Gassy Guts, Broken Backs & Howlin' Headwinds..!

Oooh. It's been a bit of a rough, tough past few days.

An old injury has come back to near-cripple me, and a mystery something has given Tom a really bad case of a gassy, sore belly which is sapping his energy down into the red.
As he said, he knows it's bad when the old local lady on her 55 year old rust-bucket one-gear squeaky bicycle sails past him...

Plus we have had to contend with these debilitating physical conditions whilst riding into a constant howling headwind, which is no fun at all at the best of times.

Of course, before I get a dozen emails (mostly from fellow PCT-09-ers, all telling us to HTFU!) I should point out that both Tom and myself have certainly already each had a number of servings of huge man-sized, special limited edition, 32 flavor, secret spicy sauce cans of HARDEN UP! And that's why we are still rolling out the kilometers and gettin' it done...
But it hasn't been easy.

So since we had our roadside watermelon break, we have made it on another couple of hundred kilometers, and are now just over 100 from HCMC.
Once we get there, it's off to the clinic to get Tom tested and see what's draining him and making him feel lousy, (and then hopefully fix him up), and for me to get something to straighten up my back and stop the muscle spasms that are contorting my spine and making me stand lop-sided.

The funny thing is, once I'm in the saddle and pedaling, I'm not too bad... It's just getting on and off that's a problem. Oh, and standing, bending, putting on my socks and shoes, walking and sitting anywhere else..!

We just wish we could fix the damn headwind... With the nice graded hills and general terrain we've been riding along, we should be able to keep a nice steady 20-25 kph clip going... On the downhills, 25-30 kph.
However, it's a constant hard slog to maintain 10-15 kph on the flat, and often, as we crest a hill, the wind is stronger, and we have to push hard downhill to keep anything near 15-20... Pedaling hard DOWNHILL? Now that's just WRONG! Poor Tom, with his energy tank on 'E' has been finding it a real hard slog... The wind is a real slap in the face...

Anyway, although it might seem like it, I am not posting a whinging post... Merely reporting the facts as they are... It's all good...We are out on the road, the sun has been mild, the locals are still pretty good (except for the odd idiot, who knows enough English to yell "faster, faster" or "hurry up, hurry up!" as they whiz past us way too closely), and the abundance of food and water means we can still roll light, topping up as and when we stop for a break.

So for now, I'll leave y'all, and will hopefully be posting more happy news in the next few days from the busy bustling city that was once called Saigon.

Cheers!

RWK.
(flat) out!






- Posted using BlogPress from my amazing iPad 2!

Location:1A,,Vietnam

Check out those melons!

We are having a tough day... I'll write more about it later, because right now, I'm laying under a tree in the dirt having just scoffed 2 juicy melons ( well, 2 halves... Tom had the other halves), and we are feeling beat. We have been riding into a 20 to 25kph headwind all morning, for the past 60kms.
Needing a break, we stopped under the only decent shady tree we'd seen in 10 kms, and are sat here resting up.
Over the road, there was a huge pile of water melons, ready to go to market, so I wandered over, pointed at the pile & held up 20,000 Dong, & the lady there got my meaning, handing me 2 nice melons.
They were AWESOME!



So now it's time to try and slog on another 25 kms to the next town... & I think we will call it a day there... More soon!
Cheers.
RWK.

-Posted from my amazing iPhone 4!

Location:1A,,Vietnam

The warning rocks & twigs.

Who needs a bright orange warning triangle..?
Not when you can lay out a set of rocks, twigs and bush-branches!
This seems to be standard practice to warn other road users that the large truck half-way up (or down) a hill, has in fact, again, broken down... And most likely, there'll be a man underneath it, banging away with a wrench, a hammer, or both, as it gets fixed right where it sits...












Unless it's this truck, which wasn't gonna get fixed any time soon;






Oops!

RWK,
OUT!

- Posted from my amazing iPhone 4!

Location:Everywhere!

Duct Tape; Never leave home without it!

A mirror is very useful, and almost a necessity anywhere, but here in Vietnam, it's 100% ESSENTIAL! The traffic is nuts, so to be without one would be pretty bad...





That said, well, it went n bloody happened again... My bike fell over & my mirror got snapped off...
I had my bike leant up against a guard rail as we took some pix of the lovely view, and I think I didn't lean it enough... A slightly larger breeze blew in & was just enough to blow my bike over, the mirror catching on the top of the rail as it went...
Luckily, I'm carrying the multi-purpose item that is duct tape - and with a quick bit of binding, my mirror is back in operation! When we get to HCMC, I'll try a more permanent fix with glue & a dowel (or more likely, a whittled-down chop-stick!), but until then, the tape should hold.

The view was worth stopping for though!












More soon!
Cheers...
RWK.

-Posted from my amazing iPhone 4!

Location:1A,,Vietnam

Shy but curious.

The detour into the mountains certainly gave our energy levels a severe depleting, so we have taken it a bit easier over the past few days.
We've still been knocking out over 100 km's a day, but with an earlier, cooler start, and with a few more rest breaks along the way...
And that's given me more opportunity to snap the pix I love to snap.
As we were sat, or rather, laying, somewhat flaked out on the side of the road at the far end of a small village we'd just passed through, a small girl kept peeking at us, out of her little house over the road.
For 10 minutes, she sat between the doors, crouched down, intently watching us as we ate some snacks, drank some water, and mopped our sweaty brows.
However, once I dug out my camera, she jumped up and hid, giggling behind the door... But not before I'd managed to snap one good shot...











After that, I pretended to ignore her just and shoot other things, and sure enough, she came back out, and seemingly nonchalantly, began to dance around and alternated between pretending to ignore us back, and then wave at us... It was quite amusing!
As we packed up, with her Nanna nearby, she just decided to lean up against the front post, and watch what we were up to...





Hopefully, I can get some more pics of the locals we are meeting, as they are all wonderful and interesting in their own ways... We certainly seem to be unusual and interesting to them, and hopefully they are enjoying meeting us as much as we are them...


- Posted using BlogPress from my amazing iPad!

Need wheels?

Yup. Ass-break time again.
Yup. Sat on the side of the road again too.
Opposite a typical wheels n tyre shop.



I've given up trying to out-stare them, so I just took a photo instead, and that broke them... Now they've gone back to work!

Once some blood and feeling has returned to our rears, we make the final push to town, where we will be taking a zero tomorrow, and I can fill y'all in on the past week, and why we are pretty knackered!

Cheers!

RWK.

- Posted from my amazing iPhone 4!

Location:1A,,Vietnam

Ass-break!

Yes, it's that time... Time for an ass-break.
We are 65 kms down for the day so far, and are on track to knock out another 45-50 by mid afternoon when we pull into Quy Nhon.



The weather is pretty good in that it's heavily clouded over, but it still a sweat-fest, and we have a good 10-15 kph headwind, so we've been taking turns drafting each other... It seems to work!

More to come soon...


RWK
OUT.
- Posted from my amazing iPhone 4!

Location:1A,,Vietnam