Dessert temptation

“You can have two flavors for the price of one!” She says. “Great, I’ll have Caramel and Apple” I say. She tells me that I can choose one of eight different waffle shells. I choose one and it adds a dollar to the price. She tells me that I can choose two toppings. After choosing my toppings it comes as only a small surprise that this has also added to the price of my expanding pile of dessert. I end up with a dessert the size of a dinner and a bill of $6 which is a lot in this part of the world. This was bound to happen if I’m waiting for an hour for a flight to Saigon. You see… this is my vice. Everyone has a vice. Especially in Thailand. The most common among western blokes are either the women, the alcohol, the drugs, the cheap cigarettes, or all of these. My vice however is ice cream. The most dangerous of all, because whilst the three most common ones are in plentiful supply just about everywhere in Asia, mine is not in some places. Scoop ice cream is rare, so I generally settle for Cornettos from the seven eleven, but there are places (believe it or not) that don’t have a seven eleven. So I am therefore a sitting duck for the enthusiastic representative of the Super Scoop Corporation.

With my stomach full of expensive dessert, I waddle over to the departure gate and board the flight to Saigon, home to eight million or so Vietnamese and the economic centre of the country. Hanoi in the north is the capital, but Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City) is the commercial hub. It’s been almost three years since I was in Vietnam with my god friends Harro, Milly and Cally. We spent ten days traveling from north to south along the beautiful coastline. I’m back here now to meet the thirty seven participants of the Oxfam Challenge. We will ride from Saigon, to Tay Ninh, then onto the Cambodian border. From there, we head to Srey Vieng, Prey Vieng, Kampong Cham and then Phnom Penh. We then catch a bus up north to cycle around the temples of the Angkor.

I have a day before the group arrive, so I meet up with the other leader for the trip and the local operator. Eric is Canadian and has been leading intrepid travel groups for a couple of years. He has now switched to running just the charity challenge trips. Vreak is the local operator. He’s a really nice Khmer fella who likes a beer and has a good assortment of Rugby tops including the Wallabies and the All Blacks. He has just scored himself one of the new leader jobs for Intrepid Indochina, so he is doing his last trip for his current employer (and our local operator) Buffallo tours. We have a team bonding session with dinner and a few beers. I pull the plug early and get lost on my way back to the hotel and add half an hour to my trip.

The next morning I rush around to buy a couple of things from the market. I’m wearing my upside down numbers t-shirt that Julia gave me. It has an upside down five on the front of it. The Vietnamese stall holder ladies think this is the funniest thing they’ve seen for a while. Some silly whitey who doesn’t know which way to stick numbers on. They cackle themselves silly and point it out to their friends. “Hey mister! You have five wrong way! I have six right way on good t-shirt! You buy from me… very good price. Help you with your number!” I’m glad to have provided the locals with some amusement.

Saigon is just a mass of motor bikes. The density is overwhelming and to cross the road is a form of sport akin to bungee jumping. The density of population provides for a fascinating picture, with street food vendors everywhere and open air barbers, you can find entertainment to last hours by watching a square hundred meters. It is hilarious to watch newly arrived tourists from Australia or other sparsely populated countries practically have a nervous breakdown just from trying to get from one end of a street to another. You can see a look of sheer terror in their eyes as they defensively try to block with their arms as they attempt their first street crossing. You see, once you get the hang of it, it’s OK. You just have to walk in slow, well-defined steps across the road, making eye contact wherever possible. The motos simply filter their way around you. This does not apply with buses though. They will just run you over.

It is now time to pick up the participants from the airport. Some bleary eyed Australians, a kiwi and an American emerge from the airport with a bewildered look as they grapple with their destination. Some have been traveling for around nineteen hours with connecting flights. We are almost ready to head for the hotel, when it becomes apparent that there is trouble in immigration. While I am picturing Shappele Corby being on my cycling trip, Eric works out that the trouble actually relates to a piece of tape that someone has attached to their passport. This is an indication. This person may have significance in the coming days. Quite often there are people who just have stuff happen to them continually on a trip. It’s as if they are absorbing all the bad luck in order to protect the rest of the group. We will refer to this individual as Shapelle Corby in order to satisfy privacy concerns. So we have a small amount of time in Saigon before we ride at the crack of dawn to start the challenge. I get my entertainment, watching from the hotel lobby as a group of the new arrivals make an attempt at a road crossing. They succeed, but one comes very close to being squished which is worrying. It’s Shapelle Corby.

We set off on a bus in the morning to the Cu Chi tunnels where we start our ride. The tunnels are from wartimes when the Vietcong used the tunnels to defeat the US. On the bus I overhear a conversation between two of the participants. One says that she has not actually been training on a bike, but more so an exercise bike. The other says that she broke her ankle when she came off a bike in her early teens and therefore has a bike-phobia. This is concerning to say the least, considering that these girls are about to ride 480KMS in humid 32 degree heat. I turn around to see that the one who trained on an exercise bike is Shapelle Corby.
My concern was well warranted. One of the to girls appears not to actually be capable of riding a bike and falls off within the first fifty meters. The other is just slow. These two are going to help me to practice my sympathy and encouragement techniques, both of which are a little lacking. To add to this, the bikes that Buffallo have provided are in a horrific state of disrepair. This means that it is even harder for the participants than it has to be. Grasshopper Adventures goes a long way to saving the day though, by delivering six bikes from Phnom Penh. The problem with the bikes is because the company that supplies them are not bike people and therefore just don’t get it. It is important for the companies that are involved in these trips to be people that ride themselves and understand the importance of getting the equipment right. All this talk of bikes reminds me of the things that I miss at home. I miss Kate a lot (of course), I miss my road bike a lot, and I MISS SCOOP ICE CREAM!!!!!