October 29, 2024
Day 4 - a slow but successful day and Winston's first ride in Hanoi
Winston - Having made a rookie mistake of not removing my seat post collar when I packed my bike, when I unpacked the bike this morning, I found it was missing. Damn. Not going very far without that. Ian to the rescue! He rode off to a local shop to get one - and it was too big. Duct tape to the rescue! That secured it until we could get to the shop run by a Jorgi, Bulgarian expat who had lived in Chicago. It took a while, but he found the right part and away we went! Now, about the Hanoi traffic. Nothing I have ever experienced prepared me for this. Well, okay, I can ride a bike, and I have done a bit of whitewater kayaking, and that’s the best analogy I can conjure. You just have to watch what’s in front of you. Ian told me that a cyclist unfamiliar with this scenario should never use a rear view mirror. It's what's in front of you that counts! He is right. But I just went with it, and it was like the river. Go with it. Don’t look back. Paddle! The people behind you want to live too. Sometimes it was easy; sometimes it was terrifying. But I lived to tell the tale. I won’t jump in that river tomorrow without sober respect, but in I will go.
Ian - The good news is that Winston's bike arrived in the night. But with the glitch he has described.
After what seemed like considerable wasted time obtaining a seat post clamp (of course, it wasn't because we got a clamp), we headed for lunch at a place that offered dandruff. I didnt feel like dandruff so ordered something else. We then rode south to look at the World's largest ceramic mural - 4 km x 2 metres high of small tiles. It deserves a few more photos that I'll include later. There was a hitch - it was on the LHS of a major road. We took an off-ramp and ended up on the famous Cau Long Bien that takes trains, and two-wheeled traffic across the Red River. There was no turning back so we crossed and returned. Divers were after something in the river; sand boats plied up and downstream.
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We went from there to Hoan Kiem Lake, a key part of Old Town, and found a deluge of tourists. This got me thinking about the changes here since our last visit in 2002. Cars were uncommon then whereas now you'll find all of the luxury models causing traffic jams. The largest banknotes are 500,000 Dong (US 20), whereas they were 100,000. Sadly, high end espresso machines rather than metal filters drip coffee into condensed milk. In 2002 the average bicycle came from China. In 2024 there are bicycle shops to match any.
A bunch of other stuff remains that makes a visit worthwhile.
Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 139 km (86 miles)
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:-)
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