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2003-05-16 - Recong Peo (Day 31)

The morning comes in and again I watch the sunlight brighten as I wander through a set of morning daydreams. I wake and find the day another incredible one with the sky a royal blue and the mountains too white to even look at in the reflection of the sun. I take breakfast outside and head off to the little village a few kilometers down the road. As I plan to leave for the north tomorrow, I'll make this a day for photography with the evening spent studying.

The road to the village clings to the side of the hill with the drop off on the other a straight drop down to the valley more then 1000 meters below. The road is gravel with just some low stones along most of the outside so I'm keeping the bike right up snug against the mountain and not looking down much. As I ride along, I come across Peter walking back from the village and we greet each other. He says he's stopping for lunch at the hotel and I say I might come join him for tea after I'm finished. Riding further, I come across three young guys sitting on the concrete roof of a house under construction. The local manner is to have flat roofs and I've seen quite a few of this type of house where the roof is even with the road and the house below it on the side of the mountain. In this case, the house offered a lovely view of Kiner Kanish and I stopped the bike and walked out onto the roof greeting the guys. My presence obviously drew their attention and they come over and we make introductions around and talk about the mountain a bit. One of them has climbed Kanish and talks of the 2 day climb to the phallus which is sacred to the Buddhists. It lies at the top and he points it out for me to try to get a shot of.

I move on down into the village and soon am through it with waves and smiles from the villagers on the way. At one point I come to a couple which is digging a ditch across the road. Motioning to question if I can cross the young man in a complete Sir Walter Raleigh form, picks up a huge rock and drops it into the ditch so I can pass. Driving on, one local boy cries "Hello!" from a ridge only a couple of feet above me, startling me to his amusement. I get mine back when I see that he's come down and is running along the dirt path to catch up with me. I stay just out of reach for a bit of distance and then when I see he's tired, stop and let him catch up. He comes up with a big smile and "Hello!" which I return and as he catches his breath I turn the bike around. Once I get turned, I again keep him just a bit behind till we get back to his house, probably giving him a much lower risk of heart attack later in life after that workout and me a big smile as well. As I again pass through town I again get and give smiles to all the villagers and getting not too far out of town come across Peter who doesn't seem to have gone too far since I last left him. I tell him to get on the bike and the two of us head back to the hotel. As we go along, we come upon a very pretty European girl who we had seen at the county office yesterday applying for the inter-line permit. We wave and say hi as we pass. Its not long up to the hotel and I tell Peter to go up and order me some tea. I wait down on the road for the European girl to come along and inquire where she is headed and such. She seems quite pleasant and probably a little tired from her walk, and I've already heard too many of Peter's stories, so I invite her up to lunch with us. I learn she's a television news reporter from Holland here with her boyfriend and just had completed the Ana Pernna trek in Nepal. With lots of stories, the two of them are wonderful lunch companions until I'm distracted by a young girl carrying logs down the path on her back. I rush to change lenses on the camera and get in front of her, but she makes a point of keeping her back toward me and refusing to give me a shot. She has a couple of friends behind her which do the same until they are past me and I'm about to give up and the last one turns and smiles and I'm quick enough to catch it.

Knowing I caught the photo, I wave to her to come up and see and after a bit of hesitation, these three are obviously very shy, she comes back. When she sees the picture of her on the camera LCD screen and breaks into a huge smile. The second girl quickly follows suit and comes to look, though the first keeps her distance. I motion the two that came up to sit under a tree which is breaking up the sunlight into wonderful patterns and take their picture which soon has them giggling non stop and finally convincing their friend to come and join. As with anything I stop to do for more then a couple of minutes, we soon draw a crowd starting with waiters from the hotel, then the manager, then seemingly from nowhere, another 6 kids who all want pictures and end up pilling around me to see the results then immediately and insistently demanding that I shoot more. I give this a while but my stomach calls and I tell them that's the end. The only sad part is like with the boys in the New Delhi spice market, I have no way to give these little ones a copy of the pictures which I know they would treasure and would probably be the only pictures they would have of themselves as children.

I join Peter and Renee for lunch and then suggest that Renee should also take advantage of the beautiful light under the tree and she happily agrees. A natural model, we spend the next couple of hours taking shots of her in front of these mountains which certainly is a wonderful mix, a beautiful young girl with a background such as this. I of course feel like I'm back in Taiwan doing another photo shoot and am very pleased to have such a wonderful model, this great light and background of these mountains to spend the day working with.

Renee and I shoot until the sun goes down and starts to get chilly. I drive her down to Recong Peo to save her the 6 km walk. Its fortunate that I did as the bike again starts acting up, choking and threatening to die with each stroke. We make it down to town with the motorcycle still running primarily because it was downhill the whole way and up to the local mechanic with such a sputtering and coughing from the engine that I don't need to explain what is wrong. As with the mechanic outside of Solon, he knows just what to do, changes the spark plug, adjusts the carburetor and asks for 60 rupees (US$ 1.20) for his troubles which I gladly pay. This probably has saved me a world of trouble on the way north tomorrow.

As I return to the hotel I find Peter has returned from his walk into town and has just ordered dinner so I do as well and we have another pleasant chat. This one goes a little longer as we wait for the moon to rise over the mountains as tonight it is a full moon and so bright we see the rays of moonlight cutting across the tops of the mountains for more then an hour before it rises. I take a few shots of the moon and settle in for a good sleep before what I expect will be another hard day of riding tomorrow.

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