As the world unfolds, so does the bicycle.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Traveler: Australian-born Lynette Chiang, the "customer evangelist" for Bike Friday, is the author of a travel memoir that has been published in Australia and that's scheduled to be published in the United States in November.

Her book, "The Handsomest Man in Cuba," subtitled "an escapade," is her account of her trip from one end of Cuba to the other on a folding bike, called a Bike Friday, that fits in a suitcase. The travel-friendly bike is made in Eugene.

Chiang, 41, graduated with a computer science degree from Australian National University and then worked as a computer programmer in Australia. She later worked as an advertising copywriter and creative director in Australia, Ireland and Costa Rica. She has been a Eugene resident for the past two years.

In 1997, at age 34, she bought a Bike Friday, quit her job and left Australia to travel the world on her folding bicycle. She said she chose a Bike Friday not only because it fits in a suitcase, but also because it has smaller diameter wheels that allow it to be custom-fitted to a 5-foot-tall person such as herself.

"My very first trip was from Land's End to John o'Groats," she said. "That is a standard bicycle journey from the bottom of Britain to the top."

Favorite destination: The Archipelago de Solentiname, a group of 36 islands in the southern part of Lake Nicaragua in Nicaragua, near the border with Costa Rica.

"That is a place I've been twice," Chiang said. "You have to get on a jungle river boat and then another boat to actually get out there.

"It's these beautiful little islands where people just live simply, and they carve these birds out of balsa wood called ceba - a very light wood - and then they paint them. And they grow mangos. And they just enjoy life there.

"The last time I went, I stayed in a cabin which was two dollars fifty a night," she said, adding that the islands she visited had no paved roads. "They're all dirt tracks. And the last time I went back, the second time, the owner had saved up enough money to buy a solar panel for $200 that he had on top of the shack, which was running his little black-and-white TV."

Chiang said the islands are a beautiful, untouched place.

Favorite weekend destination: "Probably what I would do is just go to Portland," Chiang said. "It's a city that's small enough to be not a concrete jungle yet big enough to actually have something decent to eat and something decent to look at and something decent to hear."

Most memorable experience: Her best memory is of her 35th birthday in Edinburgh, Scotland, which occurred after she had been cycling for two months northward along the length of Great Britain.

She had a list of potential hostesses in Scotland provided by Women Welcome Women World Wide, an organization that fosters international friendship by enabling women from different countries to visit one another.

"I had this list with me as a fallback to my tent, because I had a tent and sleeping bag and I was roughing it like that," Chiang said.

"I looked up the list and there was a girl's name, and I called up and a guy answered. And he said, 'Look, she doesn't live here anymore. She's in London, and I'm renting her house.' '

Chiang said she would go to a hostel, but the young man said he didn't want to see her stuck and insisted she stop by.

"When I got there, he threw me the keys," Chiang said. "He said, 'Here! I'm going to stay with my girlfriend for two days. It's all yours.'

"So here I was sitting in his apartment, a beautiful apartment, right in Edinburgh. That evening, I went riding up to the top of Arthur's Seat, which is this big hunk of wilderness right in the city, in the dark. Celebrating my birthday just completely alone, looking at it there. And, you know, we had talked a bit before I left so he knew it was my birthday.

"When I got back to the apartment, on the table was a cake and a card and a candle, lit," Chiang said.

The birthday card was signed by Anthony, the young man, and his girlfriend, and then Anthony walked in the door and explained that he felt sorry for her having to celebrate a birthday without friends.

"And that was my most memorable experience, because normally in life, generally, we only give people a certain amount of energy. You know, we kind of go do this calculation, like I know you for this long so I'm going to give you this much," Chiang said.

"Here's somebody who didn't meter out his energy - I never saw him again, but in that time he made me feel totally welcome."

Travel nightmare: Chiang recounts two of her worst experiences in her book, but the very worst experience is recounted in the chapter titled "The world's worst sailor," she said.

Chiang was camping at the eastern end of Cuba when a South African man offered her a ride on his 20-foot sailboat to the Cuban city of Trinidad.

"I should have said, 'No,' because I get very seasick and, you know, I kind of had other plans ... and I opened my mouth and 'Yes' came out," she said.

"And I think it's partly because, you know, when you're living a normal, working life, people say no more often. But when you live this way (a nomadic life), you can say yes more often and quite a few things happen.

"Well, I said yes. And, also, because the Bike Friday folds, it makes it very easy when people offer you a ride to say yes.

"So within 15 minutes, the bike was folded, the tent was folded, I was on his boat."

Except for one memorable lobster dinner, it proved to be a miserable trip that ended with her demanding to be put ashore nowhere near Trinidad.

The boat had to fight headwinds that required it to tack continuously and the boat's skipper smoked foul-smelling Cuban cigarettes.

"It was the worst seasickness of my entire life," Chiang said.

Advice: "Plan a holiday and you'll get the holiday you planned. So, depending on whether you want a predictable holiday or whether you want to be able to be open to whatever comes before you - like a horrible boat ride but wonderful birthdays, totally unfettered birthdays - decide," she said.

"Making that decision is like having a scale with a pointer you can move from 'plan' on one side to 'don't plan' on the other.

"I tend to move it right to the 'no plan,' ' she said.

We welcome profile suggestions. If you or someone you know has intriguing travel tales to tell, write Been There, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440; fax us (attention: Been There) at 338-2813; phone Jim Boyd at 338-2363 or [phone], Ext. 2363; or send e-mail to jboyd@guardnet. com. Include the nominee's name and phone number, your name and phone number, and why you think he or she would be interesting to feature.

CAPTION(S):

Lynette Chiang (left), with her folding Bike Friday and the proprietors of a guest house in Trinidad.