We had lost a few hours of sleep in the air, so three hours of rest would need to be stretched over what our Dubai-time watches seemed an eight-hour gap.

So, dear reader, you might forgive us for being in a somewhat haggard state upon arrival in Dubai.  We were badly in need of coffee and water, but it seemed that would need to wait. The sun was still not up in Dubai as we followed a crowd of our fellow passengers through a brightly lit, glaringly clean and seemingly brand new airport. Despite this, I knew from the Economist article I had been reading on the plane, that this very airport was scheduled soon to be torn down, renovated, and expanded to serve millions more passengers per day.

Due to its strategic location as a connector between east and west, the Gulf airlines have been expanding and stealing market share of late. And with a seemingly endless appetite for new aircraft and new routes, they showed no sign of stopping.

We looked at one of the many large shiny clocks on the wall (made by Rolex, I dare add). It was about 5:00 am. We took a sparkling staircase that wound around a bank of glass elevators down to an impossibly large hall. The interior design conjured images of the interior of the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta, with dozens of large sparkling pillars, very high ceilings, and reflective materials attached to every surface. It was immaculately clean and gleamed with wealth.

The passport control officer, clad in the local standard (a white gown known as the dishdash and a white or red headscarf), glared at me from behind the counter. I handed him my passport, and he flicked through it, glaring back at me.

“Who are you meeting in Dubai?” he asked.

“A friend of mine, by the name of Mr. Jackson Fu,” I replied (honestly).

“Where does he live?”

“London, actually.  He arrives in a few hours. I will meet him.”

“Hmmm… and what will you be doing in Dubai?”

“We’ll be meeting with Red Bull UAE, renting a car, and driving to Oman.”

Bam. He stamped my passport and handed it to me with a shrug. “Welcome.”

On the other side of passport control, I met back up with Scott and we collected our bags and retrieved the bicycles from the fragile luggage counter. The service people were all clad in the same flowing white robes. All were supremely polite, though they never smiled in all my interactions. We flipped open a laptop and logged onto the free airport wifi, in order to make contact with our West Asia cultural liaison, a Ms Claudia Norton. She had arrived a few hours earlier, and had left instructions as to where to find her, and how to contact her in the form of e-mail. We also were intrigued to discover ourselves cc’d on a great many frantic e-mails concerning her luggage. It seemed, that through a constellation of bungled efforts, Claudia’s luggage had been misplaced in transit, and was currently being re-located and sent to Dubai.

This news was of particular interest to us, as one of the items in her lost luggage was a brand new Dahon Speed D7, which she would be needing for the next month and a half of middle eastern wheeling.  In addition, she carried with her a top secret shipment from our friends at Maui Jim: a set of their brand new “Dawn Patrol” models. We had been only able to find a few leaked images of these glasses online, and from what we could tell, they would be incredible. Regardless, we would need to bide our time in Dubai until the luggage and cycle could be located. Only then could we split for the open road, through the desert to Oman.

We used the last bits of credit on our Hong Kong SIM card to touch base with Claudia, and after forming a plan to meet in the city center, we began to prepare ourselves for the wheel into town.

Dubai’s airport is, unlike that of many cities we’ve visited, centrally located. The wheel to the city center did not look far. On the slightly cartoony tourist map we had, it appeared to be a relatively straight shot to the northwest.

Just to be safe, we purchased a SIM card from the du counter. The SIM card was fantastically expensive. At nearly forty dollars, it was more than we had ever paid for a SIM. Talk time was none too cheap either. In just coordinating a meeting place between Ms. Norton and ourselves, we used up half of the initial balance. This country, it seemed, was not going to be cheap.

Outside the glittering, air-conditioned interior of the airport, the sun was rising, and another steaming day was beginning. We dragged our bags out to the curb where a line of taxis patiently waited to take passengers to fantastically expensive, brand new hotels, and unfolded the Speed TRs. The cycles were in perfect shape, devoid of the usual dents and bruises that accompany checking them on an airplane.  What an airline! I thought to myself. As far as I am concerned, let them steal market share all they like.

The presence of the folding bicycles, of course, attracted the attention of a nearby Dutchman. He walked over to us and addressed us in Dutch. While flattered, we had no idea what he was saying, and soon we switched over to English. It turned out the fellow was an artist, brought here to do a special project in Dubai. He was going to do a project in Curacao, he explained, but Dubai ended up tempting him more. The pleasure was, of course, all ours. And we bid a fond farewell and wheeled off into the sun.

Thank goodness for the Maui Jims. It was already quite bright, and the sun had not even completely risen above the low-lying haze of dust, which helped substantially to soften the blaze. The roads were smooth as silk and brand new. Traffic was light, but it whipped by us in the kind of recently waxed, thundering, streak that can only be found in the Gulf. So far, the drivers gave us plenty of room, and a few even slowed down to gawk at the maniacs who chose to wheel from the Dubai Airport into the city.

We wheeled on past a great many one-story, brand new strip malls, selling all kinds of specialty imported goods. From large format printers, to Zamboni machines, we drove by it all. But where was the city? It was hidden from us behind the haze of dust, perhaps. We continued to follow our compass bells, heading northwest. This took us around the back of the airport, where planes soared only a few hundred feet above us while we wheeled. The roads were giant, truly huge, and most interchanges sported a clover-leaf style of over- and under-passes rather than forcing people to stop at a light.

Eventually, it became clear to us that all was not well in the navigation department. All the landmarks we expected to find were nowhere, and the city was not even visible ahead of us. Just then, as though sensing our predicament, Claudia called. She had arrived at our previously determined meeting spot, a certain Ministry of Culture and Tourism. She described the place as “creepy” and informed us that she was changing locations. Fine by us. We would do our best to arrive shortly.

We asked an Indian fellow on the street, in English, where to find the downtown and he pointed in the opposite direction. We took out our map, and he quickly identified our error. North was not, as it is habitually the world round, up. Rather, the map had been tilted some 53 degrees in the counterclockwise direction, leaving us pretty much dead wrong in our bearing. We thanked the man and headed back down the street. Meanwhile, a few more brand new jumbo jets screeched overhead, so low I felt I could have hit the landing gear if I had a chosen to hurl a sandal skyward.

That was to be the first of many interactions with Indian and Pakistani fellows in this interesting new city. The Emirates themselves number surprisingly few, and are all quite wealthy. Therefore, in order to build this new city out of the sand, a fair bit of labor needed to be imported. A great many of the workers came from the Indian peninsula, Pakistan, and other Desi countries.

With our new bearings, we began to see the misty outlines of a great spire in the distance, and soon a great many other buildings appeared dwarfed beneath it. This spire was, of course, the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, recently renamed the Burj Khalifa. We suspect this had something to do with Dubai’s recent credit problems, and the massive bailout of the Emerates by its large and more well-funded neighbor, Abu Dhabi. Khalifa, of course, refers to the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

We had already seen plenty of the Royal team here. Their faces were everywhere, displayed backed by flattering images of the city from space, or an aircraft, looking on sternly in their dishdashes. The Sultan of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, being always positioned slightly higher than his neighboring counterparts.

Soon, we began to be surrounded by larger, more substantial buildings. We passed a number of Russian fur shops, closed grocery stores, and finally restaurants and hotels. We continued to ask for directions and soon found our way to the meeting spot, or at least what we thought was the meeting spot.

By this point we were explosively thirsty, sapped already of moisture by the plane flight, on which the temptation  to drink those tiny bottles of bourbon had done plenty for our spirits, but little for our hydration levels. All the shops had been closed as we rode,  so it was with mouths like sandpaper that we called Claudia to report our current position. She seemed to be nearby, but we could not identify a mutually visible landmark.  Eventually we settled on a nearby, giant luxurious Sheraton, which looked out onto a blue canal that cut through the city. “I believe they call this ‘the creek’”, Scott mentioned.

A passing Indian man grumpily directed us toward a vending machine near the creek, which only sold one thing: tiny bottles of cold water. There was a mild price gouge, but what can a thirsty man in the desert say to change the mind of a cold robotic dispenser?

We sucked down the water and watched the pedestrian traffic go by. It was the labor force of Dubai, on its way to work. Those who worked in offices, of course, sped by in sparkling cars, while the builders, cleaners, and guards walked or rode rusty Hindustan hero bicycles. The water was gone all too soon, and we headed over to the shade of a set of trees, no doubt imported and watered by the Sheraton and waited for Claudia to arrive.

Soon enough a cab pulled up, and out she climbed, wearing her only pair of clothes, and toting her carry-on luggage. We greeted her warmly, and as if sensing through the collective unconscious our reunified momentum, our phone rang with a call from the illustrious Jackson Fu. He was here as well, and was just loading his Speed TR into the back of a cab, curious as to where we should meet.

We had ridden by a particularly interesting Iranian restaurant on our way to the Sheraton, and we figured that might be a good place for breakfast, so we decided to hang out in the shade and wait for the return of the illustrious Mr. Fu.

This happened in remarkably short order. Another cab pulled up and out climbed a grinning Indonesian-Chinese man, his hands still cool to the touch from the air-conditioned cab, looking ready for anything. We helped to unload his bag and his cycle.

It was a Speed TR, much like our own, but one year newer. It sported a slightly more refined system of protection for the planetary transmission, a new rear rack, and like Mr. Fu himself, a generally sleek demeanor.

So excited were we to be in the presence of the one and only, most debonair and illustrious Mr. Fu, that we could not help introducing this new item to the AsiaWheeling trading post: the “Return of the Fu” T-Shirt.

We all exchanged warm regards, introducing Claudia and Mr. Fu, for their first face-to-face encounter, and unfolded our cycles. We could not wheel, however, due to the absent nature of Claudia’s Speed D7, but we were close. We were four wheelers, soon to united with four Dahons, and there was a whole bunch of Persian Gulf waiting to be explored. But first things first. Coffee and breakfast. We  locked our cycles, and dripping with sweat from the walk over, strolled into the freezingly air-conditioned Iranian restaurant. They were, unfortunately, not serving the full menu, but rather than head out on a starved search for sustenance, we settled for the set breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs. We also were given access to a large table from which we could take our fill of middle eastern flatbread, tomatoes, cucumbers, strange neon pink Halal tinned sausage. We feasted and allowed ourselves to dry slightly. Over this humble Iranian breakfast, we hatched our master plan.

And like any great structure, our plan had certain crucial, load-bearing elements. One of these was a fellow by the name of Sid. Sid was a good friend of the illustrious Mr. Fu, and had most graciously offered to host us during our time in Dubai. What we needed was to touch base with this man. It was Saturday in Dubai, and as such the final day of the weekend. So we were in luck. Sid was not at work, but at home, and would be able to receive us.

So it was with little ado that we paid our bill and hailed a van-taxi. Luckily, a great many of the taxis in Dubai are vans, for no smaller vehicle would fit all four of us and all the luggage. The van began to snake its way through the city, one impressive building, followed by another, even more impressing structure.

As I looked around, I found myself commenting internally, and finally externally on the surprisingly tasteful and beautiful nature of these buildings. The architecture of Dubai is certainly unique, sensational even, and it is executed with a certain attention to detail, a certain ratio of dimension, which was quite pleasing. I was so far overwhelmingly impressed.

As we grew closer to our destination, I began to realize that we were heading directly toward the imposing Burj Khalifa, rising in jagged spires, impossibly high above us. Was it possible that the mysterious Sid lived in the shadow of this magnificently chilling spire?

Indeed he did, in a newly finished housing development that contained a number of apartments and a large hotel. The entire development was themed on the old middle eastern clay cities, but studded with large fountains, palm trees, pools and the like.

We pulled up in the cab and Sid sauntered out to meet us, wearing soccer shorts and flip-flops, the epitome of a gentlemen of leisure. He stuck out his hand and with a large smile introduced himself, welcoming us to his home. We looked up at the stunning surroundings, the towering Burj, flanked by the largest fountain in the world, the palm-lined drives, and immediately realized we would be for some time in this gentleman’s debt.

We made our way inside, to find a splendid lobby, sporting a great number of antique looking urns, and up to Sid’s apartment, which was decorated beautifully with a mixture of Indonesian and other exotic relics. He offered us coffee, which he served in a number of delightful, though nondescript tea cups, and one large red souvenir cup with a camel on it. “I got this one here,” he said with a grin.

After having some coffee and connecting to Sid’s most luscious supply of high-speed Internet, we wandered down to the pool for a little dip. It was hot out, and the sun was now blazing in the sky. It was also unexpectedly humid. It’s true that Dubai is a city in the center of a desert, but perhaps due to the presence of the ocean, it is also quite humid.

“This is actually not bad at all for the summer,” Sid explained. “You’re quite lucky.”

After a dip in the pool, we headed out on foot, across the street to a giant palatial hotel complex. It was gorgeous, truly impressive, sporting an intricate system of fountains and pools. We walked right across the center of the pools, along a little walkway, and as we walked, Sid explained to us about the Burj.

The tower had been designed to be the largest in the world, but during the design and construction project, its original dimensions had been eclipsed by other structures, so it had been refined and heightened mid project. This was in part why it had such a distinctive shape.

Sid continued to lead us through the grounds of this massively luxurious hotel and over a wide bridge, past the largest fountain in the world, and into the largest mall in the world. “In Dubai,” Sid explained, “it either has to be the biggest, or the newest, or the most of some category.”

And with that we walked into the giant gaping interior of the largest mall in the world, complete with a savagely populated indoor salt water aquarium full of sharks and sea turtles.

We wandered around the mall for a bit, noticing in particular the intensely fashionable sunglasses and purses carried by the women, and the glitzy watches worn by the men.

One reason this emphasis on flashy peripherals is the uniformity of dress. Many of the men wore the dishdash, and  an even larger proportion of the women here wore the full hijab. The hijab is generally a dark flowing garment that covers almost all of the body, including much of the head with somewhat obfuscating fabric. With the majority of clothing dictated by religion, peripherals were a chance to show wealth. As far as I’m concerned, however, even the hijabs and dishdashes themselves simply reeked of expense, with barely noticeable but intricate patterns of black on black, or white on white, with tastefully placed folds and cuffs.

We ate in the giant food court.  Though before we settled on a joint, we were sure to take a full circuit, including spending a good few minutes curiously examining the Johnny Rocket’s diner. In the end, we opted for your basic Arabian cafeteria food restaurant.

And with trays piled high with hummus, baba ganouj, tabouli, and other unknown but exciting salads, we enjoyed a meal of astonishing quality and freshness for the “food court” of a mall.

This was, of course, all served with steaming hot flatbread. As we dug into the feast, we realized how hungry we had become since our early morning adventures in Iranian breakfast buffets.

Strolling downstairs, we rounded off the meal with a cup of espresso and some lively conversation.

Strolling back to Sid’s house, we realized that we had been sold on Dubai — or at least were beginning to be sold — and that for all the hype and opulence, Dubai was easy on the eyes and comfortable to stroll around.

That evening, we collapsed exhausted into our beds, sleeping the sleep of one who has traveled many miles and finally found an oasis.

Our boat was leaving at 7:00 am, but we were told to be ready for a van to drive us to the docks at 6:15. In retrospect it might have been more prudent to wheel the 10 km to the boat dock. But not knowing exactly how to get there and capitulating to our affinity for sleep, we decided to take the van.

At 6:00 am we were in the comfort of our room at the Mandalay Inn, scarfing down cheap German corn flakes from two small hotel water cups, when there was a knock on our door.

It was one of the Mandalay’s staff members. He informed us that the bus was waiting for us, and we proceeded to finish our cereal and hurry down. By 6:15 when we walked out the door, the bus was already filled with sleepy and grumpy looking tourists. The driver proceeded to unload all their stuff from the back of the van in order to best fit the Speed TRs, and the grumpiness level increased.

People on board were worried that they were going to miss the bus; they were tired, grumpy, and about to spend the whole day on a boat together, so would do well getting over it. And they did, but not before the tension in the van reached a near breaking point, as one straggling German fellow sauntered up 20 minutes late, claiming ignorance of the 6:15 departure.

The tension began to soften as we pulled onto the road. We stopped once on the way to fill up a tire with air, and I looked back to see the rest of the passengers snoozing happily with Scott in the back. When we finally pulled up to the dock, it was more of a cluster of fishing boats than a passenger ferry dock. It consisted of some bamboo planks next to a medium-sized open air fish and seaweed market. I scanned the area for the boat that had been depicted at the ticket office. It was nowhere to be found. Interesting. I climbed out of the van and went around back to help the driver unload the bikes.

The driver began vehemently working to extract some sort of extra bike charge out of us. The man was unabashedly slimy about it. Though he had previously referenced a fixed “bike charge” of $5.00 per bike, he quickly reduced his price to $1.00 for both bikes when I offered.

We followed the rest of our groggy fellow tourists down the sandy banks to a small boat, which for lack of a better name, I shall call “The Minnow.” She was probably eight meters in length and about two meters across.

A large metal awning covered the passenger compartment, which consisted of two long narrow wooden benches.  Behind the passenger compartment was the engine from a Nissan pickup truck that had been retrofitted to power the boat.

The same old Nissan steering wheel was fixed to a large metal pipe, through which ran a number of wires leading back to the rudder and propeller unit. The propeller and rudder themselves were another three or four meters from the rear of the boat, held at this distance by an intricate set of welded pipes, which also served as a frame for two rudders.

She was a lady to be sure. Scott and I climbed on and loaded our bags into a bin behind the driver’s seat, where they were tied down with rusty cord and covered with a few bits of tarp to keep the spray out. The boat men — there were two of them — helped us strap the Speed TRs to the roof of the passenger compartment, using our Sri Lankan bungees to secure them.

We climbed down into the passenger compartment. Though one was forced to sit rather upright, there was plenty of room for eight passengers. And there was actually a tiny door, no more than a meter high and less than a meter wide, which said WC, at the back of the boat. No lie there. No one dared venture in.

We were just getting ready to go when a man appeared, carrying a giant wad of tickets, which suggested he played some administrative role in the operation. In bits of English, he proceeded to explain to us that we would need to buy another $20.00 ticket for each of the bikes. The fact that the bikes would need their own tickets was, of course, a blatant and ridiculous attempt at over-charging us. We had not even paid $20.00 for our own tickets. But the guy was a real stickler, frowning at us, selectively understanding our communications, waving his stack of tickets around like a pom-pom, and holding up the departure of the boat. We, of course, didn’t want to pay him anything and kept explaining to him that there was no bike charge, pretending that we had confirmed this with external parties, even trying to change the subject or pursue other technicalities about our tickets or the nature boat. All was to no avail. Finally, we felt it better to just get out of there, so we laid into bargaining. And eventually pulled away from the dock paying $2.50 per bike. Another case of highway robbery here in Cambodia.

As we, dear reader,  discussed before, Southeast Asia is experiencing one of the worst droughts in its entire history. So the water level was low. Very low. We got stuck in the mud twice just trying to get out of the small canal that had been dug to increase the size of the dock. Each time we got stuck, our driver would instruct the other boatman to get out a long pole which widened into a kind of mini-paddle at one end and plunge the pole into the muck. Meanwhile, he would gun the Nissan engine sending plumes of mud flying into the air, often soaking passing fishermen with rust colored muck. Eventually we would depart, and the fishermen would simply roll off their boats and plop into the river, washing themselves clean, and then climb back into their tippy little crafts.

When we crossed the Tonle Sap, it was about a meter and a half deep at its deepest point, but you would have no idea as you crossed it, for in terms of latitude and longitude, it is a giant sea of a lake, and the water is a totally opaque sedimentary brown. We ramped up to cruising speed as we made our way across the lake. Soon we were totally out of sight of the shore.

The Tonle Sap is a very interesting lake. As Scott snoozed inside the boat, I climbed out on the roof to read a little about it on the WikiReader. It is the largest lake in Southeast Asia and is the source of 60% of Cambodia’s protein intake. It is also one of the most bio-diverse ecosystems on the planet. The muddy waters are astoundingly rich with life. As we rode, we saw hundreds upon hundreds of people fishing in the river, with nets, lines, and even their bare hands.

Soon we had crossed the lake and found our way into a section of floating villages. These must be what our great helmsman was talking about. As we entered each one, our driver would slow down, and I would climb once again onto the roof, or hang off the side of the boat to see the action. Most of the locals looked at our boat full of white people with distrust, but a few were willing to smile and call out greetings.

We had not yet had any coffee that day, and I was beginning to regress into a primordial torpor. Luckily I had a Red Bull Energy Shot laying in my bag. I sucked the thing down, grimaced, and wiped my face with my sleeve. Whenever I drink one of those potions, I feel like Han Solo drinking a strange alien liquor.

Somewhere around the third floating village, we started picking up passengers. Now each time we entered a town, we would pull up to the local passenger hut, which usually had a bunch of boats parked out front. People would emerge in strikingly dressy clothes. These were villagers in their Sunday best, getting ready to head into Battambang for a little bit of the old “Bright Lights, Big City.” They carried little luggage, but sometimes many small children. Our driver would negotiate our boat reasonably close to the dock, then wait as the new passengers picked their way out to us, walking or hopping from boat to boat, until they had made it far enough to be picked up by one of the many 12-year-old boys who were operating little wooden water taxis, which they propelled using smaller versions of the large pole/oar device that our boatmen used to get us out of the mud in which we frequently got stuck.

Perhaps our 12th time getting mildly stuck, our driver attempted to turn the rudder when it was submerged deep in the mud. The rudder and some parts of the pipe frame around it snapped. Now the entire rudder/propeller contraption rattled terribly, and both the man poling and the driver were required to work full time controlling The Minnow.

Luckily, we were able to find a village just around the next bend, where there was a boat repair and makeshift welding station. A number of men took off their shoes and climbed into the water. First they took a few long metal poles, and began to use them for leverage in bending the metal of the cage back into alignment. With that done, they called over to a one-armed man who put on a pair of King-of-Thailand-style sunglasses and grabbed a length of wire and large alligator clip, which he plugged into an electrical generator. He then perched himself, balanced on a boat next to ours, and took out a length of wire. He clamped the wire between the jaws of the electrified alligator clip. He took another clip (presumably of opposite charge) and attached it to the frame of the boat.

Now whenever he made contact with the frame of the Minnow’s rudder, a huge shower of sparks would fly into the air, and some red hot melted metal would be left behind.

With that problem welded away, we kept moving upriver, picking up more and more passengers, all of whom were paying far less than we had paid for even just the Speed TRs. Around 1:00 pm, we stopped at a floating restaurant and convenience store.

Scott and I purchased some more coffee, thanks be to Jah, and a couple plates of rice and boiled chicken and lake-weeds. It was delicious.  From there, we kept going up the river. As we putted farther and farther up, the river got narrower and narrower. We began to get stuck more and more often. One time all the men on the boat had to take off their shoes, get out, and push us through the mud.

Then suddenly, we had stopped. The guys were tying the boat to the banks and we were asked to climb up a ladder made of sticks, then catch our luggage as it was hoisted up to us. We piled our stuff on the grass and looked around. This was certainly not Battambang, but none the less everyone was getting off. Where were we?

Well, at least part of it was a cabbage field. There was also a small grass hut, under which a few locals lazed, escaping the searing afternoon sun. There was also a single medium-sized Toyota Hilux pickup truck. People were beginning to load themselves into the truck. A couple of the boatmen began to do the same with our luggage. Scott and I were still wrapping our minds around the situation, when we looked up to notice that all our luggage was on the truck and wrapped up with tarpaulins. The entire boatload of people was crammed onto the vehicle as well. How would we fit? More importantly, how would the Speed TRs fit?

We briefly considered unfolding the Speed TRs and riding whatever distance this pickup was about to traverse, but in light of our lack of conclusive data as to the actual length of the journey, the fact that our luggage was already well stowed and tied down underneath a tarpaulin, and the certainly dubious quality of the road, we chose to squeeze into the back of the truck with all the rest.

The fellows in the grass hut began to stir, and produced a great length of cord made of cut up truck tires. They used this to strap the Speed TRs to the back of the truck.

They did a good job, and I felt confident they would not come loose. The elastic nature of the tire strips, however, did mean that the bikes did a fair bit of bouncing around. We crossed our fingers and put our faith in the cycle’s fine Chinese craftsmanship.

I climbed in and essentially dove into the center of the crowd, allowing myself to be slowly sucked in, as though in quicksand. As everyone squirmed around and shifted their personal items, I eventually found a place amidst the mass of bodies. Scott took a seat on the side of the truck bed, with his feet inside the pool of humans. However, as we drove, the roller coaster-like quality of the road, the many giant potholes we were forced to traverse, and the giant low-hanging branches that threatened to sweep those in the highest positions right out of the truck, forced him to eventually join me on the ground.

We rode on for about three quarters of an hour. My knees were about to explode from the strange position they had worked their way into. Each time we went over a bump, my head grew closer and closer to whacking one of our fellow passengers in the crotch. Extreme.

But then we stopped at a roadside stand and everyone climbed out for a little break. I thanked the powers that be for relief from the knee pain. We strolled around and stretched a bit. All in all, the entire group was in rather high spirits. Certainly today had been an adventure.

Another 30-minute ride brought us to the outskirts of Battambang, where the boat would have dropped us off, had the water level not been so low. We were instantly surrounded by a horde of touts offering us tuk-tuk rides, hotel discounts, bus tickets, drugs, and prostitutes. We were able to silence most of them by merely unfolding the Speed TRs. The now quiet horde placed their hands behind their backs and watched patiently and intently as we put the pedals back on the bikes, and removed the protective padding from the rear transmission. We bid them farewell and took off into the city.

We had no idea how this city was laid out, but we knew that we needed to find the bus station. We stopped from time to time and asked people where the bus station was, using pantomime and various languages. All attempts were inexplicably unsuccessful. Finally, we stopped by the side of the road, and bought two cans of Coca-Cola from a nearby lady. My stomach was making a recovery, but for some reason the Coke was still appealing.

She pulled them out of a cooler full of murky gray water and went to great lengths to clean a thick layer of slime off  each can before giving them to us. She did not overcharge us, and was more than happy to let us set up shop on the curb near her stand to investigate the Lonely Planet PDFs on Scott’s machine.

We looked into the distance and identified a large statue of Shiva in the center of a roundabout. This allowed us to ascertain our exact position. From there, we were able to make our way easily to a delightful Chinese business hotel (we are, by the way huge fans of the Chinese business hotel), which offered us a double AC room for  $10.00 a night. It also happened to be right across the street from the bus depot.

The pieces were falling into place. We purchased a ticket the rest of way (about 6 hours) to Phnom Penh for $4.00 a person, and confirmed that there would be no bicycle charge.

With all that done, it seemed fitting that we wheel Battambang. And so we did.

In light of our recent successes in the departments of Wheel Repair and Rural Navigation, we decided to, for once, reward ourselves with a lazy morning. Scott packed up the last bits of his things while I headed over to the corner store to buy some lazy morning supplies.

We made like Frenchmen, drank strong coffee, ate baguettes with butter, and devoured a couple of cups of local Lao yogurt, impossibly creamy with fresh local floral honey. One of the more imperial breakfasts of the trip, I’d wager, but also quite enjoyable.

The night before we had run into the proprietor’s son, Tao, who was more than happy to share a celebratory BeerLao with us (it seems he had already had a few) and sing a few songs on the ukulele. Sometimes it was hard to determine if he knew the words to the tunes I was playing or if he just had a knack for chiming in. Regardless, we had formed a close bond by the time Scott and I had excused ourselves to go work on our pitiful backlog of correspondence for you, dear reader.

The same fellow was now wide awake and much more himself, all grins and joviality, and more than willing to take us to the Thai border in the the family van, for a small price of course.

You see, dear reader, we were on our way to Thailand in order to cut across that fine country, saving us a little time, to make our way into Cambodia near the border crossing in the northwest, near Poipet. To do this, we would need to make our way at least as far as the city of Nakhon Ratchasima that night, and catch a bus for the border the next day.

At the border of Thailand, we bid Tao goodbye, and made our way into the line of people waiting to get out of Lao. My guess is that many of them were as sad as we were to leave. Lao had been a relaxing tour of the extremes. Lao bestowed on us a final gift, when Scott managed, while in line for his exit stamp, to connect to a free five minutes of wireless Internet, offered by Lao Telecom, and achieve a 400 kb/s upload rate while syncing his offline email activity. More points for an already AsiaWheeling-approved Lao.

Also, while in line, we ran into a Thai fellow who was interested in us and the Speed TRs. He asked where we were going and offered us a ride with him and his family who would be driving through none other than Nakhon Ratchasima on their way back to their home in Bangkok. “Will you have enough room for the bicycles?” we asked, showing him the folding technique, and attracting a huge audience in the line to exit Lao.

“Sure,” he replied. We told him we would wheel across the bridge, and if we overlapped on the other side we might take him up on the offer. This would also give Scott and me enough time to talk over our general impressions of the fellow, and decide if we would trust him. Lao let us out, no problem, even waiving the exit fee, for reasons of which we cannot right now be sure.

Wheeling across the bridge proved as fantastic an experience as we had remembered, with plenty of waiving of fees and smiling of officials. In line at Thai customs was our friend with the van, standing in an adjacent line with his family. He sent his daughter over to us with a message. She handed us a crumpled piece of paper, torn from a child’s notebook, with the fellow’s telephone number written in ball point pen. I motioned my thanks to our friend, and once we had officially re-entered Thailand, we decided to take out our phones and give him a call.

Then we remembered, Lao phones don’t call internationally. So we took out our old Thai sim cards and inserted them into our phones. I tried calling, but it seems my service had expired. So I ran over to a payphone, threw in about 60 cents in Baht and dialed. In an experience eerily similar to one we had during the pilot study, I plunged coins into the phone struggling against time and the limits of human communication only to be cut off in the middle of our conversation.

We knew our friend with the van was in the Thai border city of Nong Khai, so we saddled up and headed down the road looking for him. Not long into the ride, we began to despair; Nong Khai was not such a small place, and we were trying to find a needle in a haystack. When we were just about to give up, however, he somehow magically appeared behind us in a giant silver van, and as he pulled to the side of road, he also motioned for a nearby tuk tuk (the Lao and Thai version of the auto-rickshaw) to pull over as well.

And that was how we ended up in a family van with two folding bicycles, two sweaty members of AsiaWheeling, a Canadian couple, and a Thai family, headed for Bangkok. We stopped not long into the trip at a Vietnamese restaurant for some food. Scott and I bungled the ordering process and ended up with way too much. So laden with many white plastic bags full of delightfully diverse and fresh Vietnamese food, we sought solace in sharing with the rest of the van.

We drove on through the day and into the night, drilling our way into the heart of Isan. Isan is the name for the central and northeast parts of Thailand and also the name of the majority ethnic group in that country. Although in Bangkok you wouldn’t know it, Isan people and restaurants are seen as somewhat “country.”

When we finally arrived in Nakhon Ratchasima, it was well after dark. We did our best to compensate our man fairly for his kind transport, and headed to the bus station. As we had suspected, there was no overnight bus to the border; we would need to stay somewhere in this large city in the middle of Isan for the night.

We plugged our laptops into the wall and brought up our pdf copy of the Thailand Lonely Planet. It seemed there was a reasonably inexpensive hotel not far from here and… eh! The power was cut when a security guard unplugged our computer. It seems we would need to pay to use the electricity here.

Fair enough. We paid them and subsequently were forced to endure a drawn-out receipt writing, copying, verifying, and stamping process before we were finally able to get back to work. We took note of the location and name of the hotel and congratulated the officials on their fine work extracting money from us. With that, we hopped on the cycles and headed south into the city.

It was not a touristy town, and our presence was one of considerable interest to the many local youth who were whiling away their time on the street corners. The roads were very good and traffic was light, so we made short work of the few kilometers to the hotel. The hotel proved to be $10.00 for a night with A/C, so we registered immediately without bargaining. The room was clean, and low and behold, blessed with free wifi. Our first like this in Thailand.

We made a quick trip out to get a couple bowls of delightful Isan noodles, then retired to our hotel to have a quick Internet feast before our long day of traveling to Siem Reap, Cambodia, location of the fabled Angkor Wat.

While the Red Shirts were doing their best to bring the city of Bangkok to its knees, Dane, Scott and I had been enjoying the finer points of the expatriate lifestyle. And time was flying. Life was good. Life was easy. And, thanks to Steve, may his beard grow ever longer, even somewhat affordable. However, our list of things to see in Thailand was growing shorter at an almost imperceptible pace. Meanwhile, Dane Weschler had been elaborating at great length about his love for the north of Siam, about his times in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, the beauty of that part of the country, and its magnificent food.

“This is nothing,” Dane would explain to us over a steaming bowl of succulent curried noodles. “The Khao Soi in Chiang Rai will blow this out of the water.” All that aside, despite the strange time warp that was Bangkok, we were beginning to near the end of our time in the country. And we were well overdue for some more exploring outside the capital.

It was with all this in mind that we sat down with Dane Weschler in yet another of the many delightful, but rather aristocratic, coffee shops in the city to plan our next adventures. Dane immediately began to counsel us against bringing the Speed TRs. My first reaction was sputtering indignation.

“But this is AsiaWheeling,” I attempted to explain… “To travel without the cycles would leave us feeling naked, helpless and alone.” Dane didn’t look convinced. “And who would we be, stripped of our precious steeds? What would we be doing? This is not AsiaTaxi-Cabbing, or AsiaWandering-the-Streets-til-Your-Feet-Hurt.”

“Oh, you’ll get your wheeling,” Dane assured us. And he was right.

We arrived in Chiang Rai after an overnight bus ride, and as the anti-anxiety medications wore off, we found ourselves riding in a little red pickup truck, into the back of which had been installed two long wooden benches.

It was taking us from the bus station to the center of town, where our mission was to rent motorcycles.

Once in the center of town, we quickly found that Dane was even more of a master of this city than of Bangkok.

He led us first to a place where we could purchase a couple of cups of fragrant, strong espresso, laced with plenty of thick golden cream.

And with the caffeination problem out of the way,  we followed Dane around the corner to a motorcycle rental shop.

My experience riding motorcycles added up to the few odd times that I was allowed to putt around on someone’s dirt bike during social gatherings in the farmlands of Iowa. Needless to say, the current situation was quite different. With judicious use of Dane’s formidable Thai bargaining skills, and some minor leveraging of the AsiaWheeling brand (I believe three matching business cards, one of which was in Thai, helped), we were riding off on three brand new Honda Wave 110’s, putting along and struggling to re-wire neural pathways long burned in by wheeling in order to operate these new terrifyingly powerful machines.

I’ll have to be honest with you, dear reader, I am quite conflicted in my views on the motorcycle. It is certainly a scary and monstrously powerful machine. However, on the back of the thing, I found myself somewhat drunk on the sheer power that lay between my legs. And these were by no means large motorcycles.

The more I rode, the more I began to enjoy the feeling of whipping along on this beast, leaning into the turns, and watching the scenery go by.

I let the whip of the wind and the hum of the motor fill my ears, as we tore through the beautiful countryside.

We had little time to get used to these new beastly wheels. It seemed no sooner had we begun to get comfortable with using the transmission and properly signaling and braking than it was time to take our first long cross-country ride.  We were going to ride north, up into the mountains toward a city called Doi Maesalong, once again on the Burmese border. It was tea and opium county, though many of the old opium farmers had been encouraged by the Thai government to switch over to coffee production.

Before joining the AsiaWheeling team, Dane had worked for the international coffee magazine, Coffee T&I, and so was bubbling with data about the local coffee world.

There is little time to chat, though, when motorcycling. Most communications require a fair bit of screaming over the road, engine, and wind. So I just let my head nest into visions from films like Easy Rider, while bits of 70s rock songs swam through my head, and I thought about how I got so close to finishing “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” That was a good book…

Dane can always be counted on to call waypoints for expensive and delectable coffee, and this ride was no exception. We stopped at a place called “Parabola.”

They provided us with a refreshing sip of free WiFi, and also some delightfully rich and potent coffee drinks, and a startling view of the countryside. It was smokey here too, if anything even more smokey than it had been in Sangklaburi, lending that strange unrealness to the environment, for which I must admit to you dear reader, I was growing a taste.

As the sun began to lower into the sky, the amount of smoke through which it must be filtered increased exponentially, reducing it quickly to a red ball that hung so dimly that it could be observed comfortably by the unaided eye.

As the sun became a different star, we climbed on the cycles up into the mountains, at times finding ourselves climbing mountain roads so steep that we needed to shift down into first gear. The addition of the smoke made the mountains feel unbelievably high, as though we were floating in an infinity of cloud. Once we had made it to the top, we began to work our way along the crest of the mountains, whipping down the startlingly smooth and new Thai country road, past a number of security checkpoints designed to address the rampant problem of Burmese drugs crossing into Thailand. The security guards were neither interested in us, or, as far as I know, effective in stopping the drug traffickers. From my understanding they mostly serve to hassle the local hill tribes, many of which lack proper identification.

The sun was finally giving way to darkness as we pulled into the town of Doi Maesalong, where the road wound way even more tightly and steeply by little shops, restaurants, and, most surprisingly, a giant 7-11. Thailand, in case I have not already emphasized this, is deep in the throes of a love affair with 7-11, and with branches spreading all the way to this remote outpost, who knows what can pull it out of that spiral.

Our hotel was the site of an old Taiwanese military base. The Taiwanese had been in this region fighting against China. As you no doubt already know, dear reader, Taiwan broke away from China in 1949 when the Republic of China (now called Taiwan) lost to the communist Chinese forces. As part of the war between the two factions, Republic of China troops called Guo Min Dang had been placed here, in the north of Thailand and had built the base that later became our guest house.

There were many classes of rooms at the base turned resort, but ours, being one of the least expensive was a wooden shed, with cold running water, three firm futon-esque mattresses on the floor, a gnarly roach problem, and a stunning view of the smoke enshrouded mountains amongst which Doi Maesalong finds itself.  A rustic, yet very comfortable setup.

By then it was high time for eating. We were starving, despite the fact that we had spent most of the day sitting on vibrating metal beasts.

I thought back to how hungry the characters always seemed to be in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and also back to a study about rats that I once came across, which suggested that merely vibrating the rats bodies stimulated their metabolisms in a way almost akin to actual exercise. I’d be the last to draw any conclusions from those two data points, but regardless, we were quite glad to find ourselves feasting at a completely empty Chinese restaurant, laying into some crispy pork and Chinese greens.

We spent the rest of that evening chatting about Thailand, the Red Shirts, AsiaWheeling, and the south-east Asian coffee industry with Dane’s friend and owner of a local coffee and cake joint called Sweet Maesalong.

We woke up bright and early in Sangklaburi, having changed our rooms at the P. Guesthouse from the three-bed room that Hood, Scott, and I had shared to a two-man nest, with a private balcony looking out over the lake. It was the same price ($6 per night) and we were thrilled.  But of course, we missed Hood.

Today was to be somewhat of an atypical day for AsiaWheeling, in which we would rent one of the many fine handmade wooden canoes they had down by the dock at the P. Guesthouse, for a little bit of good old-fashioned AsiaPaddling.

We ziplocked our electronics, but we prayed, for the sake of the Panama hats, that none of the local fisherman who so deafeningly zipped around the lake on unbelievably fast, long, and skinny motor boats, would come so near and so parallel to us that we would take a spill.

I took the rear position, and Scott the bow as we headed out into the lake. She was a good boat, fast, silent, and true. We were rounding our first curve, past dozens of houseboats, and fields of some crop we could not quite identify, toward what we had heard was the location of a sunken temple. Sure enough, a few more curves of lake later, we found ourselves at a truly ghostly sight. As you, dear reader, no doubt remember, this was a man-made lake. Before the time of the lake, a great temple had been built in this valley. When the valley was flooded, the temple was submerged completely, but now being the dry, and therefore, low season, the top floors of the building were once again revealed from the cloudy green waters.

We paddled some of the smaller sections of the temple, before beaching the canoe and climbing out into the main building.

The floor was covered in muck, but the old stones were still visible in places, especially where the floor had cracked, revealing another completely submerged chamber beneath us.

Most of the more intricate parts of the temple were broken or ruined by years underwater, but we were still able to make out some interesting and significant features.

The arrival of some truly vicious swarms of gnats heralded our return to the boat.

We kept paddling farther down the lake, where we found more floating villages, clinging to the shore,and more of those interesting large net-fishing devices that we had first encountered being used by the fishermen of Goa. We stopped to hang out for a bit with a roaming herd of cattle, all of which sported jingling bells, and found us quite engrossing, before turning and heading back.

Our whole time in Sangklaburi, we had been noticing a giant golden temple that loomed amidst the smokey mountains across the lake. This, it seemed, would make a wise next waypoint, so we pointed the canoe toward its shimmering majesty and started paddling.

When we finally reached the shore, we beached the canoe next to an interesting agricultural operation, where they appeared to be growing a kind of Asian cabbage and beans, the cabbage spread out on the ground, while the beans arched overhead on makeshift bamboo structures. We scrambled past the farm and up a steep crumbling slope toward a road. We followed the road up and around into the forest. First we passed a large, and quite deserted facility, which remained a mystery to us until we were finally able to ascertain, upon finding a giant charred oven, that it was a crematorium. Hauntingly fascinating.

Just then, we saw a bright red fox appear from the woods and look at us. He turned around and began to trot down another unpaved and overgrown road. It seemed like our best bet would be to follow him, so we did. And sure enough, each time we came around a corner in the road, he would be waiting for us, and upon seeing us continue to trot forward. Finally he led us to the base of the great gold temple.

It was closed for business, it seemed, and the doors were barred and chained. This, however, did not seem to have kept a small village of furniture makers and wood carvers from having sprung up around it.

It was the hottest part of the day, and most people appeared to be napping. In fact, it was so strangely deserted as to elicit some activity in that  part of the brain that is cultivated during the viewing of zombie films. So, you might forgive your humble correspondent’s mild alarm when a strangely loping child appeared as if from nowhere and began running at Scott. His body, poor thing, had grown unevenly, likely due to malnutrition and disease. He appeared to have a great deal of trouble seeing, but had locked onto Scott and made a direct hit, promptly embracing him in a prolonged bear hug.

As the duration of the hug lengthened, Scott began to grow uncomfortable. Finally, and quite gently, Scott disengaged himself from this child and we moved on, continuing our exploration of the temple grounds and the surrounding village.

Back in the canoe, we were getting hungry, and it seemed high time that we return to the city proper and find some food.

After settling up for the canoe rental, we headed into the town, where we feasted on street food: grilled pork on a shard of bamboo,

accompanied by a bag of fresh cabbage, basil, and hot peppers,

delicious northern sausages filled with rice and meat,

and spicy sweet shredded papaya salad, mashed to perfection with a large wooden mortar and pestle.

The red shirts were planning to initiate a huge demonstration that weekend, and Dane looked up at us, through the steam coming off of his perfectly prepared latte.

He swallowed the last of his mouthful of chocolate cake and said, “It could be the end of Thailand as we know it. I’m talking revolution; war in the streets.”

Scott pulled off his headphones, which could just barely be heard pumping out distant strains of trance music. “Bombs are planned for all over the city. I really think we should get out of here for that weekend.”

Scott and I are usually not ones to argue with a Bureau Chief’s suggestions, especially when they are offered under the pretenses of avoiding being wounded or maimed. And with that Dane began a furious Facebook campaign to get his Thai friends together for an outing to the north. Sangklaburi was the name of the place. It lies on the shores of a giant man-made lake, nestled in the northwest of Thailand along the Burmese border.

And it was because of this that we came to be waking up at 5:30 am, to the strains of SIM City 2000. For the first time in the trip, we were stripping down our luggage to the bare minimum. No large packs, no cycles. We would rent them there. In the dark and the confusion, I forgot to pack a swim suit, shorts, sunscreen or my phone charger, but appeared at the elevator right at 6:00, ready to accompany Dane and Karona down to a cab. Scott, on the other hand, remembered most everything important, but was quite late getting out the door, leaving Dane huffing and puffing in the elevator about missing our ferry. You may intuit, dear reader, how the AsiaWheeling team members complement each other.

Next ensued a series of missteps, miscommunications, mistimed bathroom runs and clueless cab drivers that resulted in our group finally convening just after the train to Kanchanaburi had left the station. Drat. Some consolation was to be had in that our group of nine people was finally together, and that coffee and grilled pork and sticky rice were easily purchased on the street.

After a number of ideas were thrown around, we finally selected a bus as the next best option. The fates would have it that, once we arrived at the bus station, a bus would be idling, as if waiting for us, all set to leave for Kanchanaburi. We climbed on, and I promptly fell asleep, only to wake up when the bus came to a halt at our destination.

This was only half way to Sangklaburi, and there would be a little time before we boarded the van that would take us the rest of the way north and up into the mountains.

It was high time for some noodles.

The van ride was tough, with lots of elevation changes and a twisting mountain road. The interior was hot, and we were jostled from side to side bumping sweatily against our fellow passengers. Scott and I were quite thankful for the Panama hats. While in the upright position, the hats provide protection from the sun, and loss of one’s fellow wheeler in a crowd, but when tilted down over the eyes, they provide a virtually impenetrable field of sleepiness, allowing the AsiaWheeling team to doze in even the most hectic situations.

Finally, we arrived at Sangklaburi, where we found our guest house, the P. Guesthouse, to be welcoming, frighteningly affordable, and gorgeous.

It was made mostly from dark wood, with giant granite tables expanding along a deck overlooking the lake.

Devastatingly idyllic.  The guesthouse itself looked like it belonged in Whitefish, Montana.

Dinner was Burmese-Thai food.

Very different from that which we’d had so far in Bangkok.

We tried the local tom yum soup, which was so spicy that most at the table could not have more than a small taste.

The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing on the deck and swimming in the lake.

When night fell, we began strolling the streets of the tiny town, which sported hundreds of brand new looking golden rooster lamp posts, and more than its fair share of loud and none too shy stray dogs.

We were standing outside the train station in Kandy, Sri Lanka, when Scott agreed to continue fielding questions from the crowd of cab drivers and touts that had formed around us, drawn in by the allure of discovering the retail price of the Speed TRs, so that I could go inside and attempt to purchase another couple of tickets back to Colombo.

Unfortunately, all the seats in the Observation Saloon had been sold already, so we were forced to purchase second class seats, which were about $2.45 as opposed to $3.50 cents. Perhaps these train tickets can serve as an indicator to you, dear reader, why the $4.00 breakfast at Rodney’s seemed so expensive to us at the time.

Regardless of the expense, we had indulged in it once again that morning. However, having for the last couple days endured the giant pot of weak coffee that accompanied it, we had this morning asked to enter the kitchen and supervise its fabrication. In the kitchen, we observed, as we had feared, that no more than a tablespoon of actual coffee was added to the giant over-sized pot of water. However, now that we were in the kitchen, we felt comfortable rattling the pots and pans a little and requesting an increase in the strength. It was like night and day. Our entire experience was transformed as lucidity once again returned to AsiaWheeling.

So great was our feeling that before heading to the train station, we indulged in a little high-speed wheel down the road in the opposite direction of town.

It proved, as with all of our other experiences in Sri Lanka, to be more beautiful and less uphill than we had expected.

While in the other direction, the road headed down the mountain and into town, this one just skirted the side of the mountain affording us a glorious view of the jungle, rich with hidden waterfalls, little villages, and people in brightly colored clothes tending to rice and palm fields.

We made sure to stop for water along the way, at a very interesting roadside general store, where we met an old Sri Lankan man who was thrilled to chat with us in his native tongue, somehow conducting a full conversation without any overlapping vocabulary. This old man is the perfect example of a phenomenon that is becoming ever more apparent on AsiaWheeling: successful communication requires primarily only the will to communicate. Many times, when we are most vexed by an inability to communicate, it is because the other party is not willing to engage, not because we lack the means to convey information.

We stopped for lunch at the Old Empire Hotel for some delicious Sri Lankan fare.

Meanwhile at the train station, it was time to get the heck out of Kandy, and when we were confronted by the baggage personnel clucking at the bikes, we assumed that the same maneuver we had used in Colombo might serve us well here. But this time the baggage handlers refused to be subdued by the folding action and insisted that we load the bags into the baggage car. Despite our many protests, we were brought first to one luggage processing room and then deeper into the station to yet another. In each we were confronted by a different man, asking for a different amount of money, and offering a different answer to the question “will we be able to take the cycles on the train with us?”

Finally, Scott became exasperated, as our train began to blow its whistle, and demand justice. Meanwhile, I was attempting, with no success, to bargain the man down from the $8.00 per cycle that he was asking.

Finally, with only five minutes left before our train was to leave, we paid our $16 and followed a man who lead us through the turnstile and to the 2nd class car. Inside the second class car, we once again saw that there was decidedly no place for the cycles, and thought the fellow seemed to be indicating that we should just climb on, we insisted that he talk to the analogous fellow in the Observation Saloon and secure us a spot in the baggage compartment. Our baggage charging guide seemed a little reticent, but when we entered the Observation Saloon’s baggage car, the fellow inside seemed satisfied enough with the gigantic and now sopping wet $16.00 receipt, which I waved at him, sending little droplets of redissolved ink to and fro. He smiled and allowed us to lock the cycles to a piece of chain that dangled from one of the walls.

Now quite covered in sweat and totally sapped of all energy, we thanked the baggage team as though they had just delivered our son and collapsed into our seats. In no time the train was moving again, shrieking deafeningly against the rusty tracks, and cutting its way into the sunset.

Arriving in Colombo, we mounted the cycles and headed back to the trusty Hotel Nippon.

Our flight to Goa was not until 3:00 pm, so we were able to indulge once again in the comfort of Win’s apartment, rising late in the day to be greeted by Win’s staff who were quite eager to make us a traditional Indian breakfast, followed by a few cups of that, now oh so familiar, sweet milky Indian coffee. Win had arrived home very late the night before, and though we had done our best to communicate to the servants that it would be okay for them to go home, the entire staff had stayed the night, setting up beds on the kitchen and living room floors. At one point I found myself apologizing profusely when in the middle of the night I had tripped over one of them on the way to find my cell phone charger.

We resisted departure as long as we could, feasting on the abundance of Internet, filtered drinking water, and cups of coffee which Win’s staff so generously gave to us.

When the time came, we hauled the bikes downstairs to the courtyard, where we began to pack them up.

We could not do this, however, until one of the security guards finished taking a ride around the building on the Speed TR. This he did with much gusto and a huge grin, taking quite a few victory laps on Scott’s bike, while I headed out along frontage road looking for a cab.

When I finally made it to the intersection, I found myself confronted with a fuming, deafening gridlock of black and yellow cabs, all honking and screaming at each other. Most of these had fares and were too locked into the mayhem for me to attempt to make contact and initiate bargaining. On the other side of the raging gridlock, I found a number of cabs that all seemed to be lorded over by a central character, a large fellow in the flowing white gown and cap which advertised his religion. He had a number of cabs and rickshaws. The cabs all seemed unable to go to the airport, and a rickshaw was too small to fit ourselves and our luggage. For one reason or another each cab driver I spoke to seemed unwilling to go to the airport. Finally I was able to find a driver in one of the small van taxis they call “Omnis” who seemed interested in driving us to the airport, and though I was making good progress in nonverbal communication with him, the white gowned fellow came over and began to play translator, taking the opportunity to work out some sort of profit-sharing deal with the driver. Soon we had agreed on a price, and our man was jamming the Omni into gear, suspension lurching and belts squealing forward into the steaming gridlock that separated us from Scott and the bikes.

Some 10 minutes of horn honking and traffic jam aggravating later, I pulled up to find Scott smiling at me from behind his sunglasses. All our bags were packed up and piled neatly in a corner. The staff had lined up to shake our hands, as the security guard who had ridden the bike started to give us the hard sell on why we should just leave the Speed TRs with him, since we were, after all, going back to America, where folding bicycles grow on trees.

Wrong on both accounts, we assured him. And with a tip of the Panama hats, we were back on the road. The van had no third gear, so the ride to the airport was very loud. But soon enough we made it. Negotiation of the domestic part of the Mumbai airport proved quite simple. It had been remodeled since we visited it during the pilot study, and it now gleamed with all the new wealth of India.

I went off in search of some Vadas to snack on while Scott waited in a vast and snaking line to take advantage of our free coffee coupons (Thanks Go Air). I was just returning when I heard Scott scream out in pain, “Aye! Aye! Aye!” It seems that just after his long wait was finally over, he was proudly returning with the scalding load when a small portly woman, in an attempt to traverse the massive the line, ducked and wove behind him, scuttling through Scott’s legs and popping up at precisely the right moment to spill boiling hot boiling milky brew all over the two of them. I hustled to grab napkins and Scott and the woman began a fierce bout of apologies.

Later on, Scott was running his arm under cool water. “We just can’t seem to execute a domestic Indian flight without some mishap,” he observed. Would it really be India if we could?

Onboard Go Air’s flight from Mumbai to Goa, we found some subtle increases in the pricing of on-board snacks compared to the Bangalore-to-Mumbai leg, but for the most part were once again quite impressed with the airline. We also had the great pleasure of sitting next to a beautiful young architect from Goa by the name of Anna, who was happy to sit in as a surrogate member of the AsiaWheeling advisory board for the flight, explaining to us that travel back to Bangalore would be much easier by bus, and showing us on a map how we could take a cab to another city in the nearby province of Karnataka, and catch a bus from there to Bangalore.

Very much in Anna’s debt, we exited the airplane into the fresh air of Goa, which we savored for only a second before being herded into a bus and transported to the airport’s interior. Goa is certainly a tourist destination. The airport was like a less organized, less expensive version of the one in Bali, with many tropical potted plants, beach imagery, and figurines depicting men carrying loads of coconuts and scantily clad women whipping their shawls around in the sea air. We couldn’t wait to do the same, so we quickly piled into a taxi and headed south toward our hotel, a place that had come highly recommended by our friends in Mumbai, by the name of Cozy Nook.

It was in a place called Palolem Beach, in the south of Goa. And when our driver finally got there, we were not only quite hungry but surprised to find that our hotel was only reachable by walking down the beach. Rather than deal with that on the cycles, we locked them to a pole with a large “no parking sign,” which was being widely ignored by the locals, and headed down the beach.

It was a bit of a trek, and gave us the chance to take in the world around us. It was a nice white sand beach, covered completely with inns and restaurants.  Everywhere we looked there were white people, mostly in the sort of hippy-esque Indian influenced garb that is oh so common among those post-army-service Israelis who seem to be spread all over India and south-east Asia, spending a little time traveling and relaxing after what was no doubt an extremely intense experience. These made up the majority of the vacationers, but the group was also spiced with large numbers of older, more affluent looking European and Australian types, bathing in the greenish brown opaque sea, playing Frisbee on the beach, or strolling and attempting to fend off the many begging stray dogs which scurried everywhere.

We were almost to the Cozy Nook when my stomach suddenly tensed into knots. I had forgotten my Ukulele back where we parked the bikes! “Sorry, Scott,” I said “You’ll need to haggle for the room and check in alone. I need to run back and see if it’s not too late to save my baby.” So I threw down my pack, took off the Panama hat, and began to sprint down the beach. A couple of stray dogs joined me at first but soon lost interest. My legs began to throb and demanded I slow down, but I refused them. Finally panting and wheezing, I scrambled up off the beach and across the concrete parking area, but my uke was nowhere to be seen.

My heart fell like a stone into a frozen abyss of defeat. How could I have been so stupid? How was I supposed to sit by the beach here in Goa and strum Jimmy Buffet’s Margarittaville without my trusty uke? What an idiot I was… Ah, cruel fate.

Just then I heard a fellow call over to me. It was our cab driver. He was sitting at a nearby Chai stand, sipping tea and in his hands… my ukulele!

I ran over to him with tears in my eyes and took the instrument. I looked down at it. Not so fast, I thought, there are still a few more places we need to go together.

We awoke, for what might easily turn out to be the last time during the entirety of the trip, separately, in our rather sprawling flat at the Diamond District Serviced Apartments. I could hear voices in the hall and walked out the door of my room to find Scott struggling once again to communicate with a group of three fellows who had appeared at our door. Somewhat earlier, it seems, Scott had woken, phoned down for breakfast, and these three men had arrived quite flabbergasted and confused. For you see, dear reader, at some point earlier that morning, while we still slumbered, some fellows from the serviced apartments had crept into our room and deposited two cups of coffee, a loaf of white bread, and a cylindrical Indian schoolchild’s food storage container filled with what later proved to be spiced omelet in the dining room.

Not for the first time, we found the presence of the fellows to be an uncomfortable one. They moped around the room, making strange gestures that were perhaps solicitations for tips, and spent much time looking at our belongings, at us, and at each other sheepishly. Finally one of them worked up the nerve to ask whether we’d like him to make toast. We happily agreed and attempted to emanate positive energy into the icy room while heartily laying into breakfast. We were making what we believed to be a concerted effort, but the fact that they had unlocked and entered our room while we were sleeping, needless to say, was also disconcerting, hampering our ability to connect with these people on a human-to-human basis. I doubt thievery was an appreciable threat, but our privacy certainly felt violated. And now, with the inarticulately justified presence of these fellows, we found it quite hard even to enjoy our now cold and many hours old breakfast. Considering this was the most expensive accommodation of the trip to date, why were we not basking in splendorous joy and luxury?

Though lines of communication were still quite frayed, in the time since the arrival of the service crew, we were able to order two more cups of coffee, which were made in some far away place and delivered in more Indian School children’s lunch equipment, appearing downstairs with all our luggage only some five minutes after the scheduled check out time, which in India is early.

We stowed our belongings in a spare room that seemed to play the role of servants’ quarters at the Diamond District Serviced Apartments, and soon found our man Nikhil wheeling his way across the sprawling interior courtyard of the Diamond District toward us on his Hindustan Hero bicycle. “I trust you have slept well?” he asked. All unauthorized entries aside, we had, and soon the street was whipping comfortably underneath us.

Nikhil needed to eat, so we stopped into a local South Indian coffee shop, and had another couple of cups while Nikhil dug into a huge pile of honeyed grains with dried fruit in them and a big puffy fried poori.

Our first waypoint was a local market district, which jostled and smoked beneath the stern facade of a looming Catholic church. We parked our bikes outside the church, where a large crowd of children soon gathered to ring the bells, shift the gears, and ask us where we were from.

By now we were completely used to this type of behavior and simply let it occur, making a mental note not to pedal too hard right after remounting the cycles. Inside the church, we watched as hordes of Indians walked through the well lit halls, some of them sporting a cross painted over their third eye, stopping occasionally at enclosed glass cases, pressing their hands against the glass, and peering in fiercely at the mannequin icons of saints inside, before closing their eyes and praying a bit.

Back in the market, we wandered around peering in at the various wares; some of the market was conventional shops, but much commerce took place in outdoor, mobile stalls, or laid out on large tarpaulins.

We called a waypoint during the stroll to purchase another bike lock, bringing AsiaWheeling’s grand total to two.  With newly doubled security, we piled back on the bikes toward the corner of Mahatma Ghandi Road and Brigade Road, where we were to meet the lovely Shivani Mistry, whose name, which may have come directly from an Ian Fleming novel, made us all the more intrigued.

She was suffering from some navigational and logistical troubles acquiring a cycle, but promised to be arriving shortly.

We sipped coffee at yet another startlingly posh (and dare I say escapist) recommendation of Nikhil’s, where we quite surprisingly ran into a couple of Brown University graduates, who were living and traveling in South India (escapism pays dividends sometimes). No sooner had we finished our coffee and chatting, than we found ourselves face to face with Ms. Mistry herself, armed with a flashy mountain bike, purportedly the personal cycle of the owner of the bike shop, which he had provided upon finding his rental supply depleted.  Photo below courtesy of Shivani Mistry.

Next order of business was finding a South Indian Coffee Shop to fix the starving problem, and throw a little more caffeine in the system. When cycling in hectic Indian traffic, I’ll take all the lucidity I can get.

We acquainted ourselves with Shivani over the meal, and spent some time showing off the many feats of The WikiReader.

The coffee shop was great. Serving slightly greasier than usual, but extra tasty dosas and vadas, plenty of coconut chutney, and strong sweet coffee. Perhaps even better than the substance was the decor, which featured a number of strange tilted mirrors, lots of hand-painted labeling, waiters in strange white and red traditional suits, with giant belt buckles resembling huge polished seat belts, and plenty of vintage posters from the Indian Coffee Board.

Back on the road, we found that although it was Ms. Mistry’s first time wheeling the Indian roads, she was quite the natural, with lightning fast reflexes, an open mind, and a knack for signaling her intent.

We made our way back across the city toward that flawed Diamond District, which we happily overshot, instead opting to explore the old Bangalore Airport.

We approached it on a semi-closed, palm-tree-lined road, and there we found the old airport itself to be completely closed down. Ms. Mistry happily rode up the handicapped access ramp and down the deserted walkway, while we looped through the parking lots.

Soon we saw our female compatriot re-emerging, somewhat flustered and grinning, followed by an Indian serviceman with a rifle. The armed man wobbled his head in a way that decidedly communicated “not okay for wheeling.” Fair enough.

Cycling back, we saw two eerie images adjacent to one another.  One public service announcement next to a biscuit ad made for quite an unsettling combination.

Traffic sped up, and we continued on.

After a brief stopover at Nikhil’s residence, a delightful apartment on a sleepy street near the old airport, we were back at the Diamond District Serviced Apartments, where we collected our belongings.

They had been moved around a bit, but still seemed to contain all our important or valuable belongings. My ukulele had quite obviously been removed, de-tuned, and replaced in its case, but “no harm no foul,” as they say.

Nikhil began a series of phone calls with his cab company of choice, inquiring as to why the 6:00 pm cab that he had arranged for us was nonexistent, while we collapsed the speed TRs and discussed the finer points of AsiaWheeling and Yoga with Ms. Mistry.

It was not until around 7:00 pm that our cab finally arrived. The driver immediately began to demonstrate negative characteristics, attempting to re-haggle an already more than reasonable fare, showing a total lack of connection to the machine he was piloting (marked initially by an inability to open the trunk), and generally exhibiting glassy eyed dopiness. We were a little worried, but thought back to that old Jerry Seinfeld bit: “after all, the man is a professional,” so we took the keys from him, opened the trunk ourselves, and loaded the cab.

We waved goodbye to both Mr. Kulkarni and Ms. Mistry as the cab eased its way somewhat confusedly around and out of the compound. I must say here that we, for the first time on this trip, must publicly bestow the AsiaWheeling stamp of disapproval on the Diamond District Serviced Apartments. A lack of understanding in the departments of service, communication, and price performance, left us with a resoundingly sour taste in our mouths. A taste made only more sour when we found ourselves having to notify our driver that though it was night on the unlit side streets of Bangalore, he had neglected to activate his headlamps. The taste grew downright acidic when the fellow took a startlingly long time to locate the controls to activate the lamps.  We were now on full alert.

It was no more than 10 minutes into the drive, when our driver pulled into an intersection, while merging, and crunched into a small blue Tata that was driving in the lane to our left. Scott and I thanked God as our dumbfounded driver successfully avoided a concrete barrier in the center of the street, and popped the car over the edge of a walkway, narrowly avoiding a large river-like open sewer, finally navigating to the side of the road, as a hissing of air concurred with the right side of the car lowering a few inches closer to the ground. At the end of this, he turned to us with the same glassy eyes and said “tire puncture.”

“Damn straight it was a tire puncture!,” we voiced in exasperation. And a whole simultaneous harrowing experience to boot! As the driver got out of the car, and began furiously arguing in Kannada with the fellow he had just crunched into, we bust into action. No one appeared to be injured, and the damage to the two cars appeared to be minor enough. You see, dear reader, we had a plane to catch in less than two hours and we were in the middle of the smoky highway during rush hour at night in Bangalore. Scott began to work on flagging a new cab, and I called Nikhil. No answer.

In the meantime, a large cop in a wide brimmed hat, one side of which was pinned to his head by his badge, was pacing and surveying the scene. Finally, I was able to ring Nikhil, and the phone was passed from the cop to our driver to a fellow in a black shirt who had recently joined our small crowd in the middle of the highway, seemingly with the sole intention of stirring the pot. I’ll never be quite sure what they were all talking about, because just then Scott hailed a cab, and we began the hurried process of haggling and moving our luggage out of the wounded and crumpled cab.

Much to our delight and relief, we secured an even better deal with this cabby, who appeared quite alert, drove a registered airport taxi, and was all ready to rejoin traffic and help us make our flight, when the traffic cop came over. Our cabby began to look very worried, and spoke to us in whispered tones… “There was no accident… This police man. Nothing happened. Okay? 100 rupees there will be no accident.”

So there it was: the first bribery solicitation of AsiaWheeling. The total was about $2.50. Scott and I looked at each other, I looked at my watch, and we handed over the rupees.  Talk about innovation in Bangalore…

Back on the road, the intensity of what had just happened began to wash over us. Our new driver darted expertly through the traffic, but we were rattled, and with each move I clenched the ukulele like a long lost friend and babbled, unloading my anxiety in a verbal torrent on Scott.

We reached the airport, and paid our driver, rushing to the counter, and pacing like crazy people, both tortured by a terribly vocal need to urinate. In order to enter the airport and reach the bathroom, though, we needed to get our tickets, which meant waiting in line. What seemed like an eternity later, we were exiting the bathroom. And heading towards the Go Air Counter.

After congratulating the Go Air employees on one of the best attempts to upsell us to business class that we have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, we were given free coupons to get some hot tea from a nearby vendor. As we drank the tea, we finally began to relax.

Security was surprisingly tight, though we were able to stroll through sipping our tea. All our unchecked belongings were thoroughly inspected, detected, and returned to us bearing numerous stamps. We then made our way into the terminal. It seemed so clean and organized, with many little tidy western looking shops, free drinking water, and some delightful and shockingly expensive restaurants. When our flight turned out to be delayed, we decided to indulge in a little of the over-priced food, digging greasily into big plates of parathas and gravy. Beer was being sold at over $10 a can, so we sorrowfully refrained.  That was one culinary escape we couldn’t quite afford to make.

As the night wore on, the flight became increasingly delayed, and with it our fellow passengers restless. By 11:00 pm, though there had been no alert to queue for boarding, many people were crowding around the ticket counter. The stench of anger was beginning to fill the room. Meanwhile we were happily working on correspondence, drawing in the kind of zen approach that business travelers acquire in order to deal with the American air travel system.  About the time that we were taking a break from correspondence to chat with a segment director for Slumdog Millionaire, the crowd became quite angry, necessitating the dispatch of armed guards.

When the equipment finally landed and boarding appeared to be beginning, we were quite flabbergasted to find that the crowd was refusing to board. Their argument, it seems, was that the plane was so delayed, that they were so wronged, that at this point they would rather not board, and fight on. Having been hardened by the American system, and quite used to absurd and offensive delays, we made our way through the crowd of furious Indians, feeling not unlike scabs, and somehow simultaneously chagrined and guilt-ridden, we boarded our flight for Mumbai.

When we landed in Mumbai, we were happy to find our cycles and baggage arrived as well, all in fine shape. We were unhappy to find that the prepaid taxi counter had closed down, necessitating the arrangement of more unregulated transport. As we made our way toward the crowd of taxis and drivers that were lazing in the heat of the Mumbai night, we soon attracted a great crowd of fellows around us, engaging in some truly despicable maneuvers, all designed to induce panic and confusion.

However, we had been through so much that day that we were completely unflappable.  Scott responded to the crowd that encircled him, all speaking at once in frantic tones, by squealing the old playground vocalization “Nananananananana!,” closing his eyes, and pushing the cart forward.   I turned to the fellow next to me who had been screaming, touching my arms and chest, and attempting to whisk my luggage cart away toward his taxi. I put my hand on his shoulder: “Relax,” I said. “Everything is okay.”

We made our way over to the cluster of taxis and began fiercely bargaining. By now it was about 3:00 am. Finally, we found a likely 16-year-old young man who was willing to drive us the 20 minutes to our man Win’s house in Bandra for a price that might be considered merely over-paying, rather than being robbed blind, and we took off.

Not long into the drive, we realized that our man spoke no English, and also had no idea where we were going. But in a shining act of navigational prowess, Scott used some notes he had made from a previous phone call with Win to navigate us close enough to his building that we could ask a fellow who was wandering the streets in a long flowing white robe for the remaining directions.

We were quite thrilled to finally make our way into Win’s luxurious apartment. The journey had taken us to the extremes of experience and back again into the comfortable womb of good fortune. Win had arranged for his staff to leave meals out for us, and we happily dug in. The fates had made a concerted effort to keep us out of Mumbai, but we had foiled them. Here we were. We looked out over one of the biggest cities in the world, re-playing the intensity of our day. Part of us was exhausted, but another part was wired on the madness.

We made it. That was the last thought I had before exhaustion took hold and I collapsed into the clean, sweet smelling sheets.

Our overnight train to Bangalore appeared to be late by two hours. So we threw down our packs on the filthy concrete platform, and began to give our backs, sopping wet from wheeling from Cochin to the Ernakulam train station, a fighting chance at drying.  A crowd soon formed around us, interested in learning more about the Speed TRs.  We were happily chatting about AsiaWheeling with everyone from one-eyed Indian Railway employees to students commuting from Ernakulam to Bangalore, when the train quite unexpectedly arrived very nearly on its original schedule. So we packed up our belongings, bidding fond goodbyes to our new friends, one of whom insisted on sprinting to the other end of the platform to confirm our bogie (the Indian term for train car), as we chased behind him on our cycles, fully loaded, and ringing our bells to part the massive, hurrying crowds.  Once again profusely dripping with sweat, we hustled into the 2nd Class A/C car. It was much like our previous (3rd Class A/C) car, with the welcome addition of curtains, allowing one to seclude one’s self, more or less, in his or her bunk. One marked difference here, however, was that it appeared I did not have a seat. Scott’s name showed quite clearly on the grubby, dot matrix printed roster that  had been scotch taped to the side of the train, but mine was nowhere to be seen.

To give a little background on the situation, the Indian railways are tragically over utilized (or the rail ticket market undeserved, depending on whom you ask). Booking tickets and gaining a spot in a preferred compartment require booking to be made not just a few days, but a few weeks, or in some cases a few months, in advance. And unfortunately, our dearest comrades at the India Bureau had swung into action too late in the game, which meant that for the rest of our time in India, the lead-up to each train ride would be a bit of a nail-biter, as we monitored our spots on the wait list, and began to lay the preliminary contingency plans.  Our confirmation on this train, for instance, had only come through that day. And had we not gotten word of it, we would have been scrambling to find a bus or shelling out serious cash for a chartered cab.

But confirmation had come, and we were accordingly somewhat puzzled at the absence of my name on the roster. We piled the cycles in one of the cramped spaces in between cars, and I waited while Scott went in search of the ticketeer, hoping that upon consulting the bloke, we would find that I did indeed have a seat. In the meantime, as the train left the station, I tried to steady the Speed TRs whilst defending against the heavy metal doors of the train, which swung open and slammed shut with the rhythm of the rails. Our fellow passengers struggled to file by me as I made sheepish apologies. Countless food and beverage sales people gave me their very best pitch as to why, with my pack still on, one hand on the cycles and another struggling to catch the giant swinging steel door which threatened to bash into the cycles and at times my person, I might also be interested in buying a few Cokes and a veg biryani.

Finally Scott emerged, happy to report that I did indeed have a seat. We even managed to stow the cycles reasonably elegantly in the under-the-seat storage zone. In fact, the ticketeer had signed off on the storage spot until the mechanic, smelling a fat tip, came out to sternly instruct us that we must store the cycles with him in the same way we had on the train to Cochin. We happily indulged him, since the fat tip he was looking for was really something more like 75 cents, and settled into the ride. Glad to be free of our baggage, we ordered the aforementioned veg biryani, which turned out to be quite tasty albeit somewhat polluted with sand. And when a family full of screaming children moved right next to my bunk, Scott and I decided it was time to insert some earplugs and call it a night.

We awoke the next morning, as bright yellow sunlight streamed into our train car and cool, dry air blew in through the open doors. Bangalore was refreshing, with a climate many compare to that of northern California.

I brushed my teeth in the train sink, and spent the rest of the ride into Bangalore, hanging out the train door, watching the scenery go by, growing steadily more and more urban, until we were pulling into the Bangalore central station.

At the station, we quickly bypassed the crowds of touts offering us cab rides into town, and located the man Nikhil had sent for us. The car was quite nice, and with some maneuvering, easily fit both cycles and all our stuff. We were also quite prepared to forgive the fact that it was significantly more expensive than the asking price of the touts. We made initial radio contact with Nikhil who assured us that breakfast was being prepared for us at the Diamond District serviced apartments, the accommodation that he had arranged for us. When we arrived, we unloaded our belongings, paid the driver, and were introduced to what would turn out to be one of some 10 different people who proclaimed to be our main point of contact at that strange hotel.

Perhaps to call it a hotel is misleading. The Diamond District Serviced Apartments is one of the most popular and posh housing developments in Bangalore. Once a failed project, dubiously financed, it was sold off at fire-sale prices and redone to be the newest, most elegant and urbane compound in the metropolis.

We had given the India Bureau only one directive regarding our Bangalore accommodation: we would like wireless Internet in the rooms. So it seemed, as we learned more about this place, that we would be treated to a little more luxury than we had asked for. Fine by us. Scott and I were ready to blow the budget a little on some Indian TLC, so we followed the two men who had been dispatched to lead us up to our room.

“Is this okay?” they asked. Our room was quite clean, much more like a sprawling flat, with a living room and a kitchen, a balcony with a washing machine, two bathrooms, and, for what might be the only time on the entire trip, separate bedrooms for Scott and me. “This is more than okay,” we replied.

We were quite unaccustomed to such luxury, and had only begun to explore the space, and search among what seemed like thousands of ambient wireless networks for the correct one, when a team of three men knocked on our door. Two of them went immediately to work in the kitchen, whipping up a dozen pieces of toast, two very spicy pepper omelets, two thimble-sized cups of coffee.

In the meantime, the third man produced a credit card terminal from his voluminous blue pants and began to demand a truly alarming amount of money from us. When we dug more deeply into the nature of the bill, we found a bizarre system of charges had been tacked on since we were leaving in the evening of the next day and presumed therefore to be pro-actively in violation of checkout policy. We proceeded to address this, but the bill negotiation proved unsettlingly similar to pulling teeth, not because the fellow spoke only a few words of English (AsiaWheeling deals with this predicament all the time), but because the man was completely unwilling to listen to anything other than verbal communication. By the time we had struggled our way through the bill and reduced the price to a merely budget-busting and no longer nausea-inducing amount, we were quite exhausted. I laid in with the credit card, a hitherto underutilized part of the AsiaWheeling toolkit, and Scott laid in with valiant attempts to communicate our interest in access to wireless Internet. Meanwhile the fellows in the kitchen had finished cooking and come into the living room to loom uncomfortably, averting eye contact and grinning sheepishly, giggling from time to time at our vast expenditures and struggles to communicate.

After a truly taxing battle for communication, we finally ascertained that there was no wireless in this room, and that  for the time being, we would need to either buddy breathe from an Ethernet cable or pay another few thousand rupees to AirTel, the local giant wireless company for we’ll never be sure quite what. Fair enough. Buddy breathing it is. With that done, we quite exasperatedly shook hands with the credit-card-reader-wielding chap, and turned to the other two, who proved to be even more unwilling to invest in communicating with us. Thankfully, the main pieces of communication were simply “yes please” and “let’s eat.” Our attempt at “May we please have another two cups of coffee,” however, was quite difficult, but finally a message of one kind or another seemed to go through, because both chaps promptly started looking really nervous, glancing all around the room avoiding eye contact, then shuffling apologetically away.

What was it? Was there some vast cultural divide here in Bangalore? We had hitherto experienced absolutely no problem communicating with our hotels in India, and in general, the amount of effort seemed to vary inversely with the nightly rate, with the experience usually landing on the scale ranging from “exciting challenge” to “piece of cake.” Here we were well within the realm of “debilitating struggle.” Were the staff all kept sedated with some sort of strange gas? Were they all lotus eaters? Or was it Scott and I? We had no idea.

Our first waypoint for that day was to be a meeting with a local angel investor and serial entrepreneur. Thank goodness Nikhil was an hour late in meeting us, because we were just getting ready to head straight to the meeting spot, when our two coffees arrived.