An inquiry into Supercubs

“I suppose you could call that a personality. Each machine has its own, unique personality which probably could be defined as the intuitive sum total of everything you know and feel about it. This personality constantly changes, usually for the worse, but sometimes surprisingly for the better, and it is this personality that is the real object of motorcycle maintenance.”

I had a moment of truly pleasing symmetry this week when I found myself sitting at yet another mechanic’s, waiting for my motorbike to be fixed and reading, yes, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Yes, I thought, of course. My bike has a personality, for sure. We hated each other in the beginning, and then you got used to me, and I learnt how to handle you. And you can now go for months at a time without so much as a flat tyre. And I love you. And then you break down three times in one month, and I hate your guts. But I then I read this stupid hippy book that someone left at our house, (a book I’ve always meant to read and now have taken it up on the spirit of reading anything I can get my hands on), and find myself actually enjoying it a great deal, and contemplating actually learning something about how you run.

It’s such a cool bike, really, the Honda Supercub. The Japanese designed it in the 50s, to be ridden on unpaved roads, in a skirt, a dress, a suit, hotpants, while carrying a variety of stuff. Like noodles, or beer, or your entire family as is frequently the case in Laos. Cheap to run, easy to fix, unlikely to depreciate in value if you take care of it properly. There are plenty of them around here still, but it’s not the locals who are riding them, usually- it’s mostly expats.
And there are some cool, funky ones, in bright blue or metallic green, but you know what? I like my classic dark grey and cream. It suits my general aesthetic.
[What, right down to the big crack in the front mudguard? I hear you say. Yes indeed.]

Zia Sally x3!!
Tim and Niva had a girl, against all expectations, and they were so surprised they needed 24 hours to decide on a name. We waited with baited breath, from our respective parts of the world, for a formal introduction to…Annabel Clare.
Lovely. Look at her, just look at her. Isn’t she just lovely?

“This would be me”
Pi Mai came and went in much the same style as last year- Luang Prabang, water fights, monk processions- only this time, 4000 Islands and I escaped the madness and took a boat to the village where he was born in Luang Prabang province.
We stopped at a larger village first to visit his uncle and aunt. They sat us down and fed us, and the aunt warned us to stock up, as there wouldn’t be much food where we were going. No much of anything, really. What were we thinking?
The boat driver pointed to some steps cut out in the mud on the far bank. There it is, he said. We clambered up and over, and came upon an old, dusty cluster of bamboo shacks, pigpens, chickens and bamboo clumps, with no electricity and no clean water supply.
Now, knowing a bit about the Island’s background, and knowing what I do about general village life throughout the country, I wasn’t all that shocked at what we came upon. But the Island couldn’t believe it, basically. Having left there when he was seven, he had no memory at all of what it was like to live there. His mother was born there. His father lived across the river, and came and married her when they were 15. He helped build the tiny temple, and built the family house, out of wood and bamboo, with his own two hands. All eight of the kids were born there, before the whole family left for Vientiane, and a better life.
But the first person we came across recognised the Island instantly, and immediately took us on a tour, first to an older matriarch type who bore a striking resemblance to Warm House, the Island’s mother. We went to four or five houses- all similar, with woven bamboo mats- they take three days to make, we found out- and were given shot after shot of Lao whiskey, glass after glass of muddy water and coconut juice.
Everyone knew that she had died, I’m not sure how. One woman in a pink shirt, who had been Warm House’s best friend growing up, threw herself on top of us as we sat on the bamboo floor, and sobbed inconsolably.
We moved around the village and ate around six dinners, more food than the villagers themselves were accustomed to eating, and I congratulated myself privately for the millionth time for digging Lao food so much and having a strong constitution. Buffalo skin, unidentified barbequed wildlife, fish and chicken soup, bamboo shoots, sweet sticky rice desserts- the food was surprisingly varied and non-repetitious, and I ate the whole lot.

The village isn’t that small- 72 families. Village populations are always measured in the number of families, but I can never work out how many people are in the average family, or, in fact, what actually constitutes a discreet family, given all the inbreeding that goes on.

And there was plenty of evidence of that- I counted two children with club feet, one retarded kid, two people with dwarfism and a guy the Island’s age who was completely mute, and communicated with exaggerated gestures, just like the country’s slapstick idol, Charlie Chaplin. His mouth doesn’t work, everyone told me.

But it was an old village, quite pretty, with lots of trees and hillocks, and houses that had settled in comfortably over many decades. And in the morning- after a long night of complete blackness in the village ‘guesthouse’- a bamboo shed with a bed and a mosquito net, through which the Island couldn’t sleep and I apparently babbled continuously- the villages was covered in soft mist, something you never see in Vientiane.
Before we left in the morning, the extended family gave us a baci- a particularly authentic baci, unlike any that I had been to before, and not nearly as stripped back and bearable as the Vientiane variety.
They had made the offerings themselves, with banana leaves and wildflowers- much prettier than the shop-bought marigold variety here- and everyone brought money, which went into a bowl of rice, was blessed, and eventually given to us- more than 50,000 kip, which is a ridiculously large amount of money, really. There was a lot of chanting, and when the time came to tie the white strings, they really swarmed us, attaching their good wishes on our overloaded wrists like their future happiness depended on it.
We sat for a while with some guys his age, all of whom were long-married with several children each, and who spent their days fishing, harvesting rice and drinking whiskey. The village had no beer supply, some one of the boys went off in a boat to the nearest big village to buy a crate. We sat and they talked about their lives.

“If I didn’t leave here, this would me!” the Island said to me later. “Focking hell!”
(Me, appalled: “Where did you learn that?”
Him, baffled: “From you!”)

After we were finally home, we toted off a big bag of Luang Prabang specialities, some funky gifts from the Luang Prabang Night Markets, and a sackful of bamboo shoots from the village, to see the Island’s dad, and show him the photos. The sisters all clustered around, shrieking in horror at the images of the dilapidated old family home. “Sooo ugly!”
The father just nodded sagely. They left the village for a reason, after all.

‘Something practical that will last’
My parents sent me a man’s Swiss Army watch for my birthday- a classic, practical piece of armour that I can’t believe I ever did without. It has a crisp white face, a black leather band and glow-in-the-dark hands, and it’s big enough to make my wrist look skinny.
Well played, parentals. Well played.

‘Strange weather phenomena’
It’s been especially filthy and hot in the past week, which has brought on a spate of weather stories at the paper - overwrought, panicky stories about drought, natural disasters, unnatural heatwaves and ‘strange weather phenomena’. To be honest, Laos has not had a drought for a very long time. The type of downpour we had for about 20 minutes on Wednesday evening would have been enough to break the drought in Canberra, I reckon - the rains have never failed. Occasionally they’re just a couple of weeks later than usual, a fact which I guess does constitute a natural disaster for the many farmers who simply can’t seem to prepare for this contingency, and watch their newly-sowed rice fields dry up.
But this still doesn’t constitute a ‘drought’, although try telling the staff that.
So yes- weather hot. The type of hot where you go to bed and wake up completely drenched in sweat, and opening the door is to be confronted by a wall of heat. I hate it, it makes me grumpy – more than usual, that is.

Highly recommended
Speaking of reading a lot, which I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I recently found a book I had forgotten I’d brought, called The Story of San Michele, by Axel Munthe.
I bought it at a book fair in Canberra, waaay back in another life (in 2003 when I was still at law school), on the recommendation of a person I had previously dated, for about two seconds, before settling into an uneasy ‘friendship’. Anyway, finally reading the book got me thinking about him, and all that type of stuff, and about how several people have asked me about the Island, and what we have in common with each other.
And I suppose it does seem surprising: he doesn’t read, doesn’t like the same movies as me, only listens to Thai pop, and we can rarely have deep and meaningful conversations about, say, Australian politics. But he is unlike anyone else I have ever met, with a completely different background. Endlessly fascinating!
When it came to Mr Book Recommender, on the other hand…we liked all the same bands, both read a lot, both went to the movies all the time, appreciated each other’s dress sense, but when it came down to it, he was a complete ass who treated me, and probably every girl he ever went out with, like shit.
And plus, it’s kind of dull when someone likes all the same stuff as you, you know? Nick Hornby, in his creepy-look-into-men’s-psyches novel High Fidelity, wrote something like "It’s not what the girl is like that’s important, but what she likes.”
I think that’s something of a fallacy. These days, I get more satisfaction out of liking bands that everyone else thinks are 'obscure', because at least I don’t have to get into any arguments about them. Ditto books and films. I’ve long accepted that bands you love are not worth defending from the criticisms of those who probably don’t understand them in the first place.

It was a great book, though, very charming and good for the soul, although it did take me a little while to get my head around in the beginning.

So, this post is dedicated to two obscure authors who only wrote one famous book each, but wrote enough to ensure lasting fame, success and an extended entry in Wikipedia.

Robert M. Persig and Dr Axel Munthe, thanks for clearing my mind and helping me to see better- the highest praise for any book, really.