Friday, November 20, 2009

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Pixies By NAKIA PEARSON ~ For The Guardian: Laos and Northern Cambodia, 22.2.08 — We thought we were special. But there are others out there like us. They hide in the fallow rice paddies behind the thatch roof huts. They ride on the other side of the road, heading north as we head downward to the other side of the sea. They ride beneath the highest suns as we sleep beside rivers on a belly full of sticky rice. They've followed the wind out of the fields and onto Lao's main artery. Here, south of Ventiane, the roads are not plentiful as they were in China and Vietnam. To the West, there is Thailand. To the East, the mountains that form the border with Vietnam. This is the only road that goes anywhere. This is how we meet them. They come in different shapes. Yusuke is olive-hued, smooth-skinned and angled. We can see every muscle and tissue in his economical body. He is perfectly Japanese, except for his bicycle — which looks bogged down by the carefully bungied guitar and spare tire that juts out perniciously over his back tire. We glimpsed him getting food days earlier in some backward Laotian village, but he, nymph-like, maneuvered out of our vision and beneath our appetites. When we meet again, we call him out as he rides past us, again in pursuit of food. Over lunch, he tells us that he'd been ambushed at campside by some stragglers, and is afraid of venturing alone to Cambodia. At the same time, Adam, our teammate, is leaving us to ride alone to Bangkok and catch a plane to the U.S. This is how magic happens. When you let your guard down. Gael is hairy and dark. He is petite in a frail way, as if he has recently lost weight. Elena is tall and porcelain and as buxom as a Greek angel. She wears her hair in blonde pigtails and speaks her harsh Russian with an alluring softness. The two met online when Gael posted a message inviting people on a multi-continental bicycle trip. Elena, who was then living in Moscow (Gael in Paris), was the only one to follow through on her reply. They've been riding for almost two years and will continue for another year. We spend the night together, camping deep within a harvested paddy field, trading travel stories and food over an ominous fire. Our Cambodian neighbors, an old man who speaks French and his daughter, draw their arms wide and jump into the air as they point to our dying fire. He collects scraps of dry boughs and tosses them into our fire, arousing it. This is to protect us from evil spirits, we guess. This is the magic that happens when we let our guards down. The angels ride out of the bushes, and tell us life's secrets. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2009