Kasi and the Shampoo Story
We arrived at Kasi around 2.30pm today after biking for about 5 hours. So its really a little trucker town with minimal facilities, but thankfully with a guesthouse. The ride to Kasi was rough as usual, made worse with a bout of heavy storm.
Before the storm hit, there was a barrage of questions in my head like “What am I here for?”, “What is my objective of being here?” and “Have my objectives been met?”. I realised that there is just no easy answer or way out of all these and gave up thinking too hard. There's always this question about “What is in it for me?” I found myself irritated and even somewhat disgusted by why I can actually think of such things when my initial objective is to get to Kunming and not Luang Prabang.
Of course, I had shortened my personal expectations on how far can I go. The distances that we cut day to day is rather inconsistent, because of the terrain. The hills are unyielding, the heat is relentless and there is just that really strong temptation to say “I give up. Time to put the bike onto a bus and go home/next stop.”
But when the storm hit, it awoke me a little. I recall telling my kids at work all about “The Shampoo Story”. Belinda was the first to share that story with me. Its about 2 different perspectives by kids when a rainstorm hit them. The first group was demoralised and depressed. All they wanted was to go home and they threw down their backpacks to cry. The second group threw down their backpacks too. They whipped out their shampoo bottles and started shampooing their hair in the rain. The moral of the story was simple. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When a storm hits, you wash your hair and enjoy it.
After thinking through this story, I guess I was a little less uptight about my diminishing abilities to spin. We might have spun only 64km today, but it was a good ride, considering the conditions surrounding us.
We are going to try spin our ways to Muang Phu Khun tomorrow. With some luck, we might even arrive at Luang Prabang.
Before the storm hit, there was a barrage of questions in my head like “What am I here for?”, “What is my objective of being here?” and “Have my objectives been met?”. I realised that there is just no easy answer or way out of all these and gave up thinking too hard. There's always this question about “What is in it for me?” I found myself irritated and even somewhat disgusted by why I can actually think of such things when my initial objective is to get to Kunming and not Luang Prabang.
Of course, I had shortened my personal expectations on how far can I go. The distances that we cut day to day is rather inconsistent, because of the terrain. The hills are unyielding, the heat is relentless and there is just that really strong temptation to say “I give up. Time to put the bike onto a bus and go home/next stop.”
But when the storm hit, it awoke me a little. I recall telling my kids at work all about “The Shampoo Story”. Belinda was the first to share that story with me. Its about 2 different perspectives by kids when a rainstorm hit them. The first group was demoralised and depressed. All they wanted was to go home and they threw down their backpacks to cry. The second group threw down their backpacks too. They whipped out their shampoo bottles and started shampooing their hair in the rain. The moral of the story was simple. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When a storm hits, you wash your hair and enjoy it.
After thinking through this story, I guess I was a little less uptight about my diminishing abilities to spin. We might have spun only 64km today, but it was a good ride, considering the conditions surrounding us.
We are going to try spin our ways to Muang Phu Khun tomorrow. With some luck, we might even arrive at Luang Prabang.
posted by me.lis.sa at 5:55 AM
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