Day 19: Plei Can to Kon Tum

They call me Bice, and though I may be ickle, I am a giant among my kind. My large round eyes and beautiful frame make me quite a spectacle. But I must not flatter myself; looks are not everything. I am also a forward thinker, and yet, I believe in the wisdom of old. For I agree with Heraclitus, that great peddler of truth, who said something along the lines of: You cannot sit in the same saddle twice. And as we plod onwards to our end that is the same as our beginning, in this great cycle of everything, I often think about our great civilisations that, just like me, rise and fall in incessant and irascible undulations. Though maybe I am full of hot air. Yes, sometimes I’m a crank, and it takes so little to become deflated these days, but all it takes is a puff of inspiration and I am back on my way. You see, every morning my head is filled with the strangest ideas that seem to possess me like an idée fixe. When the weight gets too much, and I feel the willing of the great cogitator whirr, it is then that I must move. My two round speculators start to spin and I speed off into the new day. But this morning I was sluggish and hungry and every sight I saw seemed to sizzle with succulence: the mountains in the distance looked like mounds of steaming morning glory surrounded by puffy clouds of white rice, and a river of chocolate milk, that must have come from some mighty chocolate cow, snaked along the roadside, taunting me with its apparent potability. And as the cicadas were rattling up high, like a forest full of maracas mating to make little shaker babies, I decided to rest in the shade of a petulant palm, strung with lazy hammocks under the gaze of a chirping gecko. Oh sweet libations!: sometimes all you need is a little squeeze of oil to put the soul in order and to get your cogs turning. As I continued on my way I was coronated by a crown of butterflies who came royally sniffing around my rims, curious to know what kind of creature I was. Suitably impressed, they whizzed along to spread the news of my arrival and soon the whole butterfly kingdom was out in the street, waving their welcoming wings as I passed.  Next I approached a glorious bouquet of primly collared rubber trees that looked, for the life of me, like a flagellation of Dada monks, bleeding in solemn sacrifice as they recited their tone poems. But as the day wears on and I begin to tire of the rattling bones and the profanities masked as profundities, I must take a break to rest a little, and to gear up for the day to come.  

• James