As the cycling trip approached we got more and more nervous. I started to think I was crazy booking us on back to back cycling trips when we hadn’t been on bikes for years (apart from a short ride in India). At times I thought that maybe 70km a day didn’t sound too bad and at other times it sounded absolutely terrifying!
Day 1: The trip started in Bangkok and we met some of the group at the hotel before going to the airport to collect the rest of the group. We transferred from there to our hotel near Khao Yai National Park. We tried to order lunch but 30 minutes after I had placed my order of a sandwich I was told it was not available, I then ordered chicken fried rice but that never turned up so in the end I resorted to my emergency Green and Black’s chocolate stash! We met at 4pm to prepare our bikes and go on a 5km warm up ride. We weren’t quite sure what it really meant to prepare our bikes but watched and got more worried by the minute as people asked for spanners and alum keys to change their peddles, their saddles, adjust their handlebars etc. We felt that really we should be doing something more than just altering the height of the saddle! We set off and the 5km was really good fun and didn’t take long at all and we thought that maybe we would enjoy this trip. We got back to the hotel and I think Marc just wanted someone to tinker with his bike and so he got his handlebars adjusted! We went for a swim and then had a gorgeous dinner. We were briefed after dinner that the itinerary may have to be changed as there were problems at the Thai/Cambodian border and it may not be safe to cross but that we would know more in the next few days.
Day 2: Today’s route was 90km to Gaeng Hin Poeng. I had a discussion with some of the girls over breakfast whether to wear underwear or not as the guy in the bike shop had said you shouldn’t under padded cycling shorts, the views were mixed so I was none the clearer! Someone also said that they had nappy rash cream and baby powder with them if anyone needed to borrow them and I did wonder what on earth that was needed for! We set off and had a front and back support vehicle as well as a truck that we could put the bikes on at any time if we needed a rest. It was incredibly well organized, the front van would put signposts with a red arrow in the ground to make sure we would go the right way and the back van collected the signposts once everyone had gone past them. It was great as it meant that everyone could cycle at their own pace and not feel any pressure to keep up with the group. We were told that we would have a break around every 17km and after the first leg Marc and I were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t actually too bad! We arrived and were handed a cool towel immediately and rested in the shade. The back of the van was opened up to reveal cold water, cans of drink, energy drinks, bananas, chocolate, jelly and nuts. I started to think that this was going to be like the trekking and that even with all the exercise we wouldn’t lose any weight at all! We carried on skirting round Khao Yai which translates as ‘the big mountain’ but luckily we were just going around it and the roads were pretty flat. We stopped off at a small temple where one of our guides Wasan told us about Buddhism and how anybody could become a monk for as little as a week if they wanted to be. He had been a monk for 4 months and apparently when you marry, the girl’s family approves of you more if you have been a monk for longer than 3 months.
We stopped for lunch and were served gorgeous fried rice but they had forgotten that Marc doesn’t eat egg so he swapped his lunch with Wasan and had an authentic Thai dish which was spiced accordingly rather than to Western tastes. Marc normally would eat a whole chilli if it was on his plate and be okay but he said he has never tasted anything so hot before! We relaxed and ate watermelon and pomelo and contemplated getting back on the bikes. Then from seemingly nowhere an ice cream man arrived, we all had an ice cream and then set off on the bikes. 4 people had got on the support van as it was so hot and I started to wish I had too. It must have been around 35’C and I was exhausted. We cycled through a golf course, which was a strange experience riding over the greens, and then had a break. Marc and I decided that for the next leg we would get on the support vehicle and take a break as we were finding the heat too much. We had done 65km so I didn’t feel we had done badly at all for our first days cycling. We chose to be on the back support vehicle and Marc pulled the signposts out for the driver as went along which he seemed very grateful for, I don’t think anyone had ever done it for him before! As soon as we got on the air conditioned van we felt instantly better, I don’t think it was so much the cycling that was exhausting, it was the heat. We watched a Thai music DVD in the van and looked at the stunning scenery. We saw a beautiful rainbow up ahead against a very dark sky and could see a line in the road where the monsoon had started. We had been on the van for about 10km and it seemed we had got on at the right time as I have never seen rain so heavy. We saw the group up ahead had stopped and we thought we would get back on our bikes as it would be fun to cycle in the rain. It turned out they had stopped as they were cold and wet and couldn’t see a thing in front of them as the rain was so bad. Marc was already outside at this point and was soaked too so he helped to put everybody’s bikes on the truck and everyone got in the van where we drove the rest of the way to the hotel.
The hotel was by the river and we were given a strange blue coloured welcome drink which tasted like popcorn. Marc played pool and we then had dinner. After dinner someone had spotted a karaoke machine so Marc, Matt and some others went over and started singing. Maybe it was the songs that they chose but it seemed like the Thai people sounded really good and our group sounded pretty awful! Wasan was filling buckets with ice and some concoction of Thai whisky, M150 which is like red bull, and coke and put in a handful of straws so everyone could drink it. We stayed up much later than if we were trekking (at least 10pm!) and I left whilst there were still a few of the group, including Marc of course, still singing away. I put in my ear plugs and fell asleep exhausted.
Day 3: We woke and were relieved to find that our bottoms weren’t as sore as we were expecting them to be, the padded cycling shorts and gel filled seat cover must be working! We cycled along minor roads and went through wonderful landscapes including eucalyptus and rubber plantations. We stopped and Wasan showed us how to extract rubber from the tree by cutting it and collecting it in a cup or coconut shell. You can collect about 330ml of rubber a day from each tree this way. We cycled over what Al and Wasan described as rolling hills but it wasn’t too bad and the downhill bits were great. The monsoon then started again and after a couple of kilometers we pulled in to a restaurant at the side of the road to wait until it passed. Al (our tour leader) cooked lunch for us which was then put into tiffin boxes. We had seen tiffins boxes in India as everyone carries their lunch in them, they are stainless steel bowls which stack on top of each other and keep the food inside warm. After an hour or so the monsoon had passed and we carried on. We passed lots of children shouting hello to us and some boys where linings the side of a bridge cheering us along – it felt great! We stopped for lunch (which showed that Al was a really good cook) at a temple that was being built and noticed that there were lots of chairs set out for a function. We found out that in a few hours the place would be packed as a cremation was about to take place. We carried on and finished cycling on a short section on a busier road into the town of Sa Keaw.
We arrived at our hotel at 3pm and I couldn’t believe it when I was told that we had done 70km, it had seemed like fun! We relaxed in the pool and Barbara taught Marc some cycling terms so that he could impress the next group. So we now know what cadence, drafting, mitts and baggies are! We stayed in the pool for ages and Marc was scratching a very funny dog which was by the side of the pool, when Marc found a particular spot its back leg would lift up and jiggle and when he wagged his tail it went round in circles. I went for a full body Swedish massage which was wonderful, and Marc and Neil went to KFC for a snack before dinner! Neil is a very straightforward person so when they got back and I asked Marc what he had eaten and he said just one piece of chicken, Neil blurted out ‘and fries and a coke’! Somehow they both managed to eat dinner and then we went for a walk to the supermarket where we bought some cereal, you would think we hadn’t seen civilization in days. Thankfully there was no karaoke tonight but we were told that there would be tomorrow night!
Day 4: We had our cereal for breakfast instead of some very odd looking sausages and then went to the local market. Wasan showed us round the different sections and we tried some gorgeous coconut pancakes. The fruit stalls were amazing and we saw wonderful looking dragon fruit and lots of longans which are like lychees. There were also lots of chillis, pigs heads and trotters, baby turtles, eels and frogs. We got back on our bikes and again the first leg was fine. We carried on towards the Pang Sida National Park where there was a reservoir that we could swim in. It seemed like the road to the reservoir was never ending, I kept think that it must be around the next corner but it never was. We eventually arrived and 10 of the group went swimming whilst the rest of us lay down and dozed. I definitely felt like I needed a chocolate fix as I was so tired and discovered Beng Beng bars which were like a lion bar. It seems like at every break I need to refuel with chocolate, bananas and nuts to keep me going for the next leg! The next leg was very hot and Marc was way ahead of me and I was cycling with Stuart. One of the local kids saw us coming and quickly got on his bike and pedalled frantically to keep up with us. He looked so happy, a huge smile on his face and then he came crashing down. I think he was so busy looking at us he lost balance and fell over. We stopped to check he was okay and he seemed to be so we carried on. There were now 4 of us in a pack, Marc and I and Stuart and Rachel and we carried on to the lunch stop drafting behind each other. It was a new experience for me, cycling close to the person in front in order to make it easier. We would take it in turns to go from being at the back to the front so it wasn’t just hard for one person. We arrived at lunch and I felt like a proper cyclist, it felt like being in the Tour de France, being in a pack and taking turns to go to the front!
We had done 51km when we stopped for lunch and as we ate lunch it just seemed to get hotter and hotter so I decided to get on the support vehicle after lunch along with 5 others. I dozed in the bus and then decided to stay on it for the next leg as well as it hadn’t got any cooler. Marc joined me and we drove along taking lots of photos. Marc got on well with the driver, Lun, so he stopped whenever we wanted to take a photo. I have never seen such bright vivid green colours than what we saw in the paddy fields. We saw banana and papaya trees, waved at the locals and I sent Marc out to get a picture of a long eared cow. The cows here have ears which look more like donkeys ears, huge and hanging round their face and I just had to get a photo! We got on the bikes again for the last leg to Aranyaprathet which was 10km away and again cycled in a pack. The hotel was pretty nice but we had to swap rooms as our air conditioning wasn’t working and then we went to dinner. We got back and Wasan mixed up some special buckets and we went down to the karaoke room. Once again Matt was Marc’s partner in crime and the duo seemed to think they were only days away from signing a recording contract! We drank Mai Thai cocktails which were only one pound and really lovely and sang cheesy songs like Abba, Tom Jones and Ricky Martin, the singing was much better than the first time. I went to bed while Marc stayed to the end and sang ‘my way’ with a Thai girl!
Day 5: Today we crossed over the border to Cambodia on our bikes. All along both sides of the road were men with large carts that they pulled behind them carrying goods across no-man’s-land and then back the opposite way. We said goodbye to Wasan and the drivers as they were staying in Thailand and met our new guide Woody. We drove along a very bad road, apparently the new road is due to be completed at the end of 2009 and stopped for lunch at 10.30am as it was the only suitable stopping place! As we drove on there were paddy fields as far as the eye could see as it was so flat and there were people fishing and swimming in the water. We also saw lots of houses on stilts as the water level rises so much during the rainy season. We got off our bus and back on our bikes 20km from Siem Reap and cycled to our hotel there. The roads in Thailand had been great but these were a lot worse, more dirt roads really and as our bikes didn’t have mudguards we ended up arriving at our hotel absolutely covered in mud. I had a strip of mud running up my back and into my hair, mud on my face and arms and legs, just covered in it! We got some very odd glances walking into the hotel. It was also quite different cycling in a busy city as so far we have been on quiet roads, I was quite worried for Marc as he had never really cycled in traffic before but he managed fine.
We had a quick swim and then went to Phnom Bakheng to watch the sun set. It is a temple on top of a natural hill 60m high that has good views over the plains of Angkor. Bakheng was a temple dedicated to Siva and was home of the royal linga and composed of 5 towers built on a sandstone platform with 108 smaller towers scattered around the terraces. It had extremely steep steps to climb up to the upper platform but was worth it for the view. The sun set quickly and somehow Marc and I ended up being the last 2 to go down and had to walk quite a long way down the hill in the pitch black. We stopped off briefly at Angkor Wat on the way back which was all lit up and was wonderfully reflected in the moat in front. We went back to Siem Reap and went and had a burger for dinner as we hadn’t had one for weeks and then had a wander round the night market. There were lots of checked cotton scarves, silk products, paintings, jewellery and bamboo and of course t-shirts. Marc bought one for himself and one for Matt with ‘same same’ on the front and ‘but different’ on the back which he thought would be a good name for their karaoke duo! It was a nice market in that very few people hassled you and there was no pressure to buy, quite unlike other markets we have been to, the Cambodian people just seemed very genuine.
Day 6: Today we cycled outside the main Angkor complex to Banteay Srei which was 28km from Siem Reap. The route took us past paddy field and through pretty villages. At one of the village we drank juice from the palm tree and were then shown how they made palm sugar. It was gorgeous, like tablet fudge, I definitely had a sugar high for a while afterwards! We stopped on the way there to visit Pre Rup which was built in 961 and is a temple-mountain representing Mount Meru which is the centre of the Hindu universe on whose summit the gods reside. We carried on to Banteay Srei and upon arriving were surrounded by what we called the $1 sellers, selling postcards, water bracelets and wooden flutes. All of them had the same lines and tried to make us promise we would come back to them later when we had looked around the temple. Banteay Srei was built in 967 and translates to ‘Citadel of Women’ due to the intricate carvings. The temple is considered to be the highest achievement of art from the Angkor period. The main walls, entry pavilions and libraries were made from laterite and the carving from pink sandstone. All the buildings were covered in carvings of women, gods, demons, serpents’ tails and flowers. It was roasting hot by this point and Matt and I couldn’t carry on so searched out some shade nearby to sit in and listened whilst Woody talked. Marc came over and laughed at us as we looked like we were wilting and of course took a photo showing just how bad we looked!
We had lunch and drank coconut juice and then went to the Cambodian landmine museum which was really harrowing. I really had no idea how many different types of landmine there are (including cigarette bombs and bouncing betty) and how many people they had killed of injured. We had seen a lot of amputees in Siem Reap and read that there are still many injured each day as there millions of landmines still scattered across the Cambodian countryside. It was a very interesting museum and made me want to read more on Cambodian history, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
We cycled on in the rain which thankfully had made it a bit cooler and went to Ta Prohm. This is known as the jungle temple and was the temple used in the filming of Tombraider. Unlike most of the other temples at Angkor it has only been minimally cleared of its undergrowth, fig trees and creepers. It was consecrated in 1186 and is huge, within the complex walls lived more than 1200 citizens. It was one of our favourite temples, kind of like walking into an Indiana Jones film and amazing to see the strangler figs prying their way into the temples structure. We walked back to our bikes past water buffalo and egrets and had a very quick ride back to Siem Reap as it was getting dark. It was still raining so we got absolutely filthy, covered in mud and soaking. We were all cycling single file as there was quite a lot of traffic going into town and I was just following Rachel in front of me, when she swerved to avoid a pothole I followed. We cycled the last part in the dark and again entered the hotel lobby to lots of stares from other tourists! I thought I should rinse our clothes rather than putting them straight in the laundry bag but after 5 rinses gave up as the water was still coming out brown. It was the same when I had a shower, I scrubbed myself clean but yet when I dried myself and looked at the towel it was brown, it seemed impossible to get clean! We were surprised to learn that we had done 70km as we still felt like we had lots of energy. We went out for dinner and somehow ended up having a burger again with some of the group, Marc was happy as after he and Matt had finished their burgers Matt suggested they ordered another one to share! We shared a tuk tuk home with Stuart and Rachel, the driver took us via a back road and we ended up going down a street which was at least 30cm deep in water, I thought I was going to fall out the side and grabbed on to Marc and Marc grabbed on to Stuarts leg!
Day 7: This morning we cycled to Angkor Thom which means ‘great city’. We cycled across the causeway that traversed the moat and it was bordered on one side by 54 serene looking gods and on the other by 54 fierce faced demons (asuras). We went through the South Gate and stopped at the Terrace of the Elephants. This was a 300m long wall which had large life-like carvings of elephants in a hunting scene along its walls.
From here we went to the Bayon which is built right in the middle of Angkor Thom. The Bayon had a large tower and 51 smaller towers each with carved heads facing north, south, east and west. The faces are crowned with lotus flowers, symbols of enlightenment and there are more than 2000 large faces carved throughout the structure. There were also walls of bas-reliefs showing battles with the Cham, fishing with nets, people nit picking hair and warrior elephants amongst other things. In the naval battle scenes the water around the war canoes is depicted by the presence of fish, crocodiles, turtles and floating corpses.
We then cycled to Angkor Wat. I have always wanted to see it and it didn’t disappoint. It is the biggest religious monument ever built and is spectacular. It is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and its five towers are emblazoned on the Cambodian flag. The central sanctuary of the temple represented Mount Meru and the five towers represent Meru’s five peaks. The enclosing wall represents the mountains at the edge of the world and the surrounding moat, the ocean beyond. The temple complex is enclosed by a square moat which is more than 5km long and 190 wide. More than 1000sq m of bas-relief decorate the temple and the most famous are the hundreds of figures of apsaras who were Angkor’s equivalent of pin-up girls and represented the ultimate ideal of feminine beauty. We saw hundreds of carvings of them in seductive poses all with different jewellery and clothes and of course Marc had his photo taken with them! We were at Angkor at the right time, about 12 o’clock and it seemed like all the other tourists were having their lunch as there was hardly anyone there, it was great as it certainly didn’t feel like a busy tourist attraction.
We cycled back to the hotel (about 30km total today) and were nowhere near as dirty when we got back as we were in previous days. Late afternoon we went to the Tonle Sap Lake to see the floating villages. Tonle Sap means ‘Great Lake’ and is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. It is connected to the Mekong via the Tonle Sap River and when the Mekong floods during the rainy season the Tonle Sap River reverses its flow and the floodwaters fill the lake, which doubles in size, covering the surrounding countryside. We went on a boat and watched the sun set and visited one of the floating villages which had a fish farm and crocodile farm on it. It was interesting to see these floating houses and there was even a floating church!
Day 8: We didn’t cycle today or tomorrow as we went to Phnom Penh which was about 6 hours away by bus. We stopped on the way at another part of the Tone Sap Lake where we ay in hammocks and relaxed and then carried on until we reached a silk farm. It was interesting as we saw the silkworms eating leaves then getting larger, on branches forming their cocoon and then watched a woman boiling the cocoons in a pot and extracting the silk. She got a thread of silk from about 3 or 4 cocoons in the pot and these were spun together to form a silk thread. I thought she was joking when she said to our guide did anyone want to try a silkworm but she was serious. She picked a cocoon out of the pot and tapped it until the silkworm inside fell out. Marc and some of the group tried one and thought it tasted like a pickled walnut! We then watched people weaving the silk threads into a scarf which took them 2 days of weaving to make a 2m x 0.5m scarf.
When we got back on the bus after a while we could hear a whimpering noise that was getting louder and louder. When we asked our guide Woody what it was he said that there was a puppy in a box in the baggage compartment that he was bringing home to his family. Of course we said that he could bring it on the bus as it was clearly distressed, he brought it on and it spent the rest of the journey curled up in Marc’s lap sleeping peacefully. Marc named it Buzz after Buzz Lightyear in the film Toy Story.
Our next stop was the town of Skuon which is known for its local delicacy of fried spiders. We got off the bus and instantly were surrounded by children selling fruit and saw the women with buckets of live tarantulas and bowls of fried tarantulas. We watched our guide Woody eat one and then Marc thought he would have one too. I think it is as well that he didn’t really think about it as if he had I am not sure that he would have actually done it. He put it all in his mouth and bit off the body, there were legs hanging out of his mouth and after a few chews he popped the body in as well! I couldn’t believe he had done it but he just grinned and said that it tasted like it had been cooked in garlic and salt and that it tasted like shrimp with the shell left on! We have all of this on video, the link is at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lcjLquFltjs Nobody else in the group wanted to try one but a couple of people ate a leg each. It cost $1 for 4 fried tarantulas!
We arrived in Phnom Penh and met a local guide who was to show us around the next couple of days. After lunch we went to the Museum of Genocide. This is the former Khmer Rouge prison known as S-21 or Tuol Sleng. It used to be a high school but after the 17th April 1975 became the Khmer Rouge main torture and interrogation centre. More than 20,000 people were taken from S-21 to their executions at the Killing Fields and countless others died under torture and were thrown into mass graves in the school grounds. Only seven prisoners survived because they were sculptors and painters and could produce busts and paintings of Pol Pot. There were 4 buildings, one of which housed VIP’s like officers. We walked through their cells, saw their beds and shackles and saw their blood on the walls and ceilings from when the Khmer Rouge realized they were about to be defeated and so shot everyone. There was barbed wire covering the balconies so that no prisoner could jump off and commit suicide. In one block of classrooms we saw thousands of photos of people who had been there and then executed. It was awful to see this and I think what made it worse for me is that it had happened so recently. The Khmer Rouge were in power for just under 4 years and during this time more than 1.1 million Cambodians were executed and thousands more died from famine and disease. It is a horrendous figure as the population of the whole country was around 7 million.
Marc and I went for dinner and a drink at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia. It has classic French colonial architecture and overlooks the Tonle Sap river and is where journalists, diplomats and photographers go. We talked a lot about what we had seen that day and on the way home I bought a couple of books, one of a survivor’s story and the other on Cambodian history so I could understand a bit more about what had happened.
Day 9: We had a 9am start today which was a real treat after all our early starts! We visited the Royal Palace and saw the Throne Hall which is used for coronations and the Silver Pagoda which is often called the pagoda of the Emerald Buddha after the statue housed there. The pagoda’s steps are Italian marble and inside the floor had more than 5000 silver blocks which together weigh nearly six tonnes. It was rebuilt by Sihanouk in 1962 and has remained intact, having been granted special dispensation by the Khmer Rouge. In the centre is a 17th century emerald Buddha and in front of it is a 90kg golden Buddha studded with 9584 diamonds, both were very impressive!
We then went to the ‘Killing Fields’. This was 15km out of town and was a mass grave and execution site for the former inmates of S-21. There was a huge glass tower standing on the site filled with the skulls of men, women and children exhumed from 129 mass graves in the area. As many as 300 people a day were killed here. It was quite disturbing walking round as you could see bits of clothing which tended to be used as blindfolds and also bones and teeth on the ground.
We went for dinner at a restaurant called ‘Friends’ which is staffed by kids that have been taken off the streets and they are trained there by former students. The food was wonderful.
Day 10: We drove for 2 hours out of Phnom Penh to the town of Takeo where the road became quieter. We got off the buses and got on our bikes surrounded by locals, I think wondering what on earth we were doing! We set off towards the Vietnam border and the group had obviously missed not being on the bikes for 2 days and set off at a very fast pace. For once I managed to stay with the pack but then Marc broke off at speed to draft behind a truck that had just passed us and the some of the group followed, I couldn’t catch up at all. We stopped for our next break exhausted! We carried on and then stopped for lunch at the bus driver’s house. Marc amused everybody by putting on the driver’s military jacket and hat and striking a range of poses! After lunch we cycled to the Cambodia / Vietnam border. Matt was getting nervous as he had worked the date out wrongly for his visa and it wasn’t valid until tomorrow but luckily it was okay. We said goodbye to our Cambodian guide Woody and met our Vietnam guide, Lam. We had loaded our bikes onto the truck on the Cambodian side and were meant to pick up different ones in Vietnam. Al was on the phone and eventually said there had been some mix up and that we would have to get on the bus to the hotel in Chau Doc rather than cycling as there weren’t enough bikes. We arrived at the hotel and went out to see the local market and use the ATM. The currency in Vietnam is the Dong and there are around 16,000 Dong to the dollar so we took out about $65 and we were millionaires!
Day 11: We got on the bus and drove to Long Xuyen where we took a ferry across the river. We stopped at a café and had an iced coffee, it was gorgeous. In Vietnam an iced coffee consists of one small glass of espresso, one small glass of condensed milk and a large glass of ice. You mix the coffee into the condensed milk and stir it well then pour it over the ice, absolutely delicious! We were still wondering where the bikes were and again Al was on his mobile looking concerned. He eventually admitted that customs at the border had thought they were bike smuggling and that the bikes had been impounded at the local police station! We sat there waiting and then 16 motorbikes turned up and we were told to get on the back of one, we didn’t know where we were going but put on a helmet and did as we were told. My driver seemed to think it was a race against the others and overtook them, he then stopped for petrol and sped off, overtaking everyone again. I was squeezing him tight with my thighs to hold on as I remembered Marc telling me that was how you held on on a motorbike so I am sure the driver enjoyed the trip! We arrived at the local police station and a couple of minutes later our truck with our bikes on it came through the gates. I think it is one of the reasons why we keep booking with Exodus as even if something doesn’t work out according to plan, the guides always come up with a fun alternative.
We cycled a short distance and then went on another ferry where a local woman gave us some water chestnuts to eat. We carried on again cycling at a very fast pace. It was a relatively busy road with lots of people on motorbikes carrying different things, one had what looked like metal goalposts, another had around 30 chickens tied up by the legs and another had 5 people on one bike! We then cycled down an alleyway and along a concrete path by the canal and stopped for lunch at our guide Lam’s family house. We met his sisters and his mother and lots of others from the village and had a wonderful lunch which they had cooked. When we left and cycled through small villages the locals looked like they had never seen tourists before. It is nice going to places that are a bit off the tourist track and we found the Mekong delta to be beautiful.
We arrived at Vinh Long and took another boat to our homestay on an island in the Mekong Delta. It was much better than I was expecting and even had hot showers. We had an amazing dinner and all the food was presented beautifully with carving of boats and people with oars. We had elephant ear fish which we shredded up and along with noodles and mint leaves rolled in rice paper to make fresh spring rolls. I love the food here but the only thing I don’t like is that they add fish sauce to their chilli sauce, it has such an off-putting smell, I just can’t bear it! Throughout the evening an old man who we had nicknamed granddad had been wandering around and showed us books of business cards of people who had stayed there and photo albums. At the end of the meal he appeared with a bottle of local rice wine (firewater!) for us all to drink. Al told us that granddad used to be in the Viet Cong and then granddad then went and proudly put on his uniform. All the boys had their photo taken with him in uniform and put on his hat!
We left the homestay by boat and went to have a look at the Cai Be floating market. It wasn’t a tourist market at all, just for locals buying fruit and vegetables. It was interesting to see, they advertise what produce they have on their boat by sticking a large bamboo pole up in the boat and hang an example of what they have to sell on it. After that we stopped to see local cottage industries producing puffed rice, rice paper and sweets. We bought some sweets as there were lovely, they were made with 50% coconut milk, 25% sugar and 25% malt and then added peanuts at the end. It tasted like coconut flavoured chewy condensed milk, yummy! We watched puffed rice being made which was interesting, they got rice and put it into a huge wok like pan with sand that was hot and then just heated it until it popped. The sand is used to stop the rice burning and sticking. The mixture was then sieved to separate the puffed rice from the sand. A sugary syrup solution was then mixed into the puffed rice which was put into a rectangular tray and pressed down and cut into squares. It tasted very similar to Kellogg’s rice crispie squares! Marc and I left very full from all the free samples!
We got back on the bikes and it was a beautiful days riding. The scenery was fantastic, we rode on paths by the Mekong riverbank and cycled through orchards of fruit, mainly longans. We went over small bridges and crossed the rivers by ferry. We then cycled along a road that looked like it was being prepared to put tarmac on so it was just sand. As it rained the night before it was difficult to cycle in but great fun, there was no way of avoiding the potholes and puddles and we got absolutely filthy. At the same time school had just finished and there were lots of schoolchildren in their uniforms cycling along that road too. I don’t know how they managed it but the girls looked pristine in their flowing white uniforms, not a bit of dirt on them! We stopped for another iced coffee and were introduced to a different fruit, a rambutan. It is a apricot sized fruit that is red and is covered in spiky hairs and inside looks like a lychee and tastes very similar too.
We then got back on our bikes for what was our last leg. It felt strange thinking that the trip was ending but we were glad that we had booked another one as we felt like we were just getting into the cycling. We got to the bus and had a group photo and went to lunch. It was quite an up market place and we got stared at when we went in as we were still in our cycling shorts and were so dirty! I ordered the set menu with Iseult and we had dish after dish of food arrive to the table, all lovely.
We got the bus to Ho Chi Minh City which was formerly called Saigon. Lam woke up anyone who was sleeping as we entered the city to show us all the traffic! I have never seen anything like it, there were just motorbikes everywhere and at every red traffic light hundreds would be waiting then set off weaving in and out. Apparently there are 3 million motorbikes in Saigon as they are so much cheaper than cars, they only cost about $400-500 now they are imported from China.
We had dinner and then went for a drink at a bar called Saigon Saigon which was on the 10th floor of a hotel and so had great views of the city. I had a Miss Saigon cocktail which was lovely.
Day 13: The rest of the group got up early to go to the Cu Chi tunnels but Marc and I stayed behind as we were going to cycle there with the next group. We had breakfast and then went back to bed and I woke up again at 2pm, clearly all the cycling had left me exhausted! We went out to find a laundry as the hotel rates were extortionate and as we walked along I spotted a lovely silk dress which the owner of the shop persuaded me to try on. It fitted really well and so we bought it even though I had no intention of going out and buying anything! We then took a taxi to the backpacker area with our laundry bags and as we walked down the street a guy spotted us with our bags and took us down a series of alleys to a house where we left in our laundry, I assume it was his mothers house and we had no idea if it was even a launderette but we took a chance and left our clothes there.
Crossing the road in Saigon was an experience in itself. I had read in the guidebook that a code of conduct applies; the individual abdicates responsibility for his personal safety and assumes an obligation on the part of everyone else. So the idea is not to wait for a lull in traffic but to launch yourself straight into their flow keeping your eyes ahead so as to avoid walking into a passing bicycle (your sole duty), no looking left and right, no ducking and weaving – responsibility for your safety rests with the oncoming traffic. In order to make it easier for the traffic not to hit you, you walk at a steady even pace with no deviation from the route as any slight change in trajectory or speed could spell disaster. It was frightening at first as hundreds of motorbikes are speeding towards you, it goes against all your natural instincts to just walk out into the road but if you didn’t you would be waiting all day for a lull in the traffic to cross the road!
We had one last meal with the group and had drinks on the hotel terrace. We said goodbye to them all the following morning.
It was a brilliant group, we just had a great time every day. It was wonderful seeing 3 very different countries and having a mixture of cycling and sightseeing. We are both now addicted to cycling, it is such a good way to see a country. We enjoyed the cycling way more than we thought we would and are really looking forward to the next trip, Marc is keen to impress everyone with his knowledge of lids, mitts, baggies and cadence!
