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!