Today I am leaving for Australia and New Zealand to celebrate my 40th birthday.  First I am having a joint birthday with Niels on Sunday 27th in Brisbane and then my best friend Rach and I are going to Queenstown, NZ and doing two tramps, Routeburn and Greenstone tracks.

I left Australia 5 months ago and the only place that I have been that is similar to Aussie is Singapore. What I am looking forward to:

• A steak
• Cream eggs
• Pasta that isn’t sweet
• Muffins
• Hot chocolate
• Milk shake
• Clean air
• Cheese
• Chocolate

I think I am forgetting something or someone………

 

• And of course seeing Niels and my family and friends!!!!!!!!

What I am not looking forward to:

• Rules
• Coins
• The roads with no scooters and only cars
• Not having Phở and Bún chả

Yes, I bought another one.  So on Friday night in Phnom Penh I hired a bike for $2 USD per day and my Vietnamese Drivers Licence as bond.  On Saturday for lunch I caught up with my manager from Engineers without Borders (EWB).  Ang and I got to the general area on time, however we couldn’t find the restaurant and biked around for about 30 minutes trying to find it.  I finally went to a real estate agent and he helped.

So I arrive for lunch half an hour late and hot and sticky.  I put my bike in the compound and Ang goes and does some errands.  We began catching up and after about ten minutes I look up and I see that my bike has gone.  Yep, the bike was in front of me and in the compound had somehow disappeared.  I quickly looked out of the street and then found the manager and then had another look and asked all the customers.  There was one bike on the road not locked up and no one owned this.  My best guess is that a customer took the wrong bike.  Not sure how you do this and there were some differences.

I sat for the rest of lunch with my eyes glued to my ‘new’ bike.  At the end of lunch I cycled away on this bike and thought how will I return this back to the rental agency? This is what my new stead looked like

The next day I rocked up to the rental agency and put it in the stand and went to get my license back.  They said that is not our bike and I said yes it was. We then spent the next 15 minutes pointing out what the differences of this bike were and they threatened me with calling the police as I was going to leave my license there.  We also had random people for the street giving their opinions too.  In the end I paid $50USD, got my license back and rode away on my bike.  I am currently trying to sell in:(.  Anyway interested?

I went to visit Angela Annabel in Phnom Penh over the weekend.  We had a great couple of days, breathing in dust, dodging pot holes, thieves, shopping, haggling, boating, drinking, eating and sightseeing. We had it tough though and had to put up with this for accommodation.

I hired a bike and together we cruised around and saw the sights.  It is an awesome way to see the place if you manage to survive the traffic.  On Friday night we had a quiet beer in the FCC, Foreign Correspondents Club, great views and Ang introduced me to a lady that works at FCC and was there 15 years ago. Saturday was spent biking around and stopping for refreshments.

We stopped in a the Raffles Hotel for a quick look and then once we had dressed up went back there that night for cocktails.

While at the markets we saw ice being cut up ready to be distributed to various businesses.  As you can see, very hygienic.

We finished the day off with a boat cruise on the Mekong River, a sunset cruise

On Sunday we caught up with one of my friend from EWB and then we went shopping.  Bought some dresses and scarfes, and had great fun haggling.  We had to stop for food and the guy that took our photo here said we were very cute:).

I would like to thank Angela for being a wonderful host and showing me all the sights and all the great work she does volunteering at the hospital.

 

Would you believe that sometimes it is cheaper to drink beer than water.  In some restaurants a bottle of beer costs 13,000 VND ($0.76 AUD) and water costs 15,000 VND ($0.87 AUD).  To back up my claim, the BBC has reported that Vietnam is the 6th cheapest place in the world to buy beer.

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160316-the-search-for-the-worlds-cheapest-beer?ocid=ww.social.link.email

Another different thing here is you get served your beer with ice and a straw.

Rice wine is also very popular and often drank in the rural areas as it is cheaper than beer, ie more bang for your buck!  There are three major kinds of rice wine in Vietnam: the conventional distilled variety known as ruou gao (literally “rice alcohol”), wine brewed in large ceramic jars called ruou can (party wine), and distilled alcohol infused with plants and animals, known as ruou thuoc (medicine wine).

I have tried the first rice wine and it is strong, about 40% and you drink it straight.  I thought it tasted like rocket fuel.

From what I have seen and heard there is quite a big drinking culture here and they like to drink fast, not real sipping and appreciating the alcohol.

A great thing here in Viet Nam is you can get a motorbike taxi (xe ôm) instead of a taxi. They normally hang out on the corners of streets and yell out to you, “motorbike” and they do the hand signals of riding a motor bike.  I have never seen a female driver and I don’t think there are any licences required other than the motorbike licence. The other clue they are a xe ôm driver is they have an extra motorbike helmet on their bike.

Now once you find your driver, it is normally a good idea to do a quick ‘risk assessment’.  I think that one of my drivers was drank once and that another had a condition involving involuntary head movements.  It is a good idea to have the place where you want to go written down as I have been delivered to the wrong location before because of my pronunciation!!!

Once there is an understanding of where you want to go, now comes the fun part, the price.  It is the only time in Vietnam that I have to barter.  The price varies a lot between different drivers.

They then give you a helmet and you don’t think about how many heads it has been on.  You then get on, now you would think that you hold the driver around the stomach, but no, I hold onto the the handles just behind my seat at the back.  Once on board, be ready for some exciting times.  Some go fast, some go slowly but you are guaranteed to be weaving in a out of traffic.  I highly recommend it, it is a great way to see the city.  I have walked off numerous times with their helmet still on my head, they have chased me down:).

A little side fact, the ‘ôm’ in xe ôm means to hug which I think is very cute.  

 

I arrived in Da Lat for my mountain bike race and in most Hotels you get a complimentary water. It was a very nice hotel.

I spotted mine and because I was in pre-race mode I ripped into the bottle.

Well that was very quick lived as I almost spat it out, t tasted like corn.  For the rest of the day I would see half drunk bottles of this water around and everyone was talking about it.  I don’t understand the fascination with corn here.  Their birthday cakes are a sponge cake with bits of corn in it also.

 

Many things can be blamed to have caused accidents and I am not sure if a Choco Pie has been used in combination with a Russian Photographer…

I spent the weekend in Da Lat for a mountain bike race. It is north east of HCMC.  Here is an exert from the Lonely Planet describing the place:

“Da Lat is quite different from anywhere else you’ll visit in Vietnam. You would almost be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into the French Alps in springtime. Da Lat is small enough to remain charming, and the surrounding countryside is blessed with lakes, waterfalls, evergreen forests and gardens”

Anyway enough about Da Lat, this is a Choco Pie!

On Friday I started the race and the first stage was 45km and it was hard.  Only 5 of the 170 competitors rode the whole way, the rest had to walk up a lot of hills.  I made it to the first aid station and had a banana and I spotted the Choco Pie just as I was leaving.  So I decided to take one for the road and stuff it into my mouth.  However, the next part was a down hill so I concentrated on the descent.  I then spotted some water buffelo and then to my horror the Russian Photographer.  So here I was descending with a Choco Pie stuffed in my mouth and I thought he is going to take a photo so I took my left hand off the handle bar and proceeded to stuff the Choco Pie further into my mouth.

Well, as you can expect, that ended in a complete disaster.  My front wheel skid to the left and I came down hard and the right handle bar hit me in the ribs.  So I was laying star fish, face down on a gravel hill with a Choco Pie still in my mouth, winded.  I then heard the photographer start running up the hill and I felt better that help was on its way.  But to my horror, he said, I want to take a photo, so he proceeded to get on the ground and take photos of me and all I could say was “help”.  This went on for about 30 seconds and I was trying to take Choco Pie from out of my mouth!  All I could hear was “sorry, I need to take a photo”. Well they finally helped to get my bike off me and I got up and had to straighted my handle bars.

My only real injuries were my ribs and a sore right elbow and my bruised ego.  I then hastily got back on my bike and took off.  The next hour I kept cursing the photographer and the Choco Pie!  Why do they have to make something so delicious..

Well, karma came around,  the photographer was on the back of a motorbike and when they were coming out of a creek crossing, he fell off, KARMA.  I just kept cycling.

The next day, Saturday, we did the course in reverse which was slightly easier and I saw the photographer at the end of the course.  He asked if I was OK and then told me he was a doctor, a Russian doctor working in Germany.  Well that explains it.

Anyway to prove that the Choco Pie hadn’t beaten me, I got another one at the same aid station, but I ate it at the aid station.

Here is the start of the race

Here is some of the team that I ride with, Joost and James

And during the race:

I am competing in a mountain bike race in the weekend in Da Lat, so I wanted to get my bike serviced.  I talked to quite a few foreigners and apparently it is quite hard to get good bike mechanics.  I ended up finding one that was recommended to me so I dropped my bike off after getting horribly lost. It was suppose to take me 30 minutes to get there and it took me 1.5 hours!!

I went back later in the day and they insisted that I test ride my bike to see if it was ok.  I did this and it was good.  I then went back and paid for it.  It cost me 250,000 VND, which is equivalent to $15 AUD.  Something similar in Aussie would cost be $100 AUD.

My handbag broke while walking along the street which is quite a bizarre thing to happen so I went in search of someone that could fix it.  I first went to a shoe guy but he said no.  A Xe Om driver (motor bike taxi) who I know then came over to me and looked at my bag and then took me to a guy who had a sewing machine on the street.  He then negotiated for me.  I picked it up this morning and it is great work and it cost me 30,000 VND which is $1.80 AUD.  Again, great value.

Two situations that have made me laugh.

1. I landed in Singapore to meet Niels for the weekend and on the arrival card I had to put an address for the hotel.  However, Niels booked it and I didn’t have the details so I wrote “Hotel”.  I got to the immigration counter and the officer said that I needed an address, I said that I didn’t have an address.  I then pretended to look at my phone and I wrote “Marigold Hotel, Orchard Rd”.  The officer looked at it and let me proceed.  No Hotel named this exists.  When I saw Niels, all I could do was laugh.
2. I rented a motorbike in Da Nang and as security they asked for my passport.  I said that I needed it and so they asked what other documents I had.  I said a credit card and they said what about your drivers license.  I said, won’t I need that since I am hiring a motorbike and they said, you never get stopped, you will be fine.

I am sure that I will have many more of these incidents.

I spent a wonderful day in Ho Tri An mountain biking, about 2 hours north of Ho Chi Minh.  The Bike Shop organised a bike trip where we loaded our bikes in a truck and drove to the area.

We rode around the base of a hydroelectric dam in the forest on single track.  Single track in Vietnam means it is used by motor bikes so it is compact but was very dusty.

To get to the area we had to take a ferry.

 

The trials were lots of fun and there were a few hills which was great preparation for the mountain bike race I am doing this weekend in Da Lat.  This is someone’s house in the middle of the forest.

We also went for a swim in the lake.  It was fantastic.