Cycling trip.

Went out on the bike a couple of weeks ago.  I hadn’t been out for a ride for a while as I’d bust a spoke, I’d done a little riding around the area where we live, to the club or the shops and back, but that was about it.

So I bought some replacement spokes and a few additional bits and pieces while in Bangkok, and I spent most of Thursday (we had the day off for Ashura) fixing up the bike – replacing the spoke, learning how to true a wheel, cleaning it (so much gunk), relubing it, adjusting brakes, gears, etc.  The intention was to head out with a group led by Ken, who I’d been out with on my previous trips, but Nora wasn’t feeling great on Friday so I didn’t want to leave her on her own with the boys.

However, we met up for lunch with Mark and Sholu at the Bhaga Club, and he and I agreed to head out the next day.  I’m so glad we did, it was great to get out of the city.  It’s all traffic and construction and concrete high-rises and people and people and people and dirt and people everywhere and noise and dirt and grey everywhere.  The whole place is a building site, it’s like there’s a major construction taking place on EVERY SINGLE ROAD.  It seems like almost every time there’s a three-storey building somewhere, it’s being torn down to build a six-storey building in it’s place.

So it was great to head out into the countryside.  It’s changed hugely since I was last out there maybe 2 months back.  The water level has dropped maybe 3-4 meters, perhaps more, so where was once a trail with water either side now runs along a ridge with cucumbers growing down its sides.  There’s rice fields everywhere, all in different stages of growth, some fields are dry, some still have water.  There’s places where they’ve installed an electric pump by the river and build an irrigation ditch to take the water out under the road and across the fields.  There’s fields and fields of gorgeous looking cauliflowers and cabbages.  Greenery everywhere, every space is being used for something.  And of course now the weather is quite cool it was lovely being out there.  Not much of a breeze except that which we created ourselves as we rode along.

	People stop and stare at you as you go by. We paused on one bridge and this guy stopped behind us, we figured he wanted to get by so we moved our bikes but it turned out he just wanted to stare at us.
	Digital cameras are great, as you can show people the picture you’ve taken of them. I love that, they get a kick out of seeing themselves. Later on, we paused on another bridge after a particularly bumpy section, and there were a group of old women coming along, I asked (via gestures) if I could take their picture and they all gathered together for it, then got a real kick out of seeing themselves on the screen. It was fantastic.
There’s a few more photos here

We’d only intended to head out for maybe 2-3 hours, but it was about four hours by the time we made it back.  We were never exactly LOST but there was quite a while there where we weren’t sure if we were going the right way.  It’s fun trying to find your way home when you don’t speak the language.  You ride through a village, just a collection of huts and dirt trails, trying not to kill anyone’s chickens, and trying to work out which trail looks reasonably well used enough to be a major route, and saying “Dhaka? Uttara?” with a terrible accent to anyone who looks like they might know.  Some of them look at you blankly, like “Huh? What?”.  Others nod and point the way you’re going, but you’re not sure if they’re really telling you you’re going the right way, or if they have the desire to please so they don’t want to tell you you’re actually going the wrong way!

When we started heading back we asked a biker who told us to go left, then straight on and we’d come to a river where we could get a boat across to get back to Dhaka.  But a good hour later we still hadn’t found any river, and it was so much drier than last time I was out there we weren’t sure any boats were going to be necessary.  There were paths we followed that were definitely under water a few months back.  But eventually, yes, we came out by the river, and Mark recognized it as he’d been out that way on a boat trip last year.  Finally we saw the landing area where they’d caught the boat, and there was a rickety flat boat ferrying people backwards and forwards across the river, so we waited until it came back, hopped on board and a few moments later were across the water and on our way back home.

About 25 minutes later and we were back in the (relatively) quiet streets in Baridhara where I live.  The back wheel had held up fine, though I do need to review it before heading out again this weekend.  And I was chatting to Mark this morning who told me they’ve found another route out which avoids the horrendous market we had to go through, so that’ll improve that aspect.

Excellent.  Can’t wait to get out again.

It’s Cold here

Wow, it’s cold.  We’re going to have to see whether the school uniform allows the boys to wear trousers. And buy them some pullovers.

My laptop touchpad gets very hot.  I’ve always been quite concerned about this, but right now it’s wonderful, toasty and warm!

Seb had tennis this morning, we maybe weren’t going to go as he played yesterday, but the boys were way too wound up and we needed out of the flat.  He decided to wear shorts, then regretted it when sat on the rickshaw

And I’m going to have to start wearing long-sleeved shirts.  This is great, and apparently continues until around February.  Not exactly what we expected when we moved here!

Back to Dhaka

Ok, we’re back home now, we left Bangkok early on Wednesday morning, the flight was straightforward and we were home by about 9:30 I think it was.

If you ever have the opportunity to fly with DrukAir I’d recommend them, they were absolutely fine and the food was very good.

Coming through the airport, we arrived at Passport Control where we discovered we hadn’t filled in the landing cards on the plane, so we had to wait for a while at the desk while we completed one for each of us – they require so much detail it took ages.  Fortunately there was no one waiting, but while we were doing this the room filled up with hordes of men and the odd woman here and there all returning from the Hajj.  We weren’t at all impressed when loads of them came to our desk (wrong one, it was for foreign passports only), surrounded us, and started laying their passports all over the place, through my arms, over our papers, pushing them closer in as if to say ‘here, do mine, do mine’.  It felt extremely disrespectful, here we were following procedures accordingly, as fast as we could with two hyperactive children who were busy throwing their teddies at the official, knackered because we’d been up since about 2:30 local time with only a couple of hours sleep, and here were all these old men swarming all over us, completely ignoring the rules.  Fortunately, after a little while the officials herded them away and the one attending us was enjoying distracting the kids, so we survived.

Welcome home.

It’s cold here.  Right now I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt and I’m cold.  Not freezing, but I think I’ll go put on some socks and a long-sleeved shirt.  Concrete floors are chilly, and I can feel that my fingertips are a bit cold.  Sebastian is excited to go to his tennis class at the club as we bought him a racket in Bangkok.  We’re going to have waffles again for breakfast (we bought a waffle iron and used it for the first time yesterday, it’s great!), and I think a hot cup of coffee is in order.

Trying to get my head back into work mode, I teach the first 7 periods straight on Sunday, followed by the last 6 periods straight on Monday (8 period day), so I need to get lesson planning done over the next couple of days.  Much more fun doing other stuff – just finished building a wooden model aeroplane with the boys and I have a model of a traditional Thai house to build, I’ve bought new tyres and cables for my bike and replacement spokes so I need to deal with that, and Nathan and I are planning to use all of our lego to build a huge pyramid.  Much more fun than lesson planning.

Ok, starving children, and I’m cold.  Better get on with it.