My ride was a rusty maroon single speed with a nice basket up front. The front wheel wasn’t lined up with the bars and the brakes hardly worked, but other than that I was stoked. You can name a bike by looking at it, but to really know if the name fits you have to sit on it. I saddled up and as I suspected, ‘Crusty the Clown’ fit this bike perfectly.
Crusty and I took off down the shore and at the edge of town instantly ran into a big flood. The road along the lake was under two feet of water, so I hung a left and
headed toward the mountains. I was riding through axle deep water until I made it out of town. All of the kids wading through the streets got a kick out of me.I got onto a dirt road and started heading into the jungle. The road was in good shape, except for one big washout that I had to slow down for. I got to the end and turned onto another road that was in very poor shape. The mud got deep, and then it got really deep, and then I had to push and repeatedly lost my shoes in the mud. For a while I was wading through stagnant muddy water buzzing with mosquitoes. I definitely got my moneys worth out of my malaria pills this day!
After about 40 minutes of mudding, I wasn’t on a road anymore, just a footpath going through the jungle. I came up on a weird kind of grave yard. There were ab
out 10 large cement tombs that sat above ground. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but then I saw some gold flickering through the trees. I followed the path around the corner and there was a huge golden pagoda in the middle of the jungle!I could tell that the pagoda was built on the site of some very old ruins. There was a crumbling brick wall perimeter that looked very old. I walked around the outside a bit, and noticed two pairs of shoes at the doorway. Around the back I noticed another building across a small clearing. There were some cows walking around and right away I noticed it some monk clothes hanging from a line.
It was indeed a small monastery. I walked across the field, took off my shoes and walked up the stairs. There were three monks sitting on the porch and they didn’t quite know what to make of me. They didn’t speak English, except when I said I was from America they all nodded and smiled. One made a picture motion with his hand, and when I gave him my camera he said “digital” and they nodded their heads. Three other monks came out and smiled at me. They took turns taking pictures and laughed a lot. After a while they got used to me sitting there and just chilled out like they were before. We sat there for thirty minutes
without talking. One monk hummed a little chant. After a while one of the monks left and came back with some bananas for me to eat. They showed me around the monastery, where they slept and their worship area. We sat out on the porch for a while longer, and one monk pulled out an old wooden checker board and a bunch of bottle caps. I got my ass handed to me twice. Apparently they have a lot of time to practice out there. I really would have liked to spend the night at the monastery, but unfortunately being on the group trip that wasn’t an option. After spending about two hours hanging out with the monks it was getting late, so I headed back.I mad
e pretty good time through the mud, and before I knew it I was back on the road. I was going pretty fast, a good 15 mph. Two kids on bikes were coming the other way up ahead, on the other side of the road. They were going really slow through the rocky part of the road. “Horrible line selection” I thought, “These guys suck.” They both feverishly pointed at the ground when I passed. “Ya” I thought, “I see that piece of wood. Look I’ll even bunny hop over it.” I landed, and I realized that in a quarter second I was going straight into the big washout. I slammed the brakes, nothing. As the bike dropped into the ditch I bailed over the bars and my body and my bag of stuff yard-saled all over the road. I sat there stunned for a second
, and then got up and bowed and did a little dance. The kids started cracking up and hollering and lots of heads poked out of windows across the river and yelled and clapped.Back in town, I returned my bike, and headed to one of the many pizza places that they had in town. It started dumping rain just as I got there. It took 45 minutes to get my pizza, which seemed to be about the norm in SE Asia. They don’t really do fast food here. It was cool though because the guy who owned the place sat and talked with me. He said that the last time the city had been flooded like this was about 15 years ago. A bridge had collapsed on the road to Yangon, and trucks could not get through. He said the price of tomatoes in Yangon wou
ld be about 4 times normal because if it. Good thing we were flying. He recommended the super spicy pizza for the cold weather. He was right, it warmed me right up! I asked if he had a toilet and he told me to go to the big house behind the restaurant. It was actually his house, and his kids took me in and let me use their bathroom. People are so nice here it is unbelievable!My ride home showed up at 5:30 and we took off. It was still dumping rain, and the sun set while we were out on the lake. The hotel strongly recommended not being on the lake after dark, and I can see why. None of the boats have any lights, and all we cou
ld see were a couple of lights on the land. It was pretty scary hauling ass not being able to see what was in front of you. Even the driver was freaked out and shaking his head when we got back to the hotel. Many times back on the ship I’ve looked over the railing at night and thought of how terrifying it would be to be floating in the water in the complete darkness, and I got a little taste of it that night.I got back to the hotel that night shivering, wet, and covered in mud, but had a huge grin on my face. This will definitely be one of the most memorable days of my trip, and to me this is what traveling is all about.
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