Cross training and fundraising

This weekend I spent at my friends house in Da Nang...so no bike but a beautiful beach where I could do some exercise in the morning!!
And then some shell art afterwords.

This weekend is the SPIRAL Foundation spring sale in the Pacific Palisades, LA, CA. A fundraiser for the disabled artists I work with here in Hue. And my generous boss has agreed to put a box to collect for AIDS LifeCycle for me! THANKS!

Check out the fundraiser
http://www.spiralfoundation.org/events.aspx?page=events/#springsale

Foiled

Foiled by the rain this weekend...a gallant effort was made to bike to the beach. But when the bike tire broke and we sat in the rain as it got fixed, decided today was instead a day for a cross training run followed by the hot springs .... ;)

Take me down to the Tomb City

This weekend to Tomb City!!

The longest ride so far - took over six hours. Took all day and I learned that my bike seat is not my friend.
Well worth the ride though - tomb city is literally a city of tombs, stretching further than you can see, full of beautifully ornate tombs (buddhist and christian, interestingly, yet all built in traditional buddhist/chinese style, some just have a crucifix on top!). It has the feeling of a holy place, not the spooky feeling of a graveyard. Each tomb is trying to outdo its neighbor, which makes for some remarkably outstanding tombs!

And then there were swan boats

Off for a ride last weekend, headed generally East with not much more of a plan than that. There was a temple I thought I might have seen from the top of a hill last week...well the temple was never found but I did find another beautiful temple with a giant bell on top of a hill that overlooked the city.


After the temple we stopped for some very local lunch and practiced our Vietnamese, finally getting some soy sauce (after getting fish sauce with lime, and fermented soybean paste...miscommunication).

And somehow we found ourselves at a giant gate, and I didn't recognize any of the words on the sign. In front of us was a van filled with children...and there was an entrance fee...we asked the lady at the window and she said "FISH!" and then drew fish with a circle around them. A lake! So we paid our fee...and then found ourselves doing some cross training - padding swan boats around the lake (and checking out the liliput fairy land on the other side!)





Oh Vietnam, always got something up its sleeve...

To the beach

This weekend was sun sun sun again, so a bike ride to the beach!
I rode my bike solo on the way there, but met up with my friend once I got there...and bicycling back next to a motorbike the whole way back was motivation to keep up my speed

I like to ride my bicycle I like to ride my bike....

So it's about time I got my booty in shape for the AIDS LifeCycle fast approaching in June....
So I found this awesome group called Cycling for the Environment. They meet every Sunday, take a bike ride and go clean up trash! This weekend we cleaned a canal, and also did a survey of the people in the neighborhood to learn about their options for trash collection and their knowledge of Environmental programs in Hue.
Morning well spent!

On traffic accidents to avoid / traffic accidents to seek out

Hue is full of cyclos: bicycle taxis with a rider in back, and a big cushy seat for the passenger in front. More than a personal taxi, the cyclo is a taxi for any and every event that life may bring. You'll see just about anything imaginable in a cyclo, defying laws of space, physics, time. Yes, I mean this. If a family moves to a new home, you'll see a parade of cyclos: the first cyclo with their furniture (dining room tables, wardrobes, mattresses, headboards) then their suitcases, then maybe some potted plants (cyclo driver peering out from between palm fronds), then the entire family (of course in one cyclo, pouring out like a clown car).

When I am riding by such cyclos on my little blue bicycle, I can't help but think of my own mortality. How long can any one cyclo driver continue to challenge the laws of nature? Every cyclo driver must have had at least one accident, one situation in which the laws of nature won? This led me to think about cyclo collisions I would definitely want to avoid:

-Cyclos loaded with about 15 cooler-sized blocks of ice...burrrrr...but this one's easy to avoid because you can tell where he's been by following the drips of water on the pavement as the ice melts
-Cyclos loaded with piping for underground sewage pipes. Ow. Yuck.
-Cyclos loaded with three months work of products made by HWH Shop (where I work). Three months worth of work in the hands of one skinny cyclo driver...ahhhhhhh

Clearly, there are cyclos to avoid. However...seeing as how cyclos carry EVERYTHING, there are, in face, some cyclos with with an accident may be kind of fun:

-Cyclos carrying a heap of bedding and pillows. Bouce!
-Cyclos carring heaps of fruit. Like being in the ball pit at a fast food place but with oranges.