First churches, now Islamic State: What country am I in?!

January 30, 2015

I had a great sleep on my industrial estate, but the reality of the morning brought a return to the main highway south. For a while it was a dual carriageway with a central reservation, which created the inevitable problem that anyone wanting to go the other way couldn't get across the road and would just ride their motorcycles the wrong way down the shoulder. But after a while the road narrowed to a single lane in each direction and this was actually better, because with the central reservation gone a higher percentage of motorcycles actually used the right side of the road.

Oh blimey, this woman was cycling the wrong way down the fast lane. What can you do?

Translation - 'Don't worry about learning the road signs, just read a book'

Besides getting a little hot and bothered about the motorcycles and the horn beeping nothing very much happened until I arrived at the edge of the city of Pleiku, 50 kilometres down the road, where I stopped in a cafe to use the wifi. These cafes were everywhere, quite nice places but with a limited selection of drinks and no food menu, I wondered how they made any money. The owner of this one was very friendly though, bringing me a free hot tea, the perfect accompaniment to the cold ice tea I'd just bought.

Carrying on life became very stressful as the road get busier and more crazy on the way through Pleiku, which turned out to be a much bigger city than Kon Tum. Cyling into Pleiku I could almost compare to cycling into the monstrous Tehran, but with more motorcycles. It was also still quite hilly. To escape the madness I stopped for another break, this time grabbing an ice cream from a little shop. As I sat and ate this on a bench outside, the man from the shop came and sat with me. He was an older man, with long white hair clinging on to the back of his mostly bald head. He had a few words of English and we talked for a bit in a normal way, but then as I was preparing to leave he furrowed his brow and declared it dangerous. "Why is it dangerous?" I asked. He held out one palm and with a finger of the other hand he traced out an "I" and then an "S".

"Is? What is 'is'?"

"Very dangerous," he said, "very bad people. In Iraq. In Syria."

I realised what he was talking about. He drew a cutting line across his neck with his finger. "Very dangerous!"

It seemed Islamic State were after me now. As if I didn't already have enough on my plate with the motorcycles.

I cycled on but, continuing the theme of stopping whenever I could, I soon spotted a woman grilling rice burgers at the side of the road and skidded to a stop. There were a couple of young guys waiting for their burgers before me, and, in an act of kindness that had become quite typical, they offered one to me even though I was about to buy my own. I don't think they liked them very much themselves, mind you, and after riding off they circled back and gave half of one back and demanded a refund. Well, they were nice to me anyway. I'm not sure what their problem was, the burgers tasted great to me, and you can't complain about getting a good feed for 30 pence can you?

Her hat was so cool it had a man's head growing out of it

I finally made it through Pleiku and turned off the main highway and onto the road out towards the Cambodian border, although it was getting late and I almost immediately set up camp. There was a planted forest, which is often the best of places to camp, because the even spaces between the trees make it easy to push the bike in, there is always a good space for the tent and not much growing on the ground. And you're well hidden, which makes it hard for Islamic State to find you. Cool.

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 36,640 km (22,753 miles)

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