Actual cycling

Another Introduction from Ianto
In today's post Ashley and Laura actually begin cycling. And the Marco Pantani comparison continues as Laura, taking on the role of Lance Armstrong in 1999, drops Ashley and sprints off to victory. Meanwhile, Ashley/Marco is left being pushed along by her domestiques and eventually withdraws into the broom wagon.

Except in the case of Pantani and Armstrong, they didn't go and get cheap tailor made clothes afterwards.
yours,
Ianto Ware

***

you know how when you find a computer with a flatscreen and a clean keyboard you automatically thinkits going to work well, access all the sites you wantand be really quick? yeah, i'm suffering from thatdeception again i think. oh well, another post viaianto.So we are really on a tour now - long days of goingfrom place to place, and getting up early to go to thenext place. We left Hanoi at the crack of dawn, and flew down tohue without incident. We arrived at our swanky hotelabout 8am, had our third breakfast, and then the rainset in. our bikes also took longer on the drive fromHanoi than anticipated, so we spent a little timewaiting to start riding some impatiently, others notso much. We became highly entertained by the largeponchos all the locals adopted, which are perfectlyadapted for riding bikes (motor or otherwise) being alarge sheet of plastic with a hood in the middle. This means that the sheet of plastic can be extendedover your hands on the handle bars and behind you caneven cover your passengers. As the rain worsened, werealized we all needed one of these, and purchasedthen in an array of colours (photos were naturallytaken). The bikes still not having arrived we set ofto the ancient citadel by bus, and wondered aroundwith ponchos. Several of the group opted to acceptthe invitation to dress up in costumes of the ancientpalace and pose for photos. Naturally I was not oneof these people. Naturally, laura was. The citadelreceived an icecream rating, and we returned to thebus and on to lunch. From lunch we returned to ourhotel to find our bikes had arrived and the rain hadstopped.We set off with our regular guide, Ngoc, inappropriate lycra gear, our other cycling guide,Choum, in Giant pro cycling gear and the coolestbottle cap attached to his sunglasses to act as a rearvision mirror, and also an additional local guide, whoknew his way about the back lanes and dirt tracks ofthe surrounding countryside. This included going overa rickety bamboo bridge, much like those seen inmovies, although admittedly with an undramatic drophad the bridge actually given way. It was amazingriding past rice paddies. Twice laura and I thoughtwe'd lost the group when we could no longer see anyoneeither infront of us or behind us, and on bothoccasions, local women appeared and shouted to us"you" and pointed in the direction we needed to go. It was amazing.The second day we began with another similar trekthrough small villages and general country side,stopping at a preschool of about 12 5 to 6 year olds,who came rushing out to greet us chanting hello hello- ben (one of our Sydney participants) took videofootage of them shouting and waving at us, and thenplayed it back to them, much to their delight. Wenaturally felt the need to sing kookaburra sits in theold gum tree (did I mention we can do this as around?) and they in turn sang us a song, which wasapparently about baby ducks and other small animals. We eventually tore ourselves away, leaving their poorteacher to deal with an overexcited bunch of kids. Wethen rode through an amazing area where mini templetype structures had been erected as part of acemetery, with each one on its only little island inamongst the rice paddies - so serene and beautiful. In his attempts to video the scenery whilst riding,ben failed to notice until the last minute that acouple of buffalo had wandered into his path, and inhis attempts to make a rapid one handed brake, cameoff his bike. Both he and his camera suffered onlysuperficial wounds, much to our relief. In the afternoon we were told we had a 10km ride uphill to the top of what I will call a mountain. Comparing this in my head to the pain caused by riding8km up a minor slope from the city to magill I becamethe first wuss and took the bus option. In my defenceI was also feeling pretty average and knew that we hada lot more cycling ahead of us. And we'd already done40 kms and it was already apparent that I was theslowest amongst the group, even with choum regularlyriding along side me and pushing me along with onehand. Anyway, excuses excuses I know.So I sat in the bus, and watched as the rest of thegroup struggled up this unrelenting nightmare of ahill. Gradually a couple of others joined me in thebus, and terri became support crew jumping in and outof the bus and running fresh bottles of gatrolite tothe riders and literally mopping their brows. Much tomy (and I think there) amazement most of the groupmade it to the top, including our own undertrained,still smoking laura. I think that whilst the hilldidn't kill her, the shock of making it nearly did. Unfortunately for me, this has given her unyieldingdetermination, and I suspect that I'll be doing a lotof sitting in the bus on my own. Also for those whohad concerns, it should be noted that laura hasactually gained weight in our time away (lessfortunately so have i). she has now resolved to turnthis fat to muscle and come home lara croft shaped.That night we arrived in hoi an, tailoring capital ofVietnam, and lauras personal shopping heaven. Unfortunately (or perhaps, financially at least,fortunately) we arrived at about 6.30pm, and had toleave at 7am the next morning. Alas no tailored suitsyou think? NO! We left the hotel, came to the firstshoe shop we saw (yes they also tailor shoes!) anddiscovered an array of good things to order. Butcould they be ready by the morning? Of course! Lauraordered two pairs of shoes in a rainbow of colours,whilst we both decided on the same style of boot -laura in white, me in brown. boots at $43 US each,shoes at about $13 a pair. Too good. So did theshoes lady know a tailor who could assist us in buyingcoats? Of course! She took us to a lady who was nextdoor to our hotel, where we both ordered the samehooded coat (laura in red, me in grey) and lauraordered some skirts. Coats at $35US including fabric- how could we resist! Esp when they can be ready by 6in the morning. In fact, when walking back fromdinner, the lady informed us that they would be readyby 10.30. frightening but true. Whilst the rest of uswere eating a pleasant dinner, laura managed to findanother tailor and ordered a dress, purple of course. That night our coats appeared, a good fit all roundand quite well made. For me it was amazing to have acoat that actually fits me properly given my nonaverage proportions. The next morning the shoes anddress arrived, all wonderful. Its truly amazing.The next morning we had an early start and a lovelymornings ride through more country side. We'respending a lot of time riding around the country sideyelling hello at everyone we pass. its prettyhilarious. i love that as fascinated as we are by thepeople here, they're just as entertained by us. itsso nice, i sort of expected to feel like we weregawking at them, intruding in their lives, but insteadi feel like we're actually all equally happy to seeeach other. they think we're hilarious, at least inpart because we're wearing bike helmets. ah hilarity. i've also had many a vietnamese woman come up to beand spend a lot of time prodding my arms and doingskin colour comparisons (i think they're alsomarvelling at how *fat* my arms are), i like tocontinue these not verbal conversations by pulling mypants up to my knee so they can see how white my legsare - i think my arms are relatively tanned!! ah its atrue cultural exchange.
After lunch we climbed on the bus to head towards ournext destination, however were soon forced to stopwhen the bus had a tyre problem.we climbed out and wandered down the road to find acoffee shop where we spent considerable time watchingthe traffic go past, and tried to get photos of thepeople with their crazy loads on their motorbikes. eventually we headed back to the bus which was nearlyfixed, and headed off. unfortunately (or again,fortunately depending on your perspective) this delaymeant we couldnt fit anymore cycling in, and we had along bus ride to our next destination. our hotel thistime was right on the beach front, and most of us haddinner in the restaurant, with the sound of waves inthe distance. we also discussed the dilemmas ofwanting to support the development of this country,but also feeling like that means supporting workpractices (such as 8 hr days/ 6 day weeks) that wehave fought against at home. the next morning we headed off at a very late start of9am. we rode about 30km before being warned that wewere now facing 7km up hill - i took the bus optionagain as i was already struggling, and knew we hadanother 30 or 40km to do in the afternoon. again mostof the others made it without the bus, and we had apicnic lunch at a small eatery place, with baguettesand salad and some kind of pork thing for those whoeat it - it was very lovely, and nice to not have a 5course meal for once!after lunch we headed off on our bikes down the hill,and then into a long stretch of reasonably up anddown... again i made it up thanks only to choum'sefforts pushing me up the worst of it. coming downone hill we got up to about 55km an hour, which wasgreat fun, and somehow not as frightening as it wouldbe at home. the traffic here is really very good atrecognising cyclists as legitimate traffic, and alsothe seeming lack of rules and order on the roads meansthat everyone takes responsibility for not hittinganyone else, rather than the attitude at home whichseems to be more a sense of pushing through inspite ofpotential danger because the driver feels they havethe right.last night we arrived at the swankiest of all the nicehotels we've stayed at yet, where several of theriders decided to visit the hotel massage palour. themen returned extremely relaxed if slightly traumatisedfrom the efforts of explaining that they did notrequire any additional services...after writing a large part of this blog post we had alovely dinner, which once again i bailed on straightafter i'd eaten - i think my asthma playing up hasleft me more tired than usual, and lets face it, ilike to sleep at the best of times.which brings me to this morning... and the fact thatwriting this is keeping me from eating my breakfast!hopefully all is well in the land of oz, again stillnot able to log into the blog - or anyone elses - sofeeling a little out of touch... having said that wekeep realising that time is passing much more slowlyfor us and laura and i will often complain that wehavent heard form someone in "ages" before realisingits actually only been a few days!