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.

The next morning, we woke up on Dane Wetschler’s couch in Bangkok and took stock of our consciousness. Dane was already brewing some coffee in the room, pouring hot water over a cone of freshly ground beans, filling the room with a rich aroma. Scott and I were instantly brought into the present. After drinking just one 2/3 full mug of the stuff, we were just nipping to wheel.  While Dane was finishing off the coffee, Karona began making us bowls of muesli and yoghurt, taking care to stir each one lovingly, blending the cereal, milk, and fruit yogurt before giving them to us. For two hard-boiled wheelers used to the hard-scrabble streets of Tiruchirapalli, such hospitality was melting us like butter.

Before we left, we gave a little gift to Karona and Natsumi from AsiaWheeling Global Enterprises and our friends at Maui Jim. Along with the sunglasses, they had sent us a number of women’s small tee-shirts.  Being not small women ourselves, we were thrilled to find a couple on which to bestow these gifts.

Karona, Natsumi, and Dane agreed to take a taxi cab to the bike rental place. Scott and I would, of course, be wheeling there.

Dane marked the place where we needed to meet them on a map. It was a small enough Soi (the Thai word for side alley) that it was not actually shown on the map; we were wheeling toward a little blue circle in a blank part of the map on the other side of town. We would be getting there by taking one of the main Bangkok thoroughfares, a street called Rama IV. Rama IV is an English way to refer to the fourth monarch of Thailand under the House of Chakri. The current king is Rama IX. Rama IV, (his Thai name is Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramenthramaha Mongkut Phra Chom Klao Chao Yu Hua — we dare you to look up the translation, and provide it in the comments) was the king for the better part of the 1800’s, and is also the Siamese king portrayed in that old favorite “The King and I.”

Today’s Rama IV is a boiling highway, populated with a cocktail of brand new Toyota Camry cabs and whizzing motor cycles.

It crosses the heart of the city, and always seems to have plenty of traffic. Bicycles are making a comeback in Bangkok, but are still a pretty rare sight on Rama IV.

You see, dear reader, it was not so long ago that cycles were, due to lack of funds and industrialization in Thailand, a necessarily popular form of transportation. As Thailand has developed, the new wealth has attempted to divorce itself from its poorer past in many ways. From Thailand’s worship of Japanese and Korean culture, to its embrace of fashion, flat screens, and frappes, the country is determined to show the world it’s made it. And it has. No visitor to the city can be confused about that. Unfortunately, though,  there still exists a scorn for bicycles, being seen as a vestige of poorer, harder times. But what about posh bikes, you ask? There must be a market for posh American, European, and Japanese-made bikes. And it’s true, there is. There is even a fixed gear hipster cycling scene here, but its expansion is relegated mostly to the hyper-wealthy. Due to a massive import tariff on cycles and components from abroad, most people here can only afford a heavy and poorly manufactured Thai cycle.

Rama IV is the nearest big street to Dane’s apartment, in a part of town called Sathorn, right near the giant Lumpini boxing stadium and as such would be one of our main avenues of transit in Bangkok, so we had better get used to the traffic, which while thick, was quite welcoming and none too fast (during the day at least). We took Rama IV through a number of fly overs, and stop lights, pedaling hard in the morning sun. Bangkok was surprisingly hot and humid for being the farthest north that we’d been so far. We were quite soaked by the time we made it to the old city, and began having to make turns.

We were totally unable to locate the streets that Dane had suggested, but with prudent use of our compasses and kind locals, we found the bike shop in no time.

Dane, Karona, and Natsumi were just finishing getting fitted for their bikes when we rolled up. Scott and I quickly sprung to action, teaching our new team the rules of wheeling.

After a little test run on some of the tiny Sois that ran around the bike rental place, we were ready for the real thing.

It was great to have a larger team of wheelers again. We’d had the pleasure of wheeling with Dane back in Providence, but we were most gleefully surprised to find Karona and Natsumi to be not only hard-core wheelers, but startlingly quick learners at the field commands and general rules of wheeling.

Dane took bishop and headed toward the river, where he took us off the road and onto the sidewalk (a “Mario Cart” call). When we exited the sidewalk, we found ourselves in a huge, semi-open-air market.

Here we locked the bikes and headed to find some grub. We started with some Thai rotis, stuffed with crab meat, then settled on a little restaurant.

The restaurant was a sort of point-and-eat place, and we wasted no time in pointing relentlessly. Dane had, during his time in this country, gained not only an impressive grasp of the Thai language, but also a deft sense of what to order at restaurants. “It’s much cheaper to eat out here than to cook at home,” Dane explained to us, “so I just eat out almost all the time.”

He assured us that the best was yet to come. And Thai food in Thailand was well on its way to a firmly applied AsiaWheeling seal of approval with just what we’d had already.

Our lunch consisted of a number of spicy curries, a sweet dish of meat and potatoes in a soy gravy, Thai sticky rice, a tonkastu-like piece of fried pork, a Chinese-esque garlic broccoli and chicken stir fry, and a plate of fried noodles. Paired with our rotis, it was quite the feast.

Back on the road, we headed toward the more historic temples and palace district of the old city, stopping by Khaosan Road, previously AsiaWheeling’s only port of call in Thailand.  It was so over-run with tourists and touts, that we wondered why we ever would have visited such a place. AsiaWheeling was obviously lacking a Thai Bureau back then.

Dane called a coffee waypoint shortly thereafter.

Although it was not cheap, it was the most delightfully European coffee of the trip to date, produced quite masterfully by Thai hands from an Italian machine.

Before leaving the table, I applied some of Karona’s peppermint essence to my back with a pump-action spritzer, which elicited an unexpectedly intense sensation on the skin.

We kept wheeling, now meandering aimlessly though Bangkok’s old city, stopping from time to time for water or a little shape to eat, until the sun fell low in the sky.

It was time to drop the bikes back at the rental joint, since Natsumi was catching a flight that evening back to Japan. Rather than wheel back on Rama IV at night, we just folded the speed TRs and threw them into the cab. Our new Sri Lankan bungees proved invaluable in securing the trunk, which would not quite close over the Speed TRs.

As we bid farewell to Natsumi, she and Karona were already making plans to do a little Japan wheeling.

AsiaWheeling: spreading the gospel one city at a time.

It was 3:45 in the morning and somehow I was wide awake. It had been only a couple of hours ago that Scott and I had retired after being called to the large swinging windows of our room at the Hotel Nippon  by a massive ruckus outside. When we pushed our heads out into the fresh but balmy Colombo night air, we saw a giant procession coming down the street. Most of the people in the procession were wearing headdresses and pushing a number of shrine/float type objects, set on wheels and lit up with hundreds of lights. These float-shrines were being pushed along by some while others, perhaps those in the most elaborate costumes, actually rode on the devices. The float-shrines were trailed by a van carrying a giant generator that was connected to the floats with a stout bit of electrical cable; it thundered and belched smoke.

So having only returned to my bed a few hours ago, why was I so awake? It was then that I realized the SIM city 2000 theme was playing, and this was a Pavlovian reaction. We needed to get to the airport in time to catch the 7:00 am Sri Lankan Airlines flight to Bangkok, and there was no time to waste. Scott and I struggled to pull ourselves together enough to confirm our baggage was successfully packed and drag it downstairs. Our hotel room at the Hotel Nippon had begun to look something like the apartment I had lived in during college, a place we lovingly referred to as the hovel. By this I mean it had become a wasteland of packaging materials, the smoke from multiple curls of anti-mosquito incense hung thick, and what seemed like hundreds of empty water bottles, bits of take-away packaging, and plastic bags blew through the room like tumbleweeds.

The night before, I had ventured downstairs in search of more take-out Koththu and stopped to prep the bikes for the next day’s travels, so we merely needed to put them in the bags and wait for the cab. The last night’s Koththu, by the way, had been incredibly spicy.

One of the spiciest things I had ever eaten, in fact.   Luckily, we had some buffalo curd to soften the intense flavor of the dish.

After three bites, Scott had found it completely impossible to consume his Koththu, and I was suffering from a most persistent pain all over my mouth still slightly that next day (if you can call 4:00 in the morning day). The owner of the hyper-spicy Koththu joint had approached me as I was buying the stuff, and addressed me in English. “I’ve heard about you,” he said.

“Really?” I replied.

“Yes. I saw you eating bread and lentils next door, and I’d been wanting to come and talk to you but had not the confidence to disturb you. You were studying the history of Coca Cola.” This was true. Scott and I had been eating bread and lentils next door the previous morning and reading about the history of the Coca Cola company on the wikireader. “Why are you in Sri Lanka?” he had asked.

I explained AsiaWheeling to him. And while his cook was making the Koththu, he asked whether I could eat chilies. Having quite the chili ego, I smiled and said, “Oh I love chilies.” Perhaps his chef had taken this as a challenge.

Suddenly, for reasons I will never comprehend, the restaurant then dissolved into a giant argument. With the owner, the cook, and a waiter all screaming at one another about something. The cook began emphasizing his arguments by hammering on a wok with a large metal spatula. I became very uncomfortable and quickly paid for our Koththu, thanking them a few times with no real response, and hurriedly leaving.

Back in the lobby of the Hotel Nippon it was 4:00 in the morning, and our packing of the cycles seemed to have woken the manager; he appeared looking for a tip. The cab driver, it turns out, was present too, lurking in the shadows. He may even have been sleeping that night on the couch. Regardless, we were quite glad to know we had a ride to the airport, and though he had been pretty cold to us, tipped the manager generously, and walked out the swinging double doors of the hotel.

The taxi was more like a 15-passenger van. We had no trouble whatsoever packing the cycles and our luggage into it, and climbed into the thing with plenty of room to stretch out. Our driver was a very intense gentleman, driving very quickly and precisely though the quiet 4:00 am streets of Colombo. His driving was made all the more impressive, when I began to notice that he was not using a clutch. It seems that the clutch on this van had died some time ago, so the whole time he was clutchlessly shifting the thing!

Only the odd drunk and the ubiquitous packs of stray dogs were to be seen. When night wheeling, the latter had caused us a fair bit of grief but no actual violent encounters. Regardless, we were glad to be in the van, rather than out on the streets at this hour. We’ll save getting ravaged by a pack of dogs for later in the trip. Maybe in Kazakhstan.

We expected the airport to be as sleepy and quiet as the streets of Colombo at this hour, but we were sorely mistaken. It was a madhouse. Once we made it through the initial security check, we were siphoned into a giant curling line of people who were waiting to check into our flight. The line moved slowly and someone not far from me was suffering from a quite noticeable gastrointestinal ailment. So long, in fact, was the line that Scott was forced to leave at one point and exit security, in search of water.

Though it seemed to take days, we were finally able to check in. Despite the maddening line, the Sri Lankan Airlines personnel were once again startlingly friendly, and more than willing to accommodate the Speed TRs, taking great care to plaster them with fragile stickers, and carting them off specially, sparing them even from a ride on the luggage conveyor.

Sri Lankan customs was painless, once again full of smiles, and we made our way from there into the monstrously over-priced interior world of the domestic terminal. We bought what must have been the most expensive Nescafe of either of our lives and made our way to one of the few cafes in the terminal to await our flight. To our great surprise and excitement, the cafe had free wireless Internet, which was so addictive and transporting that we nearly missed our flight. Realizing we had become quite tardy, we hurried down the terminal toward our gate, where we were for one reason or another spared from the passport security check.  After passing through the check, we chatted with a weathered and disheveled Frenchman in his mid 60s who had just arrived from Paris and was heading to Bangkok with us.  As cabin luggage, he brought an open rubber diving bag with a single nylon strap holding it to his shoulder.  He wore chucks, loose jeans with no belt, a plaid shirt, and stylish glasses.  Wherever this fellow was going, we thought, must be a place worth visiting.

While the Indian fellows behind us were being detained and investigated, we were able to hurry our way onto the plane, where we had what was likely the nicest economy seats on the entire jet.

They were at the bulkhead, but for one reason or another, had been given a whole extra row’s worth of leg room. We lazed back and settled in for the flight.

Out the window, the beautiful and mountainous Sri Lanka passed below under wispy clusters of white clouds.

I’ll tell you, dear reader, Sri Lankan Airlines really knows how to treat a fellow. We were given delightful pineapple-themed menus from which to order brunch, offered many glasses of juice and coffee, and shown such kindness by the staff. Sri Lankan Airlines: huge AsiaWheeling stamp of approval.

After the meal, I retreated to the bathroom to freshen up with a shave.

I had barely begun to watch Liza Minelli’s Lucky Lady on my private screen when we landed in Bangkok.

We had been in touch with our Thailand Bureau, its chief officer being a Mr. Dane Wetschler, about meeting up that day and arranging for a place to stay, but unfortunately, had been unable to reach the point of email exchange in which we would acquire our man’s cell phone number.  Fruitlessly, we powered up the mobile office to scour our email, but the digits were no where to be found.

So we were riding somewhat blind. The only information that we had that would connect us to the AsiaWheeling Thailand Bureau was the address Dane had given us to use in shipping his business cards.

So our plan was to navigate through immigration, then take a cab to the address, in hopes of finding him.

Strangely enough, Thailand was to be the least English speaking country we had yet traveled in, but also, at least in the case of Bangkok, one of the most developed. The Bangkok Airport was clean and efficient, as we had remembered it, sporting some highly evolved advertising. My stomach was still rumbling a little from the high voltage Koththu that I had purchased in the middle of the night, so the presence of sparkling clean and fresh scented bathrooms was also a delightful comfort.

We stopped at a Japanese style Ramen shop to enjoy two steaming bowls of sustenance, which were so refreshingly different that despite very few hours of sleep the previous night, they brought us back into the present. And with that we climbed into a cab. The cabbie spoke very little English and had no idea where Dane’s place was, though when we showed him the address that we had scrawled on a piece of paper, he did recognize the neighborhood. It seemed he would be able to get us to the general vicinity , but we’d have to rely on the locals for the exact location.

As we drove deeper and deeper into Bangkok, Scott and I both began drawing lines between this city and Tokyo. It had a very solid stylistic feel to it, good-looking streets, and the same mixture of medium-rise apartment buildings, covered with balconies containing A/C units and plenty of drying laundry, and giant business and condominium towers, which loomed sporting huge advertisements.

It was also filled with convenience stores, just like Tokyo. It looked and felt wealthy in way we had not experienced since Kuala Lumpur. When we arrived in Dane’s neighborhood, we found it to be a maze of small streets, cluttered with street food stands, 7-11s, and little guest houses. The pedestrian traffic was surprisingly white, indicating this was an expat neighborhood.

We drove back and forth on the small streets looking for Sathorn Condo Place, but to no avail. We asked for directions again and again, and while each person we (or our cab driver) spoke to was more than happy to help, no one seemed to know which apartment building was Dane’s. Finally, we parked outside a 7-11 and our driver radioed in for navigational support.

The navigational support was inconclusive, and finally we just climbed out of the cab and unfolded the cycles. We now began to explore on wheels. As we rode, Scott began to explain a theory that he was working on, drawing the conclusion that in fact the mysterious condominium complex was actually above the 7-11. And when we returned to the 7-11, the woman at the front desk seemed to confirm this.

We then approached a nearby security guard and started to communicate in pantomime that we were looking to encounter a giant curly-haired man who we knew lived inside. He looked at us curiously, until one of his compatriots recognized our description and exclaimed “Dahn!” Ah, it seems Dane was going by the name “Dahn” here in Thailand (we later discovered that this was because ‘dane’ in Thai means something like ‘refuse to be discarded’ …fair enough). The new security guard, promptly unlocked the door and led us to the elevator and up to the 7th floor. Once the elevator doors opened, we walked directly across to a door, which sure enough had a couple of tee-shirt shaped charms hanging next to it, one of which said “Dane,” the other of which said “Jeremy.” Looked like the right place…

Our guard knocked sharply at Dane’s door and we waited. He knocked again. And again. He began to frown and look at us. We were just about to give up when we heard a slight shuffling noise inside. We starting knocking again with renewed fury and soon the door opened. And there he was, in all his glory, 7 odd feet tall, size 16 feet, prominent beak of a nose and curly black hair. He greeted us with a giant grin, and dismissed the security guard with a deftly maneuvered “kup kun kap.”

He immediately invited us to the roof for a cup of coffee and to take in a view of the city. And what a city it is.

It was already obvious. Thailand was going to be a decidedly new chapter of the trip.  Coming back downstairs, Dane serenaded us with beats from his MonoMachine, an electronic music sequencer synthesizer.

That night, Dane introduced us to his girlfriend, Karona, a Japanese woman living in Bangkok, and her friend, Natsumi. The five of us went out to a fantastic restaurant that evening.

It was our first taste of Thai food in Thailand, and we were quite blown away, not least so by the rice. It was very long grain, and unbelievably sticky.

Dane explained to us that it is often eaten with the hands.  We were thrilled by the plates of greens which flanked each meat dish.

As the night wore on, we lounged and munched on glutinous rice shapes, discussing, among many other things, plans for all of us to wheel Bangkok together the next day.

Back at the Hotel Nippon, our return was met with resounding glee by the three women who worked at the front desk, and an inexplicable coldness from the manager. We had been so happy with our last room at the hotel, which, we could plainly see from the key hanging on the wall, was not occupied. So we asked for it back. But it seemed the room had magically transformed itself into an A/C room during our time in Kandy, and the manager refused to give it to us at the previous rate.

Fair enough. So we asked to be shown to a new room, after which we threw down our baggage and were preparing to relax when we noticed that not only was this room carpeted in filthy red fabric, lit only by a small greasy window, and featuring a truly unnerving cockroach infestation, but the toilet lacked the sprayer that we had come to know and love as a standard component of AsiaWheeling’s lavatory experience. This was simply too much. So we demanded a different room.

The new room was much better, with the standard tile floor rather than a carpet, and we celebrated by wiling away the rest of the evening working on correspondence, waking up the next day to bright sunlight pouring through all four of our windows, the last fragment of an Indonesian style anti-mosquito incense curl still smoldering in the room’s ashtray. Feeling so great that we dared venture out before coffee, we strode downstairs and hopped on the cycles. We were interested in buying the latest issue of The Economist, AsiaWheeling’s favorite publication, but unfortunately it was Saturday, and the only shop in Colombo that carried the magazine was closed. Switching gears, we decided that coffee and food would be vital to our continued existence in this city. So off we went, searching for a place that looked reasonably affordable, sanitary, and open for business.

Somehow, we ended up on a street full of jewel and precious metals merchants, which was protected from all non-two-wheeled traffic by a large security gate. The guards were not interested in AsiaWheeling, though, flagging us right through. Inside we found a strange little hotel (which is what they call restaurants in Sri Lanka). We entered and immediately the owner pushed the normal waiter aside and insisted on serving us himself. We ordered two coffees and two chicken and rices.

When the owner asked whether we wanted large or small coffees, though it was the first time we had been asked such a question in Sri Lanka, we thought of how hard it had been up until this point to get properly caffeinated, and responded “large.” And while the large was quite large, it was positively too sweet to drink, and gave only the weakest signs of containing coffee.

Vast quantities of sugared milk aside, the meal was incredibly tasty. I am quite sure we paid a pretty hefty foreigner tax, but in return we were given a steaming plate of freshly fried biryani rice, topped with succulent, juicy roasted chicken, with a papery crisp skin clinging to it. Ah Sri Lankan food…

As we were leaving, I noticed my bike was making some strange noises, and I wheeled back to the shelter of the hotel’s awning to investigate. As I stared into the depths of the rear tire, the owner and a few of his waiters came out to assist. It turned out to be a rock, glued by street grime to the inside of my rear fender. Easily removed. In exchange, the owner of the restaurant asked us whether we could sponsor a visa for him to come live and work in the USA. We told him that we did not know whether or not we could help, but gave him our cards and told him that if he sent us an email, we would see what we could do (unfortunately, we have yet to receive an email).

Quite satisfied despite the marked lack of caffeine, we hit the road and began wheeling hard for the outskirts. I do believe this is evidence, dear reader, that during our time in Sri Lanka, the AsiaWheeling team was actually beginning to wean itself from its coffee addiction. We had not even had a cup of java yet, and we were wheeling hard, with almost full lucidity.

Scott and I made our way out of the city center and into what turned out to be the Muslim quarter. We attracted a significantly higher number of looks, but none of them were threatening, and the roads were still quite good, so we wheeled on. We wheeled past the port of Colombo, where the air reeks of rotting fish, and large concrete barriers hide its inner workings from the prying eyes of roving adventure capitalists.

We stopped for a cup of Nescafe at a small bakery that appeared to be constructed mostly out of broken mirrors. The owner was happy to chat with us, but suffered from some strange eye ailment, which caused each of his eyes to wander in meandering and completely uncorrelated ways. It was one of those bizarrely unnerving situations in which one feels both compelled and dissuaded from looking.

Back on the road, we picked up a fellow wheeler for a bit, when a young Sri Lankan pulled up on his Chinese mountain bike. He gave up when we decided to tackle a large uphill and disappeared without a goodbye. Wheel safe brother. On the other side of the hill, we found ourselves at a security checkpoint bridge, on the other side of which was a totally different world, which one might call rural Sri Lanka. As we pedaled onward, the roads dissolved into crumbling pothole-ridden obstacle courses, and sported, for one reason or another, huge piles of rock spilling onto the road at regular intervals . Perhaps these were the leftovers, or the groundwork for some vast repaving project.

We had made our way pretty far from the city, and even the roadside goods sellers were beginning to peter out.

We used the vast grid-work of irrigation/sewage canals that seem to cover this whole region to help us navigate, for the roads would often wind this way and that, or simply peter out.

Our water was getting very low, and we began searching for a beverage seller, but there proved to be none around. We were driving by a large construction site, when I spotted a kind of dilapidated stand that had been erected there presumably for the purpose of selling food and beverages to the highway workers. As we wheeled over to it, a large crew of workers were finishing their cigarette and Coca-Cola break.

Without using any words that the woman who worked behind the counter could understand, we asked if they sold water. No, she replied, but they had coconuts. We looked to our left, and sure enough there was a giant cluster of golden coconuts hanging there. We ordered two.

The coconuts in Sri Lanka are perhaps a different species than we had found elsewhere on AsiaWheeling,  for they invariably appear a bright golden color. Any more data on the Sri Lankan coconut situation is more than welcome in the comments.

The coconuts were about 15 cents each, and we settled into a couple of plastic chairs to sip them through two neon straws. It seemed from the insignia on the signage and the uniforms of the employees that this was a Chinese-run construction project here to develop infrastructure by the port and expand an expressway in Sri Lanka. Just as we were speculating about the nature of the project, a van full of workers arrived, and their Chinese boss climbed out. He was on a mission to get coconuts and cigarettes for his men,  but was not in so much of a hurry that he could not spend a little time speaking Chinese with Scott. The man seemed quite thrilled at our mission, and confirmed our suspicions that they were building a highway. It was in fact a highway from the airport to the center of Colombo. As the Chinese man climbed back into his van, we slurped the last of our coconuts, reveling in what a great waypoint that had been.

From there we made our way back toward the main road that connects Colombo with the airport.

We knew its general location now, from the fact that we could see the direction of the new highway that was being built to replace it. Back on the road, we were finally able to buy water and a few snacks at a giant grocery store called “food city.”

The snacks were just barely enough to fuel us all the way back to Colombo, where we found ourselves badly in need of a savage meal. The solution presented itself as we rode past a middle eastern restaurant, which promised us that fantastic dish known as shawarma. We even made the foolhardy decision to purchase a Greek salad from them. This was of course wilted, sandy, and tough on the guts. But whatever…we were thrilled. It had been a great day, a savage wheel, and we were content with the world.  If we had been in an overly celebratory mood, it’s possible we would have purchased a four pack of The Happiest Drink in the World, “BabyCham”.

AsiaWheeling is pleased to announce the launch of a much discussed and long awaited piece of functionality. We are speaking, of course, about AsiaWheeling’s Project K9.

But what is Project K9, you ask? Well, there are some things we can tell you, and some that will have to remain secret for now. To give you a basic idea, Project K9 is a treasure hunt, taking place all across Asia, the middle east, and Siberia, and we want you to get involved.

From now on, AsiaWheeling will be exploring cities not merely in search of the extremes of experience, but also in search of treasures that have been requested by our readers. Still a little confused? I understand. Perhaps an example of one such treasure would help to shed some light on the subject.

Scott was catching up with Gabriel Lepine (pictured left) over cocktails at the Macao Trading Company in New York City. As the two discussed AsiaWheeling’s new treasure hunt initiative, Gab became intrigued. He immediately put his order in for something to grace the wall of his Tribeca apartment. The request? A wooden mask. The price? About $100. A simple request and the perfect challenge for AsiaWheeling.

From there, we ventured off to the east in search of such a mask. We were to find it two weeks into our journey in Yogjakarta, Indonesia, the Javanese cultural capital. The masks felt sturdy and robust. Together, the pair consisted of a king and queen. It seemed like the perfect fit for our man Gab.

We made our way to the Indonesian post office, wrapped it in newsprint, burlap bags, fibrous twine, and brown paper, and sent it on its way to the Big Apple. Corresponding with Gab, we showed him the map below which documents its discovery location.

“I love it, it’s great.” Gab exclaimed upon receiving the masks. Soon, we’ll post a photo of the masks on the wall in their new home, though for now, the loot is pictured below.

Want to place an order in the Project K9 system? There’s still plenty of the trip left and we welcome you to challenge us with requests. Just fill out the request form here, and we’ll follow up over email seal the deal.

True it was astronomically expensive, but the convenience of eating breakfast before wheeling all the way down the mountain in the city of Kandy was too much for us, so we made our way once again up to the rooftop restaurant at Rodney’s Viewpoint, and consumed that watery pot of coffee and two spicy pepper omelets before climbing onto the cycles again.

The day’s wheel was to take us up into the famous Ceylon tea country, which lay in the highlands above the city of Kandy. We were not sure how to get there, but knowing that it surrounded the city in just about every direction made navigation less of a big deal.

After making our way down the mountain and into the city, I called a random lichtenstein, which sent us climbing uphill. The road continued uphill and so did we, soon pouring sweat even more furiously than the day before. We stopped from time to time to drink more water and coffee, only to return to the endless uphill climb. Soon my ears were popping and the temperature was falling.

The new cool breeze felt icy as my soaking wet shirt flapped against my back, giving me a mighty chill.  Kandy was spreading out beneath us, shrouded in that strange cocktail of clouds and smog. We were well out of the confines of the usual tourist zone, and were quite a sight for the children and tea plantation workers whose homes dotted the roadside. Soon the foliage around us began to change from thick tropical jungle to tea plantations, and with it, the temperature fell even further.

We rode higher and higher into the clouds. Now the air was downright comfortable, and dry enough that our sweat was beginning to evaporate faster than it was being produced. It felt great.

At one point, we stopped for a rest and I wandered off into the tea fields. The smell of the tea plants was strong, but not necessarily analogous to any smell I had until then associated with tea.

We continued to climb, wheeling by the Ceylon Tea Museum, outside of which we were harangued by a group of school children on their way, in a great uniformed hoard, presumably toward the bus stop. Traffic  thinned so much that we would ride for five to 10 minutes at a time before we were passed by an auto rickshaw or delivery truck. All the while, the view around us grew increasingly dramatic, made all the more so by the polarization of the Maui Jims.

Finally, after a couple hours of climbing, we reached the highest crest of  the road. Ahead of us, the wild unknown of Sri Lanka spread in its jungled mystery, while behind us the city of Kandy looked like a tiny smokey pile of pebbles, which had collected in the midst of these great green mountains.

We locked the cycles to each other amidst the tea fields that spread out on either side of us and decided to go for a hike. We were at a place where two steep peaks met in a pass. First we made our way a mile or so along the side of one of them until we came around a corner surprised suddenly to hear music. A few more curves later on the stony path, we found ourselves in a small village. We wandered along, taking in the small concrete homes, all of which appeared to be empty (their owners presumably at work in the tea fields), including the one which emitted the music. We were just about to turn around, when we ran into a man in a lungi walking along the same path. We stopped to greet him and exchanged a few words. He welcomed us to the mountain, and inquired as to where we were going. He seemed sort of confused that we would come all the way up here just to turn around. Obviously he had no idea in how worthy-of-sightseeing a place he lived. This was working out to be one of the most glorious wheels of my life.

We made our way back to the cycles, and after taking stock of our diminishing supply of water, decided that we had just enough to climb the remaining peak (the taller of the two). The path up was originally or had long ago become a drainage channel for rain coming off the mountain. It was the dry season, so we did not have to deal with mud, but we were sent scrambling a few times as the steep, dry earth of the trail gave way underfoot.

When we finally reached the top, we found it to be covered with a kind of highland prairie, most of which had been recently burned, with the telltale  strips of unburned stomped grass, and hastily dug trenches running through it that suggested the fire had been deliberately started and controlled by people.

We wandered through the ashes and I took a moment to explore a long unvisited memory of accompanying my father to a prairie burn in Iowa. It had been a startlingly hot, loud, and generally intense experience. I could barely imagine how much more intense such an endeavor would be on the windswept top of this mountain.

Having submitted, we made our way back down to the cycles, which we found had been moved by someone, to a lower spot some 15 feet over. We thanked the powers that be that the move was not into the back of someone’s pickup truck never to be seen again.  Before heading down, we stopped at the Ceylon Tea Museum for a cup of the stuff, but they had none to serve.  Instead, we used their restroom and avoided a gigantic swarm of gnats that buzzed in the carpark.

The ride down was a high voltage exercise in proper breaking technique, for had we not paid careful attention, we could have easily either melted our break pads, wiped out taking a turn too fast, or a fearsome combination of both.

Back in town it was high time for a feast, which we found at a local buffet-type restaurant, at which we were thrilled to consume a fragrant  local brown rice.

Now, you dear reader, might think that after such a savage wheel up a savage mountain  we might be tired, sweaty, reeking of endorphins, and generally more beast than man. And you would be correct. But if you think we were about to go take a shower and relax, you’d be dead wrong. You see, AsiaWheeling had, in its supreme ignorance, scheduled only a week for the whole of Sri Lanka, and there was no time to waste being civilized.  We now sought directions for the next waypoint.

We needed to visit the Temple of the Tooth. And so we did, or at least the surrounds.

We parked the bikes outside of the temple and locked them to a couple of bright yellow riot barriers, which were in and of themselves quite interesting, being essentially large walls of spikes with wheels on the bottom of them, presumably to be used in forcing large groups of people into a predefined space. Raw indeed.

Nearby the riot walls, there were a great many tour guides and taxi fellows who were very interested in AsiaWheeling Global Enterprises, the Speed TRs’  estimated value, and in providing us with services during our time in Kandy, and more specifically, at the Temple of the Tooth. We were, of course, not interested in purchasing any services, but being exhausted and rather cracked out on endorphins, we were more than interested in socializing. So it was with a small entourage that we approached the Temple of the Tooth, informing our new friends only once we entered the security checkpoint that we would not be requiring any services beyond our recent conversation. It was visibly heartbreaking, but as far from a result of animosity on our part as possible.

As the heavily armed guard frisked Scott he asked him in very good English, “Were those men giving you any trouble?” “No. No. Not at all,” Scott replied. And we made our way into the inner courtyard of the temple.

It was quite beautiful. And we were thrilled to be strolling in the sunlight.

We circumnavigated the temple, taking in the many carvings and interesting buttresses that kept the elaborate tiled roof in place. As we made our way around, we found ourselves suddenly in a rather forgotten and none too often trafficked courtyard. We looked to one of the many guards with AK 47s who were lazing under umbrellas, but they met our gaze only with smiles and waves, indicating that we had not strolled into any kind of restricted zone. Perhaps just the post apocalyptic zone.

As we made our way around, the amount of trash on the ground grew, and a number of open sewers appeared. Soon we could hear a very strange sound, something like the wet crack of a femur breaking, again and again, followed by the clatter of chains.

Haunting, I know. And no less haunting was the sight that we found when we turned the next corner. It was a large a very scarred elephant.

Both of its back legs were chained to a wall, and it shuffled from side to side in an alarmingly deranged way, as it munched on a large pile of palm trunks. Extreme.

Feeling like we’d had about enough of the Temple of the Tooth, we made our way back to the riot wall and the cycles.

From there, the sun set on Kandy,  and our stomachs were filled once again with Koththu before a night of fitful sleep in Rodney’s Viewpoint.

I awoke somewhat disoriented in our room at “Rodney’s Viewpoint” and spent a while battling with the mosquito net that emerged from a single point above us and had somehow enclosed me in a meshed chrysalis. As consciousness worked its way to the forefront of my brain, the task became easier and easier until soon I was free. I immediately made my way out onto the balcony for a bit of air, where I found the view to be, as we had suspected, quite tremendous.

Rodney’s hotel was literally clinging to the edge of a cliff-side road, and below our balcony the ground fell away rapidly.  The misty or perhaps smokey air hung low around the valley, and gave the surrounding mountains a distant magical feel. We could hear monkeys and birds screeching, and, after being polarized by our new Maui Jim sunglasses, the sun played most dramatically over the forest of palms spread below.

We decided that while the dinner at Rodney’s was simply too expensive to indulge in, we might be justified in supporting the man with our breakfast patronage. So when Scott awoke, we made our way to the rooftop restaurant, where we found a room full of empty tables. It felt like we were the only guests, though some noises last night had suggested otherwise. A team of three fellows perked up on our arrival and quickly showed us to one of the many empty tables. We ordered the $4.00 (expensive) omelet breakfast and were quite thrilled to see one of the waiters arriving with a truly giant pot of coffee.  Our elation was only slightly dampened when we found the coffee to be mostly hot water, with a tablespoon or so of coffee grounds sloshing around in the bottom of it. The milk was undeniably delicious, however, sporting that thin film that accompanies the recent boiling of milk.

The omelets were also delicious, packed with scallions and hot peppers, and the toast plentiful. And when we left Rodney’s to head into town we were only a few cups of coffee and a solid wheel away from true bliss — which is damned close. The sun was bright and it was quite hot, despite the rise in elevation relative to Colombo.

The wind in our hair felt good and we pedaled hard down the winding road that lead from the high mountainside into the city of Kandy, where we commenced a meandering wheel, taking turns bishoping until we found ourselves quite lost. Traffic was surprisingly thick, but at 11:30 am, it could not be attributed to any kind of rush hour.

We stopped for lunch when we passed a restaurant, which proudly proclaimed in large yellow painted letters “eat me.” With Lewis Carroll in mind, we decided to heed its advice. The joint proved to be a tasty egg and chicken curry place, with a few branches around the greater Kandy area.

The egg and chicken curry was not only the signature dish, but also the only thing on the menu that was actually available, so we ordered it along with coffee and a locally produced chocolate milk, served in glass bottles which were all, for one reason or another, only filled three quarters of the way.

With eating once again temporarily out of the way, we climbed back on the cycles and continued to wheel through the sweltering heat. We were sweating hard, and needed to stop for water often. One of our water stops placed us across the street from a very interesting looking multi-level temple.

We decided we had better go explore. The top floor was at the street level, but much like Rodney’s Viewpoint, it clung to the side of a cliff and extended for a few floors downward.

We took a moment to enjoy the many small oil lamps and candles which proclaimed the long existence or at least the heavy use of this place.  We then made our way through a lion’s mouth door down into the basement where we found a group of workmen building an extension to the more conventional temple complex. They paused from their work only briefly to acknowledge us, before inviting us to move on and explore more of what may or may not have been appropriately called part of the temple.

Downstairs we found some evidence of older iterations of this place’s religious usage, now cracked and broken, and what appeared to be the administrative offices of the whole operation. One more floor down, we found mostly mud and garbage, but also a rewarding view of the river that ran along the bottom of this particular small valley.

Back on the road, Scott and I were climbing over a number of hills, first sweating our way up, then bombing down the other side, attempting to optimize between the degree to which momentum would help us climb the next incline and the increased danger of riding at high speeds in thick traffic. A few hills later, we were forced to call a waypoint when we passed the Sri Lankan National Botanical Gardens. We had read that these were quite amazing, and Scott seemed to remember that we might even be able to wheel through them. In a fit of excitement at that notion, I dove right into buying tickets without even asking whether the cycles were permitted. They were of course not, and so we found ourselves suddenly strolling. And what a stroll it was.

As you, dear reader, already know, AsiaWheeling is none too keen on attending tourist attractions during this trip, preferring to leave them up to the Flickr crowd. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and this, was a most wonderful one.

The Sri Lankan National Botanical Gardens are quite a sight to behold. And though they are designed much like  western botanical gardens (they were, as I understand it, originally done by the British during colonial times), unlike western botanical gardens, the patrons are allowed to wander freely amidst the foliage, as opposed to being bound to the paths.

We visited the orchid house,

wandered across a suspension bridge,

stopped for tea in a giant open field,

and strolled through an area that must be home to most of the bats in the greater Kandy municipal region.

Feeling very satisfied, very high society, and rather colonial, we hopped back on the bikes for a little reality check on the boiling, traffic jammed, reeking and smokey streets of Kandy. At one point traffic was forced to part, making its way around the body of an old woman who lay in the middle of the road. Whether she was alive or dead, I will never know. But as I wheeled by I could not help but think to myself “what is my responsibility here?” Can I just wheel by? Should I cause more of a traffic jam by stopping to investigate her condition? Were I to discover the worst, what was the next action? It is a difficult situation, the type that points directly at one’s inhumanity. Regardless, I rode by. And soon enough, was once again consumed in the act of preserving my own life amidst the thick traffic.

In an attempt to avoid the snarling and deafening traffic jam that now revealed to us that indeed there was a rush hour in Kandy, meaning the previous nightmare had merely been the default level of madness, we made our way up a steep side street and promptly became completely lost again. Realizing we were running low, we called another water waypoint at a local roadside joint.  The place was filled with a number of Sri Lankan workers. Most were covered in dark filth, and eating boiled sweet potatoes. They were very interested in AsiaWheeling and our strange folding cycles. The first question was, of course, how much do they cost, but after that we began a rather interesting emergent conversation in which each question or response on their side would require the full brainpower of all involved to come up with English words with which to construct an answer. After a bit, they insisted on buying us a few boiled sweet potatoes, which were presented to us in a searingly hot metal bowl, and eaten along with a condiment not so unlike an extra-hot Pace salsa.

Though it burned our fingers, we ate this with gusto.

Finding our way back to town proved not too difficult. On our way back to Rodney’s Viewpoint we stopped at a local grocery store called Cargill’s Food City and wandered around for a bit enjoying the air conditioning.

Finally, we finished the evening with another feast of Koththu.

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We awoke with plenty of time to buy our tickets back at the train station and do a little exploring on the streets of Colombo. We breakfasted on a kind of Koththu-house variant across the street from the Hotel Nippon and attempted to consume coffee, but were only successful in being served hot sweetened milk and aptly named “rock” style cookie.

Still badly in need of caffeine, we headed for the clogged snarl of traffic that marked the entrance to Colombo station. We managed to buy the last two tickets in the Observation Saloon on the 3:35 train to Kandy and a couple of sticky white plastic cups full of Nescafe. With that were set free to wheel.

We decided to wheel south in search of a leather goods retailer, which Anu had mentioned the night before. You see, dear reader, our humble Mr. Norton’s shoes had reached the point of reeking tatters and he was badly in need of new footwear. However, as the sun beat down, we wheeled on in search of the place to no avail. Scott has the mixed fortune of a size 13 foot, which makes shoe shopping on some parts of Asiawheeling rather difficult. Finally, we started stopping at random shoe stores, and requesting giant shoes, and after a few failures were rewarded with a choice between two styles. The final selection was a pair of smart-looking Greco-Roman sandals, which you may see handsomely modeled below.

The old tattered shoes were promptly jettisoned in the shoe shop rubbish bin.

Back on the road, it was time to eat again, and we quite randomly made our way to a Sri Lankan fried rice place, where we purchased a half chicken and a large pile of rice, filled with freshly chopped vegetables. It was delightful, but not cheap. As we were quickly learning, food in Sri Lanka was significantly more expensive than in India. Also, here too we would from time to time find ourselves paying the “foreigner tax,” an inflation in the price of the meal by a few times to account for our apparent wealth and ethnicity.

After the meal was done, we wiped our hands with newsprint provided in lieu of napkins on the table.

Stomachs full, we wheeled back to the Hotel Nippon, and we were greeted warmly by the staff and the owners of nearby businesses. So warmly in fact, that we were not able to leave for the train station without letting a local electronics merchant take a quick ride on a Speed TR.

He gave us his  two cell phones as collateral and grabbed the bike for a joyride.

At the train station, when we attempted to wheel the speed TRs onto the platform, it had the unintended consequence of creating quite a bit of ruckus. A group of fellows, in varying levels of official looking garb were motioning us into the baggage room, but we were resistant. We wanted to keep those cycles as close to us as possible, and the thought of kissing them goodbye in some dark boxcar at the other end of the train was none too palatable. Instead of going into the luggage room, as the many fellows around us seemed to be motioning for us to do, we decided to entrance them all with a demonstration of the folding action. As we had hoped, the act of watching the two majestic steeds collapse into neat little folded metal shapes left the luggage attendants, station officials, and a great many passers-by quite docile and grinning. We thanked everyone for their attention, and moved on down the platform.

As we walked, we found ourselves accompanied by a fellow advertising hotels in Kandy to us. We did our very best to politely ignore him, but he was vehement, and soon was joined by another fellow who introduced himself as Rodney. We were not sure where our platform was, and these two fellows were quite kind in showing us the way. As we walked, Rodney and his lackey explained to us that they ran a very affordable and beautiful guest house, and began showing us a book full of comments from other travelers, pointing in particular to a letter written by two Swedish tourists claiming “this fellow is not a tout, he really does run a beautiful guest house. Thanks Rodney!”Hmm, I thought, a bit inconclusive.

We were still feeling a little dubious of these two chaps when the train arrived. And, with it, we had to focus on other issues. Fitting the bikes into the Observation Saloon would be tough. It was packed with people, lacked air conditioning or active fans, and was so sticky and hot that breathing inside took considerable effort. Rodney came into the car like superman burst from a telephone booth and began bustling around, making noises that might be confused with assistance, but really just continuing to work on making a sale. We did our best to explain that this was a bad time to discuss lodging, as we were quickly asphyxiating in the Observation Saloon, with our belongings piled in our seats, leaving us nowhere to seek shelter from the torrent of nervous sweaty tourists becoming militantly overheated and pacing the aisles of the observation car in frustration.

Rodney, in an attempt to help us out, motioned to the back of the car, where there was, in fact, a large and empty room behind us marked “luggage.” He even ventured as far as to go back there and converse for a bit with the guards who were lazing and smoking cigarettes therein. Unfortunately, after this conversation, he  returned with mumbled apologies, informing us that we could not use that space.Why? We were not sure. It was part of the Observation Saloon, and marked “luggage.” Rodney just kept apologizing, interspersing some key facts about the superiority of his guest house.

AsiaWheeling was ready to suspend ourselves from the ceiling by our feet, hanging like bats, keeping one eye open to ensure that our bags and bikes stayed safe when it occurred to Scott that another, more personal, request to the luggage attendants might solicit a more favorable response, and as the train was whistling its imminent departure, he headed back to begin negotiations. He reappeared shortly, all smiles, despite his soaking shirt and red face. We would be able to store the cycles in the luggage room, but we needed to hurry. The train would leave any moment. And so we hustled down the platform, handing the cycles up to the guard, and climbing in after them just as the train started moving. We locked them to a bench and shook hands with the guards. We made our way back into the Observation Saloon just in time to see the many tiny fans which hung from the ceiling spin to life, sending a blessed wind throughout the compartment.

We bounced on very springy chairs as the sun began to sink toward the horizon. We climbed out of Colombo and into the sweltering mountainous jungles of Sri Lanka, past terraced rice fields and tiny villages. We wiled away the train ride, watching the scenery go by, working on correspondence for you, dear reader, and chatting with our fellow passengers. One was an American, who had so furious a case of the traveler’s nerves, that he quite effectively transmitted them to me. He had been living abroad for many years, working in Indonesia, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Sri Lanka. He was a government contractor for the U.S. (or The Empire, as he called it), working with SMEs, as he referred to them. His outlook was one of the most pessimistic and jaded I have yet encountered. I found myself, as we spoke with him, beginning to fear that AsiaWheeling was one big mistake. As he explained to me how he refused to reveal his nationality to the locals for fear of violence, I began to question my own representation of myself. I felt a cold ball of fear growing in my stomach as he went on about how the people one meets while one travels may seem friendly, but many of them want to kill you.

Of course this is malarkey, dear reader, but perhaps you might be willing to forgive me for exiting the train in Kandy in somewhat of a nervous state. The sun had just fallen behind the tea plantation-covered mountains, and we found  ourselves face to face once again with Rodney, who was kicking his pitch into overdrive. He was offering us free transport to his place, and I was beginning to have visions of makeshift operating tables, organs preserved on ice, and rusty IVs snaking their way into coconuts. Scott, on the other hand, had taken a look at the brochure, haggled a little over the price and was ready to climb in the car. I explained to Scott that he would need to handle this, and that I could not be trusted. So despite my nerves, we climbed into a very tightly packed sedan. It seemed Rodney had wanted to accompany us in the car, but it was all we could do to fit the cycles, our packs, Scott, the driver, and I into the car. So Rodney took a cab, and we made our way to his hotel.

To Rodney’s credit, the place was quite nice, his driver a great chap, and the price quite affordable. To his discredit, his marketing was way too intense, and the place was a decent ride (uphill) from the town of Kandy. An uphill ride that was just fine for two strapping young AsiaWheelers, but certainly not an accommodation to recommend to the very old or very fat. To reach the place, we needed to drive around a great lake, which partially surrounded the central attraction in Kandy, the so-called “Temple of the Tooth.” The temple of the tooth is a large Buddhist temple that houses what is purported to be a tooth of Buddha himself. It unfortunately, had been a target of the Liberation Tamil Tiger’s of Elam during the insurgency, so the main road which ran alongside it had been closed indefinitely, open only to pedestrians and official traffic. All other traffic had to snake around the lake. This, it seemed, had been a boon for the many businesses that had spring up along the far side of the lake. While not as many as in Colombo, here too, we saw many, many heavily armed soldiers and military checkpoints dotting the roadside.

Our room at Rodney’s Viewpoint was clean and fresh, with a nice balcony that promised a truly stunning view come sunup. It’s also true that the walls were made of thin sheets of corrugated plastic, that the toilet emitted onto the floor a little squirt of foul and reeking water each time you flushed it, and that the door to the balcony was designed to lock one outside, but we were overall quite impressed. This little hotel perched on a hill overlooking Kandy would be a nice place to stay for a few days.

We were introduced to the staff, who engaged in some very hard selling of startlingly expensive dinners in the restaurant upstairs, which we were finally able to politely decline.  To top it all off, the sign on the door of our room, was like a piece of psychedelic, non sequitur contemporary art, especially when photographed in low light.  It reads (when viewed from within the room) “Please lock the door,  you are not in the room.”

We paid them for the next few nights and hopped on the cycles. The ride down into the city was invigorating and decidedly downhill. Traffic was light, and we took the opportunity to really let the speed TRs eat some road. The city of Kandy spread out below us like handful of glittering gems nestled in a jungle valley. It was high time for some more Koththu.

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The Sim City 2000 theme poured out of my cell phone, calling us to rise once again at 4:45 am and head to a new country. This we did, bidding our new friends at the Mass Residency farewell and climbing into another of  those fantastic metered cabs. Bangalore was slowly waking up around us. We could see women sweeping the streets and vendors setting up their stands. The sun shone in long golden rays, which transformed the choking smoke of the streets into a cool jungle mist.  The sky lit up in deep oranges and pinks and we settled into that feeling of motion. Ah, morning:  So ripe with possibility.

And Sri Lankan Airlines… so delightful an airline. The line to check in was long and snaking, but moved quickly. It was mostly full of Sri Lankan traders pushing luggage carts piled high with boxes of Indian goods, wrapped in bright blue tape. When we came up to the counter, the fellows seemed relieved to be interacting with a passenger who was not fiercely bargaining over his charges for excess luggage. They were quite happy to take the cycles and our packs with none of that nonsense about a “sports equipment charge,” happily plastering the Dahon bags with fragile stickers, and dispatching a squadron of uniformed fellows to handle our belongings. Our luggage reduced to merely a couple small packs and a ukulele, we enjoyed strolling through the clean, air-conditioned, metallic space.

On the other side of security, we purchased a couple of espressos and a couple of Badam milks.

Badam milk turned out to be a kind of nut-flavored milk, into which we poured the rather acrid and overpriced espressos. We were feeling quite awake and excited about Sri Lanka when we climbed onto the plane. The seats were large and comfortable and the flight attendants very friendly. Each was dressed in a very brightly colored traditional Sri Lankan sari, printed with a vibrant peacock feather pattern. It seemed no sooner had we finished breakfast than we were landing in Sri Lanka.

We had no idea what to expect from Sri Lanka. We knew that it had recently made the transition from developing-country-hampered-by-fiercely-violent-civil-war to developing-country-bolstered-by-floods-of-foreign-investment. From the exterior, the airport looked not unlike that of Milwaukee, except that it was nestled amidst lush tropical foliage. Inside, the facility was clean, small, easy to navigate, and quite welcoming. We waited in line at the passport control counter, which was covered with glowing back-lit imagery of men and women in traditional Sri Lankan dress welcoming us to the country. The border official greeted me with a giant smile and promptly stamped my passport, welcoming me in English. We waited in the baggage area, while endless amounts of imported Indian goods wrapped in blue tape were unloaded. I kept an eye out for our cycles and bags while Scott went in search of the oblong items counter, where we had often found the cycles in the past.

Here in the airport we had our first encounter with what was to become a constant theme of our time in Sri Lanka: heavily armed military personnel. While he was searching for the oblong items, Scott had gotten a number of guards with large machine guns interested in our case, and they were now throwing their own heavily armed efforts into the hunt for the cycles. The last of the blue tape-wrapped boxes were being piled up and pushed to the side by the time we finally found the cycles, now quite hidden behind a large square pillar amidst the sea of unclaimed baggage. We thanked our new friends and headed through a set of hospital style swinging doors out into the main hall of the airport.

It was well-lit and heavily air-conditioned, sporting some thirty counters, with large glossy signs advertising services to tourists. I had asked a fellow on the airplane what the current exchange rate was and armed with only that data and a hand full of local currency we had recently gotten from the ATM, we poured headlong into negotiations with all three of the taxi companies that had booths there. All seemed strikingly expensive, and we thanked them for their help and began to consider wheeling ourselves into town. Our questions about the distance into town had provided us with a wide range of answers, but perhaps it would be worth risking it, given the high price of a cab. We even got as far as stocking up on some ominously overpriced baked goods filled with green onion and egg to help fuel us on the ride before we realized that we had better, just to be sure, re-confirm the exchange rate.

It turned out that all costs here in Sri Lanka to date had in fact been about 40% of what we had thought. It was a great feeling. Something like winning the lotto. We strode victoriously back to the taxi stand and asked their finest driver take us in their cheapest cab into the city of Colombo. And that they did. Thank goodness we had not wheeled for it proved to be a 35-kilometer drive. We stopped part way through the trip with our driver to eat a little rice and curry. The spot he chose was delightful, affordable, and spicy like nothing we had yet eaten. This meal of rice, egg, and chicken curry, was to become one of the staples of our time in Sri Lanka, and I was thrilled.

It was so refreshingly different from the food in India, and almost as inexpensive.

While our cab driver ordered a single cigarette, which arrived on a yellow plastic plate along with the bill, he motioned to the ukulele, and asked whether I would play a bit. So I took out the Uke and played a little while he enjoyed his cigarette. The other patrons of the establishment perked up a bit, taking the time now to stare a bit at the strange foreigners in Panama hats, one of which appeared to be playing a King Crimson tune.

We had chosen, more or less at random, from the very short list of Colombo’s cheap hotels.  When asked how much we wanted to pay, our driver assured us that there was no way to get a room for 2,000 rupees. But when we strolled into the Hotel Nippon, the gods of wheeling must have taken pity upon us, for that was the asking price for a non-AC room.

Unfortunately, something about the way we had conducted the transaction had deprived our cab driver of his cut of the hotel rate, and he was distressed. He explained this to us in so many words, and quite bluntly asked for an extra 200 rupees (about $1.80). We liked the guy, and this seemed fair enough. So we paid him and parted on very good terms indeed. The hotel clerks were three very friendly middle-aged Sri Lankan women.

They seemed truly thrilled to have AsiaWheeling staying at the Hotel Nippon and made sure we had a nice safe place for the speed TRs beside the giant arching hardwood and marble staircase that led upstairs.

The Hotel Nippon was something like the kind of hotel depicted in old-time western movies, with green and yellow stained glass, leather upholstery, a piano in the lobby, and plenty of wood paneling.

That said, the Nippon had certainly seen better days, as evidenced by the price tag. The marble floors were now cracked, and most of the hotel was caked with a good amount of dust. Grit had collected in the corners and brown stains discolored most of the carpets. Exactly our kind of place.

We happily threw off our packs and climbed onto the speed TRs, heading for the train station. We had very little time in Sri Lanka, only about a week, so we wanted to get the next train to the mountain settlement of Kandy. Our Sri Lankan bureau chief, Daniel Brady, had spent quite some time there, and the city came very highly recommended. As we rode, we could not believe the military presence in the streets. There seemed to be a checkpoint every block or so. And the cops were pulling over cars at random to inspect their papers. These were not your relaxed Indonesian checkpoints either. Each one was complete with a machine gun nest, strangely festooned with advertisements for the local business that had presumably funded the building of this little in-case-of-urban-warfare unit.

We had no problems with the police, however, as it seems two white fellows on bicycles do not exactly fall within their profile for terrorists. To the contrary, it seemed Sri Lanka was enjoying an economic boost from western tourism. While it was nothing like Singapore, Malaysia, or Bali, we saw a surprising number of white people strolling the streets. Everywhere, people seemed to be building things, doing business, in a hurry, and generally exhibiting momentum. Sri Lanka is going places, that is for sure.

We locked our cycles to a fence, where they instantly began attracting crowds of people, and headed in search of a ticketing agent. When I finally found the appropriate line, something seemed wrong, for the clerk was just lazily counting money, which was in stark contrast with the other fellows beside him who were furiously selling tickets like hotcakes to crowds of people. He explained to me that there were tickets left for the train, but that sales for the day were over. It was 3:30.

In hopes of finding a work-around, we made our way into the tourist information booth, a strange, dark and frigidly air-conditioned space. We proceeded to have a very uncomfortable conversation with a fellow who was interested in selling us all kinds of additional and very expensive services. While the conversation left both Scott and me in a very strange place, a few good things came of it. This first is that we realized that the tickets to Kandy would be about $3.00 for a ride in the first class observation saloon, assuming we got to the station early enough to nab two of them. The second is that the tourist informant helped us to defuse a situation with a few cops who had become wary of our cycles and where we had chosen to park them.

So while we did not have tickets in hand, we knew when and where to get them the next day. And with that out of the way, we dialed a Ms. April Yee. She was a friend of a friend of ours who, we had recently learned, was only in town for a night.

She told us to meet her at the Galle Face Hotel, probably the most famous and most imperialist hotel in the city of Colombo for a sunset cocktail.

We were more than happy to oblige, relaxing, and discussing the ins and outs of South Asia as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.

As we enjoyed the sunset and our drinks, we were introduced to her friend, a local Colombodian, Anu, a gentle, considerate fellow. Anu in turn introduced us to one of the most fantastic things in Sri Lanka: Koththu.

Koththu, as Anu described it to us, is a kind of Sri Lankan Pad Thai. It is made by taking a number of roti and chopping them up into little strips. These strips are then fried with egg, vegetables, cheese, and meat, and “gravy” to produce a kind of stir fried noodle-esque dish.

Koththu places are easily identified by the deafening clang of the chopping, which happens at a furious and piercing decibel level, well into the night. The place he took us was one of the more famous Koththu places in town, and even though it was well after dark, it was packed.

The owners of the place were nice enough to let us back stage to witness the magic.

We finished off the dinner with a nice cool glass of iced milo.

Full of Koththu and feeling positively ecstatic to be in Sri Lanka, we piled back into Anu’s car and dropped Ms. Yee at her hotel, which sported delightful interior design, as evidenced below.

We had taken a bit of anti-anxiety medication in order to aid our slumbers on the night bus from Karwar to Bangalore so we found ourselves, once again, the last to wake up and exit the bus, and doing so in a quite relaxed and unhurried manner. It was cold outside, maybe even as low as 60ºF. After all the boiling and sweating of the trip hereto, we savored the chill.

The Speed TRs had suffered no damage on the ride, thanks to Scott’s careful negotiation and generous tipping of the baggage handlers; they were waiting for us in a neat little pile by the bus. So relaxed were we, that the normal barrage of touts, cab drivers, auto rickshaw wallahs, goods sellers, and con artists failed to even slightly miff us. We joked and giggled with them, eventually parting like old friends and wandering across the street to buy some coffees from a stand.

We had booked accommodation at a local hostel by the name of Mass Residency, and they were kind enough to give us the number of a metered cab company that was more than happy to send a man to pick us up and take us to the hotel for only a fraction of what it had cost us last time we arrived in this city.  The owners of the Mass Residency were two fantastic blokes, who were glad to serve us coffee, learn about AsiaWheeling, and show us to a very affordable, clean, and comfortable room on the 4th floor of their most comforting guest house.

We could smell the ink from the AsiaWheeling seal of approval already. The day was still quite young when we climbed on the cycles and headed in search of breakfast.

Shortly into the wheel, we realized it was Holi in Bangalore. Holi is the Hindu spring holiday, and a celebration of color. One of the main modes of celebration is the tossing of colored liquids and powders onto one another. So in our search for a restaurant, we stopped to ask some very colorful fellows for a recommended dosa house.

And by golly, did they deliver. They directed us to a local institution by the name of Maiya’s, and dear reader, if you are ever in Bangalore, you must visit this place and have one of their vegetable-stuffed dosas.

They were prepared much like a traditional South Indian dosa, but the potato filling was replaced with a rich blend of vegetables, and the accompanying coconut chutney was delicately spiced and bright green.

We also sampled their rice porridge and their vadas, which were delightful.

The coffee was strong and hit us with the caffeine blitz in a refreshingly manic way. Renewed and refreshed, we climbed back on the cycles and took a circuitous route back to the Mass Residency. Many of the shops in Bangalore were closed for the holiday, and the sight of fellows covered in spatters of neon color was quite commonplace. It must be noted, however, that Bangalore is one of the most tame places to experience Holi. In many cities in North India, we would not have been able to wheel without battling huge crowds in the streets, and getting soaked ourselves with color.

We got back to the Mass Residency with just enough time for a little furious working on correspondence before meeting with our dear Mr. Kulkarni for a quick bite to eat and to thank him for his most gracious services at the India Bureau. Nikhil came in the door bearing a very exciting cardboard package. It was our Maui Jim’s. Maui Jim, as you, dear reader, have no doubt already read on our partnership page, is our sunglasses partner. However, through a series of miscomunications, we had not been able to pick them up before leaving for the trip. Since then we had been hoping to receive them in various cities, but each time fate stepped in the way.  Finally, we were able to arrange for a direct transfer between the Maui Jim India Bureau and AsiaWheeling’s similar entity.

With the solemn intensity of Indiana Jones recovering a long lost artifact, we tore into the packaging and removed two cases, which appeared to be made out of pressed bamboo, but had the weight of steel.  We opened the cases with gentle creaking noise and there they were, gleaming with perfection, nestled in tropical patterns. Some serious AsiaWheeling spectacles.