When I was training with Team Dai last year, our weekly “city loop” took us past a billboard advertising Café Sinouk and promising a coffee factory and gardens. I always thought a rest stop for coffee sounded perfect, but the team disagreed in their competitive zeal to finish the route. Now that my power-cycling days … Continue reading Warning: I brake for coffee
Today is Easter, a day for Christians to focus on promises fulfilled and hope for the future. Here in Laos, we spent the morning focusing on the same concepts but in a different context: International UXO/Mine Awareness Day. In the capital city of the most heavily bombed country on earth, Tony and I joined the … Continue reading International UXO/Mine Awareness Day
What a busy week! The weekend’s already here, and I still haven’t posted anything from LAST weekend. Last Sunday, I cycled to Thailand with a group to cheer for a few Team Dai members who were participating in a triathlon. The Thai-Lao border is only 16 kilometers from my house in Vientiane. At the border … Continue reading Biking to Breakfast in Thailand
Working overseas with a diverse group of colleagues is a sure-fire way to discover how little you know. Oh, I thought I knew about football. Kids (usually boys) play it in high school, decked out in lots of protective gear. After graduation, it becomes a spectator sport associated with terms such as “first down” and … Continue reading Feelings About Footy
Remember back in January? When I rode 50 miles? And it was such a big freakin’ deal? Today, I got home from the Team Dai training ride, checked my bike computer’s odometer and felt a wee bit disappointed that we only rode 93 kilometers (almost 58 miles). How crazy is that? This was my best … Continue reading A New Twist on Rivertime Lodge Ride
I just finished the book Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s all about her desperation to come to peace with the concept of marriage after her Brazilian boyfriend gets deported. If they wanted to stay in the States, getting married was the only option. Although I loved her previous book – Eat, Pray, Love – I … Continue reading Books and Marriage
This is how far I rode my bike yesterday. In case you can’t see the decimal point on the dirty bike computer, that’s 151.84 kilometers, or 94 miles! Sunday’s Team Dai training ride took us back to Dansavanh (see the Jan. 24 post). This time, however, we pedaled all the way there before tackling the … Continue reading Dansavanh Hills #2
When my friend, Kara, asked if her family could visit us in Vientiane during the Chinese New Year holiday, the first thing I thought was, “Woo hoo!” The second thing I thought was, “Oh crap, how will I entertain her two little kids?” Kara and her husband, Dave, are friends from Shanghai American School, where … Continue reading Fun with the Coles!
This morning’s ride with Team Dai took us out of Vientiane on a beautifully paved road that is closed to cars. What more could you ask? The road was built for the Southeast Asia Games, which took place in December, to take shuttle buses to the stadium on the edge of town. Bit by bit, … Continue reading Rivertime Lodge Ride
There’s a name for everything. Yesterday I learned about “false summits.” Those are the tops of excruciatingly steep hills – where you creep up on your bike in the lowest gear, sucking deep desperate gulps of air, pain searing through your hamstrings, your heart audibly booming in your chest, telling yourself, “I’m almost there, gasp, … Continue reading False Summits