Where we’ve been

Day 22: 5 days from Saigon

Well we’re almost there. This Saturday, 500k down the road, we’ll arrive in Saigon, and this trip will be finished. And every single person who started this trip will have ridden the length of Vietnam. When we’re taking this trip a day at a time, it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come. But today’s a day off, so the big picture comes back a bit.

The last week or so has been quite difficult. I speak for myself, but I think it’s true for a lot of people. About a week ago, it seemed we had reached a point in the trip where bikes and bodies just start to break a little. We roll into town, hobble around looking for food, have a meeting, and go to bed. All of the knee/ankle braces which were in the First Aid kit are now in daily use. We started counting the days to Saigon and making plans for the food we would eat and the movies we would watch when we get there.

We’ve also been about 5 days on roads that are rough and busy and often windy, which we expect to continue until we finish. You may have noticed I have a phobia of all trucks and buses in Vietnam so, for me, this has probably been the hardest part.

Yesterday, my friend Hilary rode up behind me and said: I’m so tired I just tried to change my gears on my thigh.

But the last bit is always the hardest, isn’t it? And we’re sooo close.

So my biggest motivating factors at present, in no particular order:

1. Kids that stand nicely by the side of the road to give us high fives
2. Girls that blow us kisses
3. Impromptu road-side dance parties
4. Coffee breaks
5. Lunch
6. Women that try to help when we get goose-eggs on our heads, even though their idea of helping is to slap said goose-egg as hard as they can.
7. Loathing of evil bus and truck drivers who think it’s funny to try to scare people on bikes. And grown men on the side of the road who think the same.
8. Scheming of how I will one day stop my bike and kick one of the aforementioned people in the shins
9. On Saturday night I’m going to be eating sushi in Saigon with one of my best friends in the whole world!
10. On Sunday I will watch Patch Adams
11. On Sunday night we have our Bikers Got Back: The Return of the Spandex(osaurus) party, where we will dance our hearts out to Dude Looks Like a Lady.
12. When we were talking about doing this, everyone said we were crazy, and rumor has it people in Saigon even made bets on who would make it and who wouldn’t! The lovely part is that we’re all going to make it.

And that, really, is the whole point.

I’m off to try very hard to find a bicycle shop. My front tire currently has two holes and pitiful brakes. Here’s hoping!

Day 17: Long, climatically diverse, unexpected

Well hi,

Today was friggin crazy. We’re now in Plei Kan, 60% of the way through our ride and 11 days from the end.

Last night, James told us it would be a long day (115k, to be precise). But he said that the first half would be moderately hilly like yesterday and the last half would be flat. As he was reviewing the route with Bach this morning, Bach took him aside and raised his arm int he air to indicate “dramatic uphill” and said “20 kilometers.”

James did not tell us this.

So it took us about 5 hours to go 60 kilometers, and in the process we reached the clouds. And by clouds I mean misting, freezing, windy clouds. We were sweating in the sunshine for breakfast and lunch, but freezing in the clouds in the interim.

But we’re coming up with new and creative ways to curse the mountains every day, which I will not share due to large amounts of profanity, but many of them go like this:

“For @#$% sake! No more @#$% mountains!!!! AAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!”

-OR-

Friendly Vietnamese person: “Hello, what’s your name?”

Rider: “My name is ihatethe@#$%mountains. What’s yours?”

-OR-

[Shaking fists at the mountain]: “YOU WON’T BREAK ME! YOU WON’T!!!”

And they didn’t.

But the second half was lovely. Nice, climatically stable rolling hills which also did not break us. We even had time to form a little flying V in true Mighty Ducks fashion as we were rolling into town. So, another day another 100k, and all is well in the land of H2H.

Just two notes on our lovely driver, Bach:

1. He bought two little birds today. Two little pet birds? Why? I don’t know. Where? Somewhere along our ride. Then he took some random thing from the van and rigged it up as a drinking water system for them. I tell you this man’s a compassionate genius.
2. He also apparently fell in love with Ruth today. Ruth took a tumble on a patch of gravel and really really busted up her elbow. After we fixed it up the best we could with the First Aid kit, Bach was making moves to put her bike in the van and drive her the rest of the way when she went “no no, I think I want to ride.” She got on her bike, and as she rode away Bach looked at her and made this face which he always makes whenever anything surprises him, basically dropping his jaw and going “WHAAAAA???” Then he just started shaking his head and beaming. Then he looked at me and gave two thumbs up. And then Ruth biked 25 kilometers home. THEN she got stitches in her elbow. This girl is tough. And Bach loves her.

Day 16: Kham Duc

Today we took a 60k, moderatetly hilly ride into the booming metropolis of Kham Duc. I say booming metropolis for a few reasons:

1. There’s an airport
2. There’s a restaurant
3. There are white people here who I don’t recognize, and my friend, I believe, is presently gawking and trying to make conversation. We haven’t seen such things in a while.
4. Rumor round the water cooler has it, there’s ice cream.

So I gotta go.

But let me leave you with at least one picture.  

This is the whole team. We’re all being dinosaurs, which is a game we play sometimes. When one person starts it, everyone else must follow suit. The rules: you can’t show your teeth, and you should make dinosaur noises. This is what innocent people all over this country are being subjected to this month.

Day 15: Mountains, anyone?

I know it’s surprising, but today was more mountains! I don’t have much time and there’s really not much to report, except that we are now in the town of Thanh My. A little ways Southwest of Danang, in the middle of the country. I don’t know where the exact halfway point is, but we’re close. Everyone made it. NO flat tires today. And I’m apologizing again for the lack of pictures. I may just have to come back and update all these posts with illustrations at a later date. We’re taking tons, just difficult to get them off the camera and onto the computer at the moment.

Love to everyone.

Climb Every Mountain

Forgive yet another Sound of Music reference, but the blasted song has been running through my head all day (well, that and “Christmas is all around me, and so the feeling grroooows. If you really love Christmas, go on and let it shoooooow” which is beside the point). Why has that song been in my head all day, you ask? Because we just did 106 kilometers through nothing but mountains! That’s why.

Due to the fact that it took us until nearly sunset to do 50 kilometers LESS riding through the same terrain yesterday, we left an hour early this morning. We left at 7:00. I don’t know about everyone else, but Hilary and I rolled into town at 5:00.

I have to say, last night and this morning I was nervous about today. We didn’t just go 105 kilometers for the heck of it. We went that far because there was literally nothing between these two small dots on the map, which were 105k apart. We just didn’t have a choice.

I was nervous about the shortness of daylight. I knew that if we had enough time, all of us could do it, but it just takes a long time to plug through some of these mountains. I hated the thought that, with a few bike problems and/or particularly aggressive mountain roads, we  just wouldn’t have time.

We had no idea what the road would be like. It’s the HCM highway, and for a while we were wondering why it was so suspiciously vacant of cars. It’s because the road is blocked by landslides in a number of places. (There were some storms a few weeks ago.) These are little secrets that Vietnamese people know which we don’t. But bring it on, we walked through/over the mud. And I only fell in once, up to my knee. We were concerned about Bac getting the GIANT van through said landslides, but we’ve already established that he’s Superman , so of course he had no problem.

But, even with a collective 5 flat tires (one was mine, all four of the others belonged to one other rider named Rob) every single person made it before sunset, and I’m pretty sure at this point that there’s no day that we can’t handle.

The lovely thing about a long day like this one is that we got almost 35k straight of downhill cruising at the end, right as dusk was coming on. That’s fun stuff, and it helps you see how much you climbed earlier in the day.

And as we rolled in, I could just tell there was something different about the people. No one was mocking us or staring at us like circus freaks or laughing at us, they were all just cheering us on. And, by the way, they have the cutest kids in the country ’round these parts. So, three cheers for P’rao. Day well done.

So we’re in a new town and it’s suddenly Sexy Time meeting time. So gotta go. But all is well in the land of H2H.

Day 13: Mountains, blown tires, worn breaks, and mountains

First, let’s talk about yesterday. Our first day off of this trip. We were in Hue - the Imperial City. I would love to tell you more about this lovely city, except that I was too busy swimming and reading books and taking naps to really explore it beyond a trip to the pharmacy. But it was SO GOOD to have this day off. 12 days in a row is a long time to ride bikes, and our bodies were starting to feel it. So a late morning’s sleep, a swimming pool, and lots of food that wasn’t rice or noodles was just what the doctor ordered.

And if the days before didn’t justify our day off, then today and the next two days do. We’ve made it into some seriously steep mountains here. The kind that road bikes just aren’t made for. I blew out two tires before lunch. And spent far too much time walking my bike up hills for my liking. But, that’s the Central Highlands! And we did touch the clouds not once, but twice in a mere 70 kilometers. And today was just 70k and we made it here at 4pm. Tomorrow we have to go 110k! Let’s hope we got all the bike troubles out of the way today, eh?

It did bring back that old familiar phrase which rang through my head a few weeks ago. Only this time more loudly. DISTINCT LACK OF LOW GEARS!

That’s about it for now. I spent too much energy today being distracted/annoyed by the bike troubles to take too much note of the things we were seeing. But I saw some good valleys and mini waterfalls (aka Trickly Hows) nonetheless.

But one more thing, on an entirely unrelated note. If you notice my sudden disappearance on the popular blue and white social networking site of FB, that’s because the gov’t just blocked it for the entire country. So this is to answer the question of “where the @#$% is Katie,” should the question arise. And also to raise the question, “What the @#$% is going on in Vietnam? And what’s so dangerous about said blue and white site?” It truly is a crazy place. I’ll say no more, in the interest of maintaining access to this site.

See you in a few days for a cheerier update! 

PS – in fairness. All is still going exceptionally well. No one’s been really hurt, everyone’s made it the whole way. And we’re getting along splendidly, considering we’ve been together non-stop for two weeks now doing some pretty tough stuff. So bring on the Central Highlands, that’s what I say!

Day 9: A Shout out to Bac

First: pictures are coming. I swear. We have a day off in 2-3 short days and will probably deal with photos then. We just haven’t had the comp time yet.

Second: my quads are better.

Third: Today was, in the words of many Vietnamese “same same but different.” Not too much to report, except:

Our driver, Bac, is truly a saint with at least 6 senses and maybe more.

This morning before we left, I was messing around with my handlebars trying to make things better when in reality I was making things worse. As soon as we left, I could tell my handlebars were loose and tried everything I knew to fix them but my bike was still wobbly. I fixed enough so that it was ok enough to continue on to the next town.

Never once, by the way, did I mention this mishap to Bac. The man doesn’t even speak English.

About 50k into our ride, two of our dear riders had quite a crash with some school children. As we were stopped and trying to sort them out with the first aid kit, I turn around, and what do I see but Bac, working on my handlebars. Don’t ask how he knew there was anything wrong in the first place. This I can’t answer. But he was on the case.

So I started watching him in awe.

Swivles the handelbars, shakes his head as if something’s wrong.

Twists something around at the base of the handlebars.

Swivles and still shakes head with a thoughtful wrinkle in his forehead.

Adjusts some more things in the region.

Swivles again and nods with satisfaction. Flashes me the “ok” sign and grins. I’m good to go and I never even asked him for help. Indeed, never even told him my problem.

Also, I’m not joking. I can go for hours without seeing this man or this van. The second I start to think: man I wish Bac would come by so I could get some water. There he is.

It’s truly, truly crazy.

My friend Jacinta was saying as we were riding off: I wonder if he knows how much we love him. How can I tell him? Maybe if I just flash him he’ll understand.

Maybe not that, but the man deserves some serious kudos.

Day 8: Sore muscles, wrong turns, song and dance, and river swim

So my quads hurt. It took a while, but they . . . hurt . . .

We were plugging along today, on a gorgeous road through gorgeous mountains with some new and merciful clouds over head, when we reached a really big hill. We were plugging our way up the hill, and I was sort of impressed with how quickly we were making it, when our van comes sailing by. 5 minutes later, the kids at the front are on their way back down. We went the wrong way, and Bac saves the day once again. So the next f 5-10 minutes are spent sailing down this hill which we just went up in error and my thoughts were two: this is lovley, and dang we went up a long way!

So the next road was a bit muddy and rocky, so we stopped at a few spots along the way. At one point, I stopped for a peanut butter break with 4 other girls where I ate half a jar of peanut butter (good thing there are 7 more where that came from!) As we were getting ready to leave, I had an idea: The Iron Man Dance.

That’s something we used to do at Davidson any time a group needed a good pumping up. It goes like this. Start singing the iron man theme in your best tough-guy voice. For the first round, pump one fist in the air, much like you’re knocking on a door. Second round: two fists. Third round: both fists and one foot. Fourth round: just jump all over the place.

By the end of this process, a passing car with 3 young guys had stopped to watch. When we finished, they wanted high fives. By the end of the high fives, they had hip hop music blaring out of the window. What’s a girl to do? We danced some more. Right there in the street. Great fun was had by all.

About 30 minutes further along, I stopped for water and 5 kids gathered round. My friend Hilary joined me and 5 more small children joined in. As riders keep joining us, so do small children, and soon we’ve got a crowd. So we did the Iron Man Dance for them. They wanted more, so we did the Hokey Pokey. Silliness. I think they were laughing at our padded shaking bums as much as they were laughing at anything, but laughs are good where you can get them. I think by the end there must have been at least 30 children around us. So we said goodbye and peddled on.

Finally, as we were about 5k from our destination town, I’m thinking “Jeez I’m hot, I sure can’t wait to get back and have a cold shower.” Then we crossed a lovely, clear blue river. Fresh clear water is a rarity in Vietnam. I, for one, have almost never seen it. So we went for a swim. In all our clothes.

The end.

Oh PS – We’re in Dong Le right now. About a 4th of the way to HCM and well over half way to our day off in Hue. Let the countdown to Hue begin!

Day 6: I think this is becoming a party

I didn’t write anything yesterday, mostly because I didn’t want to come on here and winge about the miserable roads we were on. Hwy 1 is terrible:  huge trucks with loud horns who think it’s a game to see how close they can get to us. The whole day was long and flat and dusty. So I didn’t write about yesterday. Well I guess I just did.

But that’s because today was the best day ever! Definitely my favorite day so far. We took a short ride to meet up with the Ho Chi Minh Highway and then headed south on that all day. It was another lovely new road with almost no cars, and it was through GORGEOUS mountains. It was so. very. nice to have some hills and interesting scenery after two relatively boring days. I could tell that my legs are getting stronger, and focused much less on the “distinct lack of low gears.”

About 40k down the highway, we stopped for a food and water break (we’re eating a whole lot these days, including peanut butter by the fingerfull and 1.5 litre bottles of soda, I digress). And this time our break, for some reason, also included beer. (It’s sugar and calories and electrolytes, right? Isn’t that what we’re after?) After about 30 minutes, as our friend Sam so aptly put it “right guys, I think this is becoming a party, we still have 40k to go.” It was true, so we moved on.

A few miles down the way, we took  a (correct) left turn, but found ourselves going the wrong way on a one-way two-lane street. In my book, this isn’t safe, so we turned around and consulted our driver (who, by the way, is a saint and a genius and knows everything about Vietnam’s roads, and his name is Bac, as in Johann Sebastian). His message was clear “that way, Laos. This way, Pho Chau.” Wrong way on a one-way street it was. Carry on. But then it seemed that cars were heading in both directions, most of them on the wrong side of the road, so I chalked it up to thingsiwillneverunderstand and hoped for the best.

In short, today was lovely because the ride was challenging and splendid. We took lots of breaks so we stuck together a little more than usual, and there was lots of laughter at random happenings.

In other news:

• I got poked and groped some more by Vietnamese women this morning
• I raced a kid who was running barefoot, and defeated him ruthlessly, it’s really not fair and I should not be so competitive with small children. Ask my old students how many of them beat me arm wrestling, I just can’t help it.
• Everyone in this town finds us hilarious and we don’t even have to do anything. My hair is so short it doesn’t make sense and my friend’s legs are so long that it doesn’t make sense. Good entertainment for all.
• I nearly hit three different cows at three different times today.