Richard M Nixon derailed the Vietnam peace agreement brokered by Lyndon B. Johnson in order to better his electoral chances. His actions surely cost countless thousands of lives; American, Vietnamese and Laotian, but did assist in his election as President.     

      As Ronald Regan approached the Presidential Election in 1980, his advisers met with Iranian representatives in Paris and negotiated the delayed release of US hostages until after the election. Regan's actions were planned to further undermine the credibility of incumbent President Jimmy Carter, and it certainly helped as Regan won a landslide victory, but the price of their cooperation was the delivery of weapons, lots of weapons, all directed through Israel, a debacle that later became famous as the ‘Iran-Contra Affair‘.  

     Hopefully, one way or another, the Karl Rove election story will one day be proven and committed to ‘History‘ .... or disproved and forgotten.