There Are Places I Remember

It is lovely coming back. The kids stayed up a little extra late to see me before they went to bed. Everyone had something to show me, everyone wanted my time and attention. It was beautiful. It was homecoming.

I will, however, always remain haunted by the images of the countryside.

The majestic mountains, old, wise and worn. The billiard flat rice paddies as green as air riddled with low mud walls and salas.

The tiny villages of wood and bamboo where people sit dreaming the days and weeks away.

Laughing children, calling "Falang! Falang!”

The hills have dark stone walls. The rice paddies are flooded. The roads, when dry, crunch invitingly under wheel.

Clouds pass, flutter, give shade and threaten.

Light is direct and painful, filtered, sparkling blue or grey.

And all this reality is ours to enjoy: all of it is here and profound. All we need to do is open like a sponge to take it in; open our pores, our eyes and ears. Open our being. All the world is filled with glory.

Heroic Charlene

I have sung her praises before.

Already while fighting the gravel and large stones of the Golden Triangle I came to realize that I was in the presence of not just a bike, but a unique work of art – see April 2012 on this blog.

This time she didn't have to contend with overly tough terrain, but rather a lot of mud and water in her dérailleurs and brakes.

Every evening I washed her clean in a river or hosed her down then popped into a motorbike repair shop to oil her up. And every day she started out, purring like a kitten.

Once again, many thanks and much gratitude to Willy of Top Cycle, 47 Don Palan Road in Vientiane who is the only person in the country who realizes how precious she is and knows how to tune her.

The Icing On The Latte

 

 

 

 

Way up on the hill, beyond the silent valleys and crowning peaks; beyond the blue sliver of dawn and the dark silent breath of dusk.

Way, way up; beyond a thousand forgotten bamboo villages and smoking hearth fires.

Far up, far above the myriad of dusty and muddy trails; flying over the immense and endless Indochinese night.

Is Luang Prabang.

 
 

Summertime, and the living is ... wet

News of our world.

In this prosaic posting I will cover family stuff.

So, our big boy and girl, Zéphyr and Maya-Swann are now in Canada after spending a few weeks in Toulouse with their grandparents. My nephew Steven is sweet enough, year after year, to pick them up, take them here, take them there, deposit them, fetch them and keep them happy. On Tuesday they are off to Camp Manitou to explore their Canadianess!

Before they left we went for a weekend to Vang Vieng. You can read about a previous trip to Vang Vieng at http://mair-hyman.blogspot.com/2010/10/october-break-assholes-october-29th.html.

I am delighted to say that things have changed and the diabolical tubing station just off the Organic Farm has been removed. Calm and sanity have returned to the area and this time we were able to stay there with pleasure.

There are still crazy people running around the world, by the way. Michael Roy is an American who gives one faith that maybe, just maybe, America will become America again. His website is: http://threeruleride.com/

Sarah Melki is a French woman who built a bicycle out of bamboo and left Vientiane to ride back to France. She is presently in Mongolia. You can check her out at: http://bamboosara.wordpress.com/

Zephyr and Maya-Swann both did very well in school this year. This, and Cléa's academics, prove that in the Hyman family being a lousy student skipped several generations. I would like take this occasion to thank their teachers, Pierre Barret who taught Maya-Swann this year, Alain Leroux-Gasnier who taught Zéphyr and Jacques Barret who taught and inspired Zéphyr last year. To all the teachers and educators at the Lycée Hoffet French School in Vientiane – thank you...merci!

The house is almost silent now. With our two big monsters flying around the world on their own, the only (!) noise in the house is that of Saya Ephraïm David who is managing to fill the void with gusto.

Plans for the house are moving along, with Marie-Do and Olivier building a model to help us plan it better. One day I will get off my ass and feed the blog on the house. We should get the Building Permit by the end of this week but are waiting for the monsoon to end before construction.

The weather here is bona fide monsoon. You wake up in the morning to soft sunshine and when you go downtown to take care of some business you get rained on so violently it hurts your hands where they clutch the scooter handles. Thirty minutes later the sun is out and the streets are dry. To us this feels like climate instability, but that's the way it has always been here.