A bike ride to remember

I was going to start this blog by stating the day of the week, but im going to be honest, I have absolutely no idea what day of the week it is, let alone the date. Sure, sure, i could look and pretend I am in the know, but there is something theraputic in having absolutely no idea what day it is or how many days we have left to go. So, lets start by saying another day in Vietnam is another day of Awesomeness.

I attempted to start my day as most of my days start with a nice long run, however, my body had other plans and an incredibly bad headache from the night before (probably induced by countless Mojitos) caused my head to throb with every step. I lasted 3 minutes before I abandoned any notion of a run and returned to the cool air conditioned hotel room where life again was amazing. After breakfast, we decided to take a couple of the hotel bikes and brave the streets of Hoi An, where our first stop was another visit to our new friends, the tailors, where, I tried on my dress again and then made a impulse buy by ordering a jacket made to measure. Apparently, it will be ready by the afternoon which is super convinient as we leave for Nga Trang tomorrow.

We said our goodbyes with arrangements to return in the afternoon and made our way out to the main road and headed towards Bang Bo Beach where we rode through the rice fields and water buffalo all the while being side swiped by heavy winds coming in from the sea. It took a lot of strength just making sure that the bike travelled in the right direction and even more when I tried to ride one handed while taking photographs.

After about 30 minutes of riding, we made it to the beach where we were welcomed with sea spray in the face and heavy winds pushing us and our bikes around like dolls. I now know the pain it is to wear glasses, as my sunglasses got covered in salt and I couldnt see a thing. My poor little lamb Jamie has to put up with this crap everyday. The beach wasnt really a beach more a bank of sandbags preventing the erosion of the little bit of beach that was now left. After seeing the ferocity of the waves, I could see why this was a necassity.

We decided to cycle to the mouth of the river which was an out and back route from the beach. We rode past countless large beach resorts frequented by the western traveller, small restaurants and villages until we reached the lighthouse and the Vietnam Coastguard. We had a brief stop to look around and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel via back alleys into the neighbouring small villages. As we cycled around, the sound of laughter permeated the air and we observed countless neighbourhood card games, ladies cooking up a storm together and kids out playing or cycling around with one another. Its pretty beautiful and makes me remember, you really dont need much in this world to be happy - just good company, a roof over your head and some fabulous food 😋.

We make our way back out to the main road, where all of a sudden, I turned around and realise that I am alone with Jamie no where in sight. I pulled over and waited for a few minutes and was getting ready to turn around where I saw my Jam emerge in the distance walking his bike around the corner. Turns out Jamie rode his bike over a nail and now had a massive puncture in his front tyre. We were about 3km away from the hotel at this point, but fortunately these bikes are made for two. So Jamie jumped on the back of my bike and held onto his bike while I towed him and the bike back to the hotel. Before you think "man that was so unchilvarious of Jamie not to do any of the cycling", I can assure you he offered multiple times, but my absolute need to be in control and my fear of being on the back of a bike while trying to steer another bike made the cycling option much more appealing. So we made our way slowly back while recieving glances from everyone that we went past or went past us. The ride was hard enough having to cycle for two people but made even more difficult with Jamies bike constantly pulling our bike to the right towards the side of the road. This got even more difficult when the road narrowed and we had to cross a bridge while being passed by buses and taxis honking their horns just to add to my stress levels. Nearing the hotel, we had to negotiate pot holes and flooding which had resulted from the large downpours over the last couple of days. Jamie said I did well to get us back through all that, but I think he did well managing to steer his bike while holding on to me. We could have just got a taxi back, but that would have been to easy.

After giving my legs a rest in the comfort of our air conditioned room, I decided that I might be able to attempt another run, so headed back to hotel gym and this time managed 60 minutes of running bliss. After all of this, it was then time to head back to our tailors to pick up all of our wares and decided to walk into town given the events of this morning. When we arrived, our tailors fed us amazing Vietnamese snacks (which I am now obsessed with and may have gone out to buy some before writing this post) and more water while we tried everything on for the last time. We were then asked how we going to get all of this back to NZ, to which we said post as it was about 10kg worth of goods and 10kg more than either of us want to carry. The wonderful thing about Vietnam as they have thought of everything and 10 minutes later, a mobile post service arrived at our tailors with scales to weigh our items, pack them up ready to be sent and take payment for postage. This place is going to make me lazy. We waved goodbye to our goods with the hope of seeing them in a few months time.

We made our way back to the hotel, where it was nearly time for me to go and get my second massage with my lady who has magic hands. The massage (80 minutes for $18 USD) involved her straddling me and using her body weight as pressure, contortion with my limbs bent into all various directions and traditional massage. Jamie asked me how this could possibly be relaxing and I agree that at the time it isn't overly relaxing when your legs are being bent at funny angles but its a good pain and afterwards you feel amaaaazing.

After magic hands, Jamie came and met me and we walked back into town to find some dinner at Green Mango followed by a walk down to the river to see the lanterns. The recent rainfall had caused the river to raise by at least 1m with the waterfront area now completely flooded. My first thought was that this wouldnt be so wonderful for the locals with shops/restaurants located along the waterfront, but on second look most of these places had been built to cope with such an event.

And with that, our time in Hoi An was over. We made our way back to the hotel and reminicised over the lovely town and the lovely people that frequent it. We will miss this place.Read more