Old Legs Tour Of Vietnam: From Quang Ngai to Tan Loc
Dist – 121 km
Climb – 715 m
Time – 8 hr 38 min
Av Heart Rate – 115 bpm
Max Heart Rate – 172 bpm.
This blog is coming to you from the beach on Tan Loc. NB I had to resort to Google Maps for that name. If the truth be known, Vietnam is becoming a bit of a muddle in my head.
We are staying in a very splendid four-star resort which we very quickly reduced to a Vietnamese laundromat, with underpants and ride kit hung out to dry all over the foyer and up the sweeping staircase.
Central Vietnam’s monsoon season continued yesterday, and delivered up rain and mud, and an eclectic kaleidoscopic mix of sights, sounds and landscapes, and our best day on Tour thus far.
We rode past a very splendid Buddhist statue, 125 meters high and the tallest in SE Asia, as compared to the Statue of Liberty, which stands a mere 93 meters high, but I am sure President Trump will attend to that anomaly when he reads this blog.
We rode through a crazy busy little market town, threading our way past roadside butcheries pedaling long-legged chickens and some kind of meat, but no flies. The market was loud and noisy, and an assault on the senses.
I had so much fun slip-sliding on a 5 kilometer stretch of muddy single track through a flooded rice paddy, and I was reminded of why I first fell in love with mountain biking. I was also reminded that I am really crap at riding technical single track, especially in wet and muddy conditions, and I suffered two involuntary dismounts.
Howard rode the muddy stretch on full gas, which allowed him to crash out at speed, belly flopping into a puddle, dislodging his phone and water bottles on impact, also into a puddle.
Macca also staged an involuntary dismount yesterday, but in soft sand in the middle of a massive cemetery. Luckily a cactus broke his fall. It was the first cactus we have seen in Vietnam, a vicious bastard with two-inch spikes that could have been made in Mexico.
Impaled on the spikes and trapped under his bike, Macca called out to the rider in front for help, but not loudly enough. I was listening to Jack Johnson on my speaker, and rode away blissfully unaware of Macca’s predicament. Which got worse. Macca also landed on a nest of big, black biting ants. The ants took exception to Macca gatecrashing their nest, and rushed out and tried to eat him. I wish I had heard Macca’s cries for help, so I could’ve caught it on video. Alas.
Howard and I got disconnected from the others after his bike electronics malfunctioned, because of too much mud. Because we have all been previously lost in Vietnam, we’ve downloaded Life 360, a powerful tracking app, and I was able to establish exactly where I was, and where Howard and Macca had been three days previously, and that Jenny and the others still haven’t downloaded the app.
We eventually managed to find each other in time for lunch. I don’t think the village we were in have ever seen old sweaty Westerners on bicycles before, and they rushed out to take videos and selfies. We felt like the Kardashians! The village drunk also poured out and engaged us in meaningful conversation, possibly in English. He got louder and louder and more enthusiastic, right in my face. Judging by his breath, the local wine was powerful stuff. Eventually Howard was able to calm him down by teaching his Vietnamese beer drinking chants.
We are riding Vietnam to Vic Falls to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwe’s pensioners and for the Friendship Bench.
Until my next blog, Have Fun, Do Good, Do Epic – Eric Chicken Legs de Jong
* Names and images may have been changed for privacy reasons
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