Travellive 5 - 2018

Clockwise from this picture:
Alessio, Binh Nguyen's husband;
Riding donkey, a familiar animal
in the highland's life; Tajikistan
smile; The nomad opens the tent
welcomes travelers
have been a particular delight for
children in those remote areas.
They reminded me of the children
in the Vietnamese writer Thach
Lam's story, who waited daily for
the train to pass as some sort of joy
that made their lives less dull.
Every day we bought two buckets
of apricots from the local children.
The sweetness of the golden
apricots enabled us to resist the
terrible heat and cope with the
lack of food. Even now, thinking
of them makes my mouth water.
Besides meeting the kids, we had
interesting encounters everyday.
We were sometimes invited to play
soccer with the young men in the
green fields. When we camped
near the villages, people would
either pay us a visit, invite us to
their home, or give us food. The
incredible hospitality of the locals
took us by surprise and deeply
touched us.
The M41 highway, where we cycled
was once a major trading route
in Central Asia. It turns out that,
despite being called a "highway",
the road is quite narrow and in
bad condition with many potholes.
Traffic is sparse with mainly cargo
trucks traveling this road.
At an altitude of 3,000 m, the
nights became colder, and the
ground cooler, a stark contrast to
our previous days' experiencing
heated campgrounds that lasted
through the night. It also became
more difficult for us to continue
our climb when we reached the
altitude of 4,000 m, where the
lack of oxygen required us to
double our strength. There were
steep slopes one after another and
the condition of the road remained
challenging. At this point, even
experienced cyclists had to try
their hardest to push on the pedals
while everyone simply went quiet.
Food became increasingly sparse
with no fruits were available and
cooking dishes became difficult.
We mainly had bread with
condensed milk for breakfast,
along with cereals and canned
foods for lunch and dinner.
TRAVELLIVE 11