EQUILIBRIUM

840 calories from a post-birthday session easily burned in 64.3 kms of biking in Guimba and Munoz.

400 calories from a fellowship effortlessly spent in 19 kilometers of Cubao's concrete jungle.

1,650 calories from another birthday party and a convention almost obliterated by 39 kilometers of cruising through Talavera.

I therefore conclude that drinking is the best inspiration for biking.

SECRETS OF A WANDERLUST 1

I'm often asked how I cope up with my frequent trips.

Simple, I always make every trip interesting by setting a goal to anywhere I go.

And with my recent trip to Vientiane, I have fulfilled a personal goal of visiting all the 7 Oxfam country teams in the ASEAN.

Now I need find a way to get to Brunei and earn the bragging rights of having been to all 10 ASEAN members states. 

THE CASE OF THE MISSING ELEPHANTS

A million elephants in a 237,955 square kilometer land area is equivalent to 4 elephants for every square kilometers which could be easily spotted but I've seen none in the streets of Vientiane where elephants were as rare as public transport although overcharging tuktuks are in every street corner. 

What happen to the elephants when they die? Were they buried in large graves or butchered for meat? But we were served crispy river weed from the Mekong River as we start our dinner at the Khop Chai Deu. 

Perhaps the elephants would be in an early morning bath at the Mekong but the zumba practitioners at the Chao Anouvong Park directed me to a huge statue of the King where miniature porcelain and stone elephants [and horses] stand guard at the pedestal. 

I asked the street grill masters of Rue Phainam if the elephants are in their Sai Oua sausages, and the noodle chef at the Family Boutique Hotel if by chance they serve elephant-flavored rice porridge, and they all said no. 

So I went home, contemplating where all the million elephants went while whiling time in the stuffy smoking room of the Wattay Airport, counting a hundred thousand elephants in my head while killing 9 hours with Phuket Beer at the Suvarnabhumi Airport, then dropping my treasured Beer Lao mug as I unpack in Bacal 2 because my mind was somewhere else with the the elephants who ran away when I came to Vientiane.