On how Asia reminds me of my childhood: Excitement

Cycling around Asia is a great way to see the real life. You can go on an organized tour or you can go by yourself, most of the places are very safe and people are extremly curious about you.

When you cycle in small towns kids get extremely excited. Here's some of the situations:

• Moms with babies waiving at you, starting to teach the kid to say "Hello"
• Kids so little they don't even know what to do, they just stare at you with their mouth wide open.
• If you look at the front yard of the house, you might see little kids going to get their big brother because they want to go by the road and say hello to you.
• Kids screaming "Hello", "What is your name?", "Wellcome to Malaysia!".
• Kids picking up their old rusty bikes and racing you.
• Shy girls smilling at you and waiving from their bikes.
• Teenagers getting out of school and trying to block your way or do stupid things.
• And the most painfull but also the best, High fives! Yes, high fives are back.

When I was little every summer there was a race going on and they would go through my grandparent's house. We would be waiting for them for hourss, to see the cyclist, to cheer at them and to get the beach balls and other merchandising that they were giving away.

Going through the little villages and hearing the kids with their "hello, hello" made me think of what I looked like when I was little.


The picture that ilustrates this post was taken by somebody I don't remember with Max's camera during our trip from Saigon to Hanoi in Vietnam.

Here's other reasons why Asia reminds me of my childhood:
Everything is under construction and there are lots of flowers
Sun drying food and stone tables 
Poorly paved roads and reusing stuff

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On how Asia reminds me of my childhood - Reusing and pavement

Recycling or reusing: in the photo we see the kind of the rice crackers :-D It seems that before the crisis we were buying everything new and not thinking about second or third uses that things could have. Reusing old buckets seems to be the norm here.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Poorly paved roads: I love poorly paved road sides, they are so much more fun to walk on than perfectly paved ones! I love them!

Tuk-tuk on poorly paved road

Everything is under construction and lots of flowers
Sun drying food and stone tables

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On how Asia reminds me of my childhood - Stone tables and sun drying food

Sun drying food: My grandfather used to have a garden and he would take the beans out of their husk (is that the right word) and dry them on the sun. Here they do that with all kinds of things:

Chillies getting some the sun in Thailand

Stone tables: are we still building them? The plate on top of the table has rice on it. When you cook a lot of rice there is always some that stuck in the bottom of the pan, they take that rice and dry it out in the sun. 

Luang Prabang, Laos

Reusing and poorly paved roads
Everything is under construction and full of flowers

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On how Asia reminds me of my childhood - Construction and flowers

Since I have been in Asia I feel like I am back to the summer days when I would go to my grandparent's home as a child. Here's some of the things that remind me of those days:

• Everything is under construction. Look at the back of the photo of me as a child. It is the same here, everybody is building homes, shops,... and like in Spain, some remain empty after being built.

• People have flowers everywhere. Check out my grandma's geranium pots behind me, Asia is full of flowers and people take care of them.

Outside a temple in Luang Prabang, Laos. The house you see is where the monks live.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Beautiful Luang Prabang, Laos

I have taken so many photos to illustrate this topic that I will try to post them all in individual pages. I hope you enjoy time travelling with me!

Reusing, recycling and poorly paved roads 
Stone tables and sun drying food

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Recycling old car tires

Today for the first time after several weeks in Luang Prabang (Laos) I have taken my camera with me. I have a lot of pictures ready for you. :-) Here's some from an Recycle Art contest that is going on at the Fine Arts Department. I hope you enjoy them! They are hanging flower pots made from old tires.

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My new gym

My new gym is inside this market

The material thing I miss the most is not cheese, it is my gym. Going to the gym was something that I used to do every other day and stopping that activity suddently was a little bit hard on me. Now that I am in Luang Prabang for some weeks I have found myself a gym, here's some reasons why I love my gym:

• It has no A/C
• It is so small and packed with machinery that if you want to exercise you have to take what you want to use, let's say the recliner to do crunches, move it to the corridor that the gym shares with a bags store, and do your crunches. 
• When I go in, they change the music from Thai/Lao balads to American heavy metal. :-D
• They give you free banannas
• The daughters of the owner do their homework there when they come back from school
• People work out on their flip-flops 
• The lady boy hairdresser from next door comes to work out in between clients.
• Mini lao guys work on their musles without t-shirts
• There is a No Smoking sign
• It has photos of Stallone and Schwatzeneger

I love having a gym again!

Muscle gym in Luang Prabang, Laos

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