Biking South Of The City

The other day I awoke after a nearly sleepless night. Our son Sayo, that marvelous and cute digestive tube did his fair share of crying.

Maybe it was the full moon. Sleep was half-hazard and graceless.

And so I called my private students and cancelled my classes and got on my bike, the Specialized, and rode south.

It was one of those hot days, but I never really feel the heat.

I rode to the “Clock Roundabout”, known to French friends simply as “L’horloge” and followed the Mekong. If truth be told, we are looking for land upon which to build a house. Prices are climbing and it will soon be now or never.

On the way down to where the road forks off to the left I stopped in a Wat on the river and hung out with some old guys who made coconut juice and talked about their girlfriends.

The Mekong was still swollen from last week’s rain and in the end I found a beautiful spot, a coconut grove at the bottom of a street at the edge of a rice field. A perfect spot for a flood, but wonderful in the dry season.

A word about the dentist sign. Braces are all the fashion now in Vientiane. In the College Which Will Go Nameless where I teach a lot of the girls and some of the boys are wearing them. For the life of me I cannot understand why. A pretty girl with perfectly straight teeth will show up at class one day wearing braces! The new status symbol, I suppose, like a shiny red sports car.