Nothing breaks the ice with Tibetans like standing in the middle of a yak dung smoke butter tea smelling shop and pantomiming wiping your ass in order to buy some toilet paper. [From November 2007.]
Cycling adventurist, bikepacker, travel writer, photographer, speaker, professor of philosophy. Route designer of the VTXL, the Green Mountain Gravel Growler beer tour, the Silk Road Mountain Race course 1st edition, and many more.
Category: Asia
Tibet postcard
Legendary descent from Nashing to Nepalese border doesn’t disappoint, and no superlatives would suffice, so, instead, just details: 60 miles, 9,000 feet of elevation loss, two and a half hours. I’m riding it wide open […]
Tibet postcard
[From November 2007.] Yarle village, lucked into overnighting in the second floor room of yak dung storage garage, warmth! Last night’s dinner in a cramped smoky everything shop with three young women and man playing […]
Tibet postcard
[From November 2007.] Rhythmic breathing, repetitive imaging these shapes of embodiment relaxed symmetrically, I’ve found it easier to achieve meditation in cycling than I have in walking or lotus, though I understand them to be […]
Tibet postcard
We’re mostly governed by the affective system, emotions unrestrained, unresponsive, and blessedly removed from the voice. Alas, the simple animals that we are, we identify that voice as reason. And a self.
Tibet postcard
Looking up, the bells are lovely, don’t end, engulf me, I could freeze time right here if they wouldn’t stop, all the stars chorus harmony.
Clothing for cycling Tibet
Clothing worn every single day in Tibet, October/November 2007.
Across Tibet
[From October/November 2007.]
Tibet postcard
[From November 2007.] Xigaze. Tashilhunpo monastery, home of the Panchen Lama, the usual blend of madefortourists artifice and perceptible timbre of centuries. Spotted late an email from Aukje indicating that she was there, but […]
Tibet postcard
[From November 2007.] Adolescent irritability without an outlet, a bit of boredom, anger, eroded hopes: these the same the world over, broken bottles littering the alleyways of Tibetan villages, shards accumulating up against walls pasted […]
Tibet postcard
[From October 2007.] Expansive companionable valley embrace after the self rending chill winds up. Tenting away from roadworks, feels as if I’m witnessing a metamorphosis, or it was twenty years ago, or will be complete […]
Tibet postcard
[From October 2007.] Half day and night spent at a monastery. Friendly, inquisitive monks, stayed up late in discussion (one English speaker translating), trading phrases across languages, curious about the bicycle, politics, philosophy, and I, […]