Kunming again, just off off the plane, I'm wearing the same shirt for the last week, feeling sticky and itchy. it's developped that stench of cotton after too many days with out being washed, of sweat and street dirt. this citys is changing, catching up, gone is the sence that you are in a strange and off beat place. all that remain is the pleasant feeling that it lacks every thing a city should have.

Mornings are noodles on the cool streets before sipping coffee on the side walk of the french cafe. taking in the noise of the city buses, girls selling iced tea over portable loud speekers, motors, brakes, and the old men in Mao coats with the winkled faces to remind me of how it once was.

An afternoon naps refreshs me, waking up to the same city, but the tone has changed. the clouds have rolled in and the streets are buisy with people who would other wise be at work. I sleep better in the afternoon, at night the tiny moskitos which you can hardly see but leave disportionly large lumps when they bite, and muggy air keep me tuning.

A few days later I'm home in Zhongdian, hidding up stairs after a bike ride, coffee, beer, Chuck Palahniuk, in no order. I find my self thinking of the summer before the last time i was here, traveling with Rusto, bouncing from contract to contract, Beer, Coffee, Gatoraid, and a thousand miles of highway and logging roads

Dinner, Hot Pot, 14 people sitting around two long tables. I'm in the corner between the tray of vegies and Amy. on the corner next to me is Wesley, and between us is the responsibility of dictating the rate at which the food will be dumped in to the pot of boiling soup. the others are digging in and talking, beer is poared in to tiny glasses and chears are made, consummed, bottoms up. After dinner we walk the streets that were once dark, once lit with stars to guide your feet home. now buisy with regular tourists, dancing in the square, trying to find a reason to be here in the old arcteture and Neo-Coble Stone streets. The next morning I'm up early cooking breakfast, Garcia / Grisman warm the cool air. The Chalk Board out side the Cafe, simple. 'The' Breakfast 8AM – 11AM.

By 12:30 Kevin, his three boys and I are in his jeep, 45mins up the dirt track that is the Litian highway. I'm looking out the window, scouting valleys though the hills.

'I think this is it' I say as we round a corner, trying to remember what it looked like on the map. his boys are looking at me like they may never see me again. 'I'll see you in four hours' as I unload my bike from his jeep and start to peddle up the dirt logging track gaining a low marshy pass. Thunder rummbles in the fore-ground, lighting strikes the hills around me and it starts to rain.

I stitch togeather a line that dumps into the long wide wetland Valley I was aiming for. It's filled with horses and yacks, dotted with log strucures of the local Naxi people. the trail hugs the hill sides, away from the marshy ground in the center of the vally. I follow it as it hooks towards the creek I'm hoping will dump me out onto the road. the rain has stopped again as I come across a group of three heading in the other direction, three generations of the same family greet me with a conversation that has, in verious, forms repeated it self all over asia as I've traveld by bike.

'where are you going?'
'Zhongdian'
'where did you sleep last night'
'Zhongdian' I reply, which brings a look of confusion, now they figure I'm lost
'you come with us, eat'
'thank you, I'm full '
'no please eat'
'thank you I'm full I go now'

they watch me like I'm crazy as I peddle off down the valley. soon the creamy grassland trails is traded for a rocky twisty bit of single track following a tight valley, the trail weaving back and forth across the river which drains the wetlands above, every peddle stroke forward is earned as my energy wains and my scattered thoughts are underlined with the simple repeatitive mantra, move forward, keep moving.

later, in the sun, on the side walk; tired, dirty, wet, content. Glad to be back.