The title gives it all away really, at around 5 minutes to five Tom came back and told the Border Official that the Immigration team had given me clearance based on the Fax Letter. He took Tom at his word and we set off bike and luggage in hand. We quickly cleared Immigration, they knew more about me than they would normally do for a traveller and we met up with the rest of the team.
Jim handed me a cold beer (chilled, not just Cambodian cold) - delicious. It was great to see Jim and Mary again and to think that I would be getting the chance to complete the cycle ride, sorry challenge. It turned out that my saddle seatpost had slipped so I put it back up and tried to tighten it. Even that did not phase me. We agreed to cycle until dark, just to get a few miles in and then we would make up the missing kilometres the next day.
At this stage I just wanted to use up the excess adrenalin and burn some energy. For the first and only time in the trip I did not bother with a helmet, I did not put on my cycling shoes, just my gloves and we set off. I had to keep slowing down to allow the others to catch up. It turned out that Tom was having knee problems - not good for cyclists. So we followed from the front.
My immediate impression is that I had returned to the 21st Century, it just felt a more modern industrious place. The roads were better, there were more powered vehicles and as we came to a ferry crossing it showed that the transport arrangements were more developed.
We still passed people calling out cheery hellos - we switched to Vietnamese - Sin Chow (I think that is how we would spell it - phonetically) it means hello. It was clear that in this part of the country fish still played an important part in the economy. Here around the Mekong delta the rivers all looked loaded with silt - a good sign that the land was fertile. Here is a fish trap, both similar and slightly more together than ones we had seen in Cambodia.
As we loaded our bikes onto the second ferry of the day we decided that we had to stop cycling. Mary and I did not have lights, rental bikes were going to be supplied with them. I think that Chris did bring some rear lights but was not sure. Mind you none of the other bikes on the road had lights, but we were not going to push our luck especially not today. Here is the view from the ferry. At least we had clocked up another 20Km.
Look at the lights one of the differences - electrickery, something that was not so common in Cambodian villages, if at all.
We loaded our bikes onto the van and drove the last few kilometres. The hotel was new and nicely set in in its own grounds. The receptionist who later turned up in the restaurant was charming and spoke good English to us. In Vietnam you have to hand over your passport to the hotel so that they can log it with the Authorities, my only request, whatever happens do not lose the fax letter which was needed to explain my odd Visa so I could leave the country at the end of my trip.
My brother had mentioned that I would be meeting a lot of cockroaches on my journey, to date I had seen none, so when I did it got its picture taken.
The room was very pleasant, it took me ages and loads of shower gel to scrub the layers of mud, sunscreen, mud and more sunscreen off my legs. In fact I used my entire bottle. So I took with me the two small sachets of shower gel and shampoo provided by the hotel just in case the next hotel had none.
We then met up for dinner, although Mary and Jim had some problems with the air-con not working and were delayed. By this point of the trip I found myself increasingly setting the temperature in my bedroom higher and higher and sometimes turning the air-con off altogether - because I would wake up freezing in the middle of the night. One curious aspect; the air-con units are controlled by a remote which is not always in the room when we arrive but delivered slightly later, perhaps not all guests get its benefit.
Just as we were about to head off to the restaurant, a large roofed building with open sides, the rain hit with a vengeance. Then there was a knock on the door and the receptionist (plus everything else) turned up with umbrellas and hats (the conical type) and then one of the other staff, without the benefit of umbrella or hat showed me the way to the restaurant.
We sat and ate a delicious meal with the rain around us and the occasional flash of lightening. Several times during the day I had given up all hope of making it this far, so for me everything was totally rosy. Bring on tomorrow's cycling!
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