Today was bipolar. Getting out of HCMC was fun for a short time, then I just wanted the noise and traffic to stop. Of course, it didn’t for quite a while. When it did, I was immediately on a narrow lane that wound through rice fields and crops, and it was full of great people saying hello, waving and giving way but importantly, it was quiet. Ahhhhhh… The friendliness was up there with Laos.
At the end of the lane, there was the small town of An Phu Tay, and I stopped for the obligatory morning coffee in a nice shady place that emptied after I walked in. I have that effect on many people.
I had a stretch on a bumpy gravel road which was fun, then a long stretch through roadworks – just like Laos 😁. More narrow country lanes followed before emerging about 10kms from the town of My Tho.
Here I spotted a Banh Mi store run by a nice young lady who made me two sensational Banh Mi. I had one and just had to have another. She gave me a seat so I could sit in the shade, as it was quite hot. I was just into the second one when music started blaring from the shop across the road. The lady just pointed to her head to indicate that those people are crazy.
Turns out they were selling Karaoke machines. The buyers even walked out to the footpath to sample the acoustics from there, I guess. The din finally ended, as did my lunch, and the lady asked if I’d like a coffee. I didn’t need one, but I thought I’d have a small coffee anyway. Her sister runs the coffee shop next door, so she called her and ordered. 5 minutes later, her sister turns up with the biggest coffee I’ve seen here. The sister couldn’t speak much English, so the Banh Mi lady gave me the price (12k) and I handed over the cash. The sister started laughing and said – no, no, Falang, Falang. The other lady said – sorry, you’re a falang, it’s 15k. I said – ah Falang Tax. Laughs all round. I’ve said before, I’m happy to pay more as a tourist. I hadn’t realised that the word Falang was the same in Vietnamese.
I had 20kms to Ben Tre and those 20kms were up there with exiting HCMC. It was essentially a freeway with a bike lane and loads of crazy motorbikes beeping and honking their way to industrial deafness (along with me).
With 5kms to go, I’d had enough. I was actually dehydrated but had drunk 3 litres of water over the 90kms of the ride – clearly not enough in this heat. I really felt like a sleep 😁
I found the Hoang Hon Homestay (340k VND) which is one of the best I’ve stayed in on this trip. Nice people and a large spotless room. It took me about 10 minutes of sitting around before I went inside to check in – I felt so exhausted and hadn’t felt like this at any time during the trip. A shower and some aircon revived me though.
I called Minou and after about 30 seconds, my left adductor cramped, so I said something like aaaaggghhhh, jumped up off the bed to stretch it and the right one cramped. In between aaaaggghhhh and aaaaggghhhh, I managed to say – can’t talk, I’ll call you back, and then spent 5 painful minutes trying to get in a position to stretch both muscles at the same time. My room opens onto the reception area and I can only wonder what they were thinking. I explained it later in sign language and they thought it was hilarious. Clearly they’ve never had both legs cramping simultaneously. I’ve had it with 5kms to go in a marathon once, but today was no marathon.
At dusk, I rode around the area and then started towards where the homestay people had said to find a restaurant. I got a few hundred metres from a dingy dusty roundabout and wondered how I’d recognise the street on the way back as it was so dark. But Boom ! the streetlights came on and transformed the place immediately. Up past the roundabout were about twenty restaurants, shops, a playing field etc. All looked new – pretty impressive.
I rode another couple of kms to the next roundabout just to see what else there was. I needed water and stopped at a small grocery store, got off the bike and immediately realised that my wallet was 3 or km away. Aaaaggghhhh again, and that would have sounded very strange to the people in the store.
Back to the homestay – strange looks, how was dinner ? no comment. I retrieved my wallet and they thought that was funny too, which it was. People have laughed at me a lot today.
For dinner, I had Nem Nuong Ben Tre. It sounds like a local speciality but I doubt it. Very nice though. It was roll-your-own Vietnamese Spring Rolls with some beautiful pork sausages, nuts, vermecilli and enough salad to sink a ship of vegans.
I still needed water so on the way back, I found a different small grocery shop run by Tom and his mother. Tom had clearly been drinking for a few hours and wanted me to have a drink with him – no way, and the shaking head of his mother behind the counter confirmed that I had made the right choice. I bought one bottle of water but had to endure about five handshakes from the staggering Tom who was clearly disappointed but persistent until the end. Mother knew best again.
It’s another early night because I have a longer ride to plan tomorrow.
Much of today’s route was copied from David Holmes on Crazyguyonabike.com (just not the exit from HCMC), so many thanks – it’s a good one but still bipolar.