January 31, 2015
The one thing I learnt in Vietnam: You can carry anything on a motorcycle
The final ride to the Cambodian border began with a very long and glorious downhill, but any hopes that this road would be nice and peaceful were soon dashed. It was not so busy as the main highway, true, but the shoulder was gone and the road was much narrower, and there were still plenty of motorcycles of course. There were also trucks going to and from the border, that would never slow down and just drove along blasting their horns. And if there happened to be two trucks coming from opposite directions at one time, or if a truck decided to make an overtake, well then me and all the motorcycles had to get off the road, because Vietnamese truckers ain't slowing down for no one.
But there was a more pressing matter of concern for me with the end of Vietnam fast approaching, as I realised that I had not got my country-photo in. Frantic, I looked around for a flag or the word Vietnam somewhere, and saw a faded old flag on top of an unused building that was just about up to the job. But for perhaps the only time in Vietnam there were no people around, and even if there were, coordinating the successful holding up of 40 fingers was likely to be challenging at the very least. So I was on my own. Or was I? Maybe my old friend could come to my assistance.
"Alan, I'm going to need your help. How many fingers have you got?"
"None, I'm a notebook."
"Oh, well, good point. But I'm going to use you anyway."
Soon after this a motorcycle slowed alongside me as I cycled along, and in a startlingly good impersonation of an American cop, I was asked to pull over to be ticketed. For a second I was fooled by this cruel trick, becoming even less sure of where I was or what I was doing. The reason for the good impersonation was that the motorcyclist was a Canadian man named Jay, who I soon found out had a very humerous and light-hearted way about him as he joked around with the Vietnamese men that crowded around us as soon as we did pull over. Jay was on his way to Angkor Wat, along with Kai, a Vietnamese man that Jay was planning to soon set up a resort business with on the east coast. He laughed when I told him I'd only been in Vietnam for three days.
"You haven't seen Vietnam!" he said.
"I've seen enough," I responded, citing the heavy motorcycle traffic on the road.
"What? This is the best road I've seen in the whole country! This is great!"
I suppose all of the motorcycle traffic probably wouldn't be so bad when you are yourself on a motorcycle, but when you're slower than everyone else, it is. I'd had enough.
As I approached the border into Cambodia I looked back on my brief visit to Vietnam with mixed feelings. The people had been really, really wonderful to me. All along the way I found kindness. The children shouted 'hello' and people smiled and spoke to me in a friendly way, sometimes offering me simple and kind gifts - a glass of water or a cup of tea. So the people (at least in this small corner of Vietnam) were wonderful, and I'm sure that there are many very beautiful places all across the country to see as well. But as a cyclist I put a disproportional amount of judgment about a country upon its traffic situation, and how likely one is to die on their roads, and for this unfair reason I put Vietnam firmly in the 'hate' category.
"NEXT!..."
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Did I mention the motorcycles?
31/01/15 - 89km (63km in Vietnam)
Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 36,703 km (22,793 miles)
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