Repairing ox carts, carving stone, and road hassles February 10
Today I stopped and watched a blacksmith by the side of the road, preparing to rest the iron bands on wooden ox cart wheels. He and his assistant were removing a section out of every band, before rejoining the ends, making the band smaller. As in Laos, the fire was band by a hand pump. The tools looked like they hadn’t changed much in a hundred years.
Yesterday I stopped and watched a series of stone carvers carving various images of buddha, from small to humongous. They lined either side of the road, squating amoung rock chips and dust, bent over their work, beneath palm thatch roofs, shading them from the intense afternoon sun.
I’m finding life on the road hard here. Life on the road in a literal sense - the time spent pedalling on the road. All vehicles seem to have an insatiable appetite for honking at me. It’s rare a vehicle that’s fitted with a horn will pass that doesn’t make liberal use of it. I hear so much non-stop honking I’ve become numb to it’s possible worthwhile uses, as if I yield the road every time somone honked, I’d spend the entire day in the ditch. Motorbikes even honk as a way of gretting, expecting me to wave back. I rarely do.
But this is only half the story. The yelling is the other half. I get yelled at nonstop by people along the road. As far as I can tell, the majority of it is not any form of greeting, or even words. It’s usually of the form, “Oy!”, or “Hey!”, or “Oh!”. The expected response seems to be that I’ll wave, or say hello, or even stop, or at least do something interesting. Whole groups of people will scream at me in a caucophany, for as long as I’m in range, sometimes stopping if I respond, though sometimes not. I’ve even had several people clap their hands at me.
I’ve tried hard to be openminded about this, and see it perhaps as a difference in cultures. But when it comes down to it, I see it as rude, as though I’m a circus animal people are waiting to see perform, or a zoo animal with people tapping on the glass.