The other day, I packed a record 140 books on this bicycle. I should take better care of it considering my livelihood depends on it. The seat ripped, so it’s been stuffed with a plastic bag and taped down. The handlebar grips melted in the sun so I taped that too, but the tape melts and sticks to my hands so I’ve put plastic bags on it, secured with rubber bands. The rear derailleur broke, but if I tug on the cable manually, I can go uphill. A wad of paper stuffed under the cable also does the trick.
I like to park my bike against these potted plants. They’re popular in Laos and Thailand. The red flowers are fairly nice, but the stems are full of thorns making you wonder why people like them so much. They say it attracts money so I’ve come to like them too and make sure the bike is nestled among the thorns. I’m waiting for the day the guesthouse boss tells me to leave her plants alone.
BG, my new regional sales cohort, asks if foreigners believe in luck. He often acknowledges that many Lao worldviews are not consistent with scientific thought. I assure him that I have no problem understanding luck, fortune and fate. It’s a worldview I’ve formed by default, programmed from working in Laos.
If you’ll excuse more bicycle metaphors, there are headwinds and tailwinds. There’s fate and there’s will. I can’t change the direction of a headwind or make a steep gravely slope smooth, but I can persist and pedal until I reach the top. On the other hand, if there’s a rare tailwind on a flat stretch, I’ll also pedal hard because who knows when that chance will come again.
BG understands that because he says he never stops to rest.
Yesterday, I had a wonderful time taking with another biker. Sometimes I have to explain that I’m really a biker at heart since now I’m disguised as a bookseller in a long-sleeved shirt and the tattered bike would never convince anyone that I ride long distances. In this case, he’d just finished 190 kilometers and I didn’t have to explain anything because we bikers know each other’s heart upon first sight.
He said, “You’re really like a biker,” and what he said he meant was that I have pared my life down to the essentials and so can go wherever I want. I told him about Cambodia a few years ago when I didn’t even take enough things to fill both sides of my saddlebags.
“Traveling with a handbag”. It’s enough. Everything else is will.
