A Minute in Time‏

Noon, it's 100F or at least it feels like it, we've had a headwind for 5 hours, the bikes are loaded down with extra food and water, we cycled 125km
yesterday, you get the idea, we are exhausted!  Coast into a tiny road side stall at a nondescript 't' intersection, no one else is around.  
Liberate two 8oz cans of iced coffee from the luke warm fridge and melt into the mini asian sized concrete bench, in the shade, out front of the shop, 
we look like we are sitting at one of those toddler picnic tables.  Blaring out of the shop is some Britney Spears gone Thai at such a volume you might 
have thought there was a teenie bop dance party going on, only there is no one else around but us and the shop keeper who is half asleep behind 
the counter.  Despite my rubber legs i'm almost moved to jump up and get down, only i refrain and just fester in my own pool of sweat instead.  
Then, as if we are the catalyst, people start arriving.  Truck after truck pull up, men hop out, find something they need in the nothing shop, hop 
back in and speed off. One particularly smiley guy grabs a bag of nothing dough treats, downs a couple and then passes the bag our way, and not as in 'hey these
are great, try one, you'll love em' more nonchalant like he doesn't know himself why he's stopped at this nothing shop, but he did and now he intends to pawn
off his purchase on anyone around, i think he even offered them to the shop keeper.  The crumbly cubes look about as un appetizing as they taste.  After
one small nibble and while he's got his head turned i drop the thing down the front of my shirt, it's one of those goofy bike shirts with elastic around
the waist, perfect i think, won't fall out onto the floor and they guy won't be the wiser.  Only then i have a crumbly bakery treat down my shirt breaking
to bits and sticking to my sweaty stomach, genius move i realize a moment to late.  Rachael on the other hand, a notch or two more clever then i simply
holds it discreetly in her left hand.  When the man turns back around we both give him the, 'ooohhh boy those were marvelous! thank you so much, but
please no more, we're absolutely stuffed' look.  
Moments later a gray haired grandmother and young child saunter over.  Just outside the shop the grandmother gives a massive dead grasshopper
a little flick with her flip-flop.  'Bzzzzztt' Bzzzzztt' the child lets out a giggle and the grandmother a jolly old laugh, like there is something
unbelievably histarical about a half dead grasshopper flopping around on the hot concrete.  Repeat, kick, giggle, laugh.  We couldn't tell what was so funny but 
couldn't help but laughing ourselves.  There we were sipping iced coffee, outside a nothing shop in the searing heat, on a miniature bench, deafened by 
Thai Britney, one of us with food down our front laughing at a half dead grasshopper.
What more could you ask for? 
Micah and Wiffie
This email brings us up to date, we are in Koh Lanta if you want to check our local

Machine Gun‏

Yah, my stomach hurt a little as we fell asleep but i certaintly was not expecting to wake up a few hours later reliving the movie "Alien", there was definately a creature trying
to claw its way out of my stomach.  Up i clambered and darted to the shared bathroom in the hall to use by newly learned 'pulling the trigger' trick which i had vowed to Rachael
i would never use again only 3 days prior.  Before doing so i stared at my own reflection in the mirror for a good 20 seconds, "do you really want to do this i asked"?  "No 
of course i don't came the white faced reply, but what choice do we have, there is an alien inside you, its him or us."  Lets say it was more like emptying a fully automatic weapon.  
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! (Rachael was right, no one in their right mind would want to see a video clip of that. Smart wife).  
I had been like a kit in the candy shop that night for dinner, there was a huge market on and we just did like the locals.  Eat a whole bunch of little things as we wondered around. 
Ahhhh was it the green curry, pork soup, fried tofu, deep fried tempura veggies, ice cream or the FingHAM doughnuts.  Some one save me!! Tomorrow i promise to only eat
PBnJ on white bread for the rest of my life.
Suprizingly i slept ok, even dispite the most god awful saggy bed.  Got up at 6:30am and aside from feeling like i'd had my stomach pumped and i was just about ready to implode i was ready to ride.
Even did our longest day to date, 125km, avg of 20km/h, max speed 57km/h, mind you we were lucky enough to have a tail wind. 
Micah and Wiffie!!! 

Rest‏

Feb 15, 2010
As you probably guessed "emptying the revolver" and then riding nother 50km on empty put me in ned of a rest day or two.  Now i'm thinking, 'maybe i didn't do that quite right? should my throat still be sore 2 days later? my stomach feels fine, i'm not sick, but that flappy in back of throat is not happy.'  Basically i would not reccoment 'pulling thr trigger' unless absolutly necessary, which in my case looks like maybe wasn't as Rachael was just as sick as me now she feels fine.
Regardless, woke up the next morning, hopped on a ferry to a beach infested paradise and here we've been for 2 days in our ocean side bungaloo, relaxing and listening to cashews
crash to the ground out of nearby trees.  Cashews crash to the ground, you question? Seems a bit extreme to use the word 'crash' wouldn't just 'fall be more apropriate?
Actually no it wouldn't as the cashew nut is cased in a hard green pod hanging from a rather large red fruit the size of a large pear.  When the wind blows pod fruit
and all come 'yes crashing' to the ground. Amazing! free cashews covering the ground, i know i thought the same thing.  Hacking the green pod did the trick and i had my very own
cashew nut, which tasted, yes, just like a cashew, only the oily secreation covering the nut given off by the pod was more like rubbing a red hot chili all over your lips and toung.
Turns out even the cashew nut has a natural defence.  
Speaking of Nuts!...now i know what your are thinking...maybe i should just get a new seat and stop complaining...get your mind out of the gutter...
On the ferry we met another cyclist, a french guy, who had 7 months previous left his home in france on a recumbent bike and headed west.  He had been
through 16 countries and was planning on continuing south to Australia where he would circumnavigate the place and then eihter fly home or maybe fly to 
Argentina and ride to Alaska.  Wooo! and we felt extreme for just the 8 days we'd done.  Insanely he hadn't spent a single night in a hotel/bungaloo/resort
he'd beenb campinbg the whole way, and by camping he said that sometimes he just slept atop the rice drying on the side of the road (so the dogs didn't bother him).
IE less then a meter from the wheel of trucks passing by.  He claimed the trucks never drove over the rice as there was always a pile of stick in front to deter the drivers from 
doing so.  Even in Bangkok he'd slept in some park.  Mind you his passport, wallet, money and creditcards were stolen, go figure.  He'd gone to the french
embasy w/o a cent and they said, 'to bad, deal with it, a new passport is 50 bucks', only he couldn't get a new atm card with out a passport and still they refused to help him, 
sent him back onto the street where he was picked up by the police for sleeping on a bench.  He told them his story and all the policemen pooled enough cash to get him a new passport.
Pretty incrediable story.
We'll do what we can not to repeate it!!
Micah and Rachael