Christy Takes a Break: Coconut Jungle

I’m feeling like I need a bit of a windge.

I’m not so happy to be inside my hotel room which is the kind of “room” where you wish you were covered in cellophane from head to toe and seriously consider sleeping upright in a chair. It’s a hotel where the headline amenity is “Hot Water” To top it off, there’s a lot of noise coming from my garbage can and I know something alive is in there, I’m just not sure what. I’m not going to look, I can’t.

But the good news - somehow this establishment has wireless (which they don’t mention in their list of room benefits) AND I still have some sleeping pills left from the stash my mom left me (THANK YOU MOM!) so I can sleep tonight without wondering about the animals in my garbage can.

Side note: Shortly after getting into my hotel room, a woman walked in without knocking, opened my mini bar door, and pulled out a giant jar of what appeared to be worms. Before I thought about it, I said in horror “what in the hell is that?!” She of course didn’t speak English and just smiled and giggled and then left with the jar in her hands. Maybe that’s what’s in my garbage can? It sounds bigger than worms though. HELP!

Anyway, this might be a long and boring note because I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself after Happy Camp! Starting with the fact that I’m staying in a town tonight called Tra Vinh…and when the guide (his name is Thai) told me the town’s name it sounded just like Tra Vigne to me. Which made me think of Napa Valley. And I thought of wonderful wine and wonderful food…and I thought…oh my god. For the money I’m spending right now I could be cycling in Napa Valley and staying in an amazing B&B, eating at the French Laundry and drinking myself silly. This is the unfortunate state of mind I am in.

So anyway, we cycled about 50 km’s today in what I would call the Coconut Jungle. I call it the Coconut Jungle because that is what it is. It took me a while to figure out what was going on when we started cycling because I thought we were on a cute little bike path created for tourists – I was so delighted that this existed! It felt a little bit like cycling on Sanibel Island on vacation as a kid, but more rustic. We passed a few little huts that sold what looked to be like packaged food and soda and I thought to myself – how nice that the local people have set up these little shops for the touring cyclists! About 20 minutes into the ride when I passed a sign that said 'Internet' I thought “GENIUS! If I need to send an emergency email, I can. These Vietnamese think of everything!” and that’s when it slowly dawned on me that this was not a cycling trail – this was the main road connecting all the homes in the middle of the Coconut Jungle.

Once that was clear, I became a bit more uneasy. It didn't help when Amanda, a lovely woman from London, toppled off her bike and down a ravine into the highly questionable water below. That scared the living daylights out of me, but she took it like a total champ. I think I was more upset than she was.

Not sure if you know this about me, but I used to be terrified of riding a bike. And when I say “used to” it was until I moved to Amsterdam a month ago. Thankfully my friend and trainer in London, Mo, pretty much forced me to buy a road bike in London so I could train for a triathlon. He was also kind enough to make me cycle through a very confusing and dangerous intersection on Finchley Road (I’m afraid to drive a car on this section of the road much less cycle) in an effort to “kill the fear” Unfortunately, after doing this ride several times, I would still arrive at Regent’s Park to meet Mo shaking from head to toe and counting my blessings to have arrived in one piece. The fear is still very much alive.

These days I’m not quite terrified, but more a nervous wreck on a bike. So I was fully aware going into this leg of the trip that the next 2 weeks would be really difficult for me but that it was worth it for the following reasons:

I decided that I wouldn’t be able to see this part of the world in a tour bus because I would either be car sick or asleep the entire time.
This is the perfect way to put the nail in the coffin of killing my cycling fear. If I can cycle through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, I should be able to cycle most places without being scared.
What I underestimated was point #3 – traveling in rural Vietnam is no whistle through the woods…it’s serious business and I want to go back to the Bangkok airport!

One way I’ve tried to make myself more comfortable cycling is by giving my bike a name. I’ve named my Dutch Granny bike in AMS “Buddy” so that I can sing one of my favorite childhood songs “My Buddy, My Buddy…My Buddy and MEEEEE!!!!” as I’m weaving amongst the Dutch cyclists on my way to work and hoping I don’t make a complete jack ass out of myself. It calms me down. With that in mind, I named my bike on this trip the original “Buddy #2” and found myself singing in my head “My Buddy and me like the coconut trees. My Buddy and Me have the best time that could beeee!!!” For those of you who don’t know this classic tune, you are missing out.

So this helped. But then we ate lunch. I don’t want to talk about lunch. Here is lunch. It looks a hell of a lot better on camera than it was. It was scary. I’m still scared.

This is Thai,one of the 2 guides, making a paste.

This is a bowl of paste with deep fried pieces of meet artfully served in cheerful dinner plates. I fully realize it looks pretty good on camera, but it was positively revolting.

And dinner was worse and I actually ate dinner because I was starving. I decided to put all of my food on allocation until I get someplace where I can buy normal food again. Immediately upon deciding on this food allocation, I ate a power bar, about 45 almonds and half a bag of dried mangosteens to comfort myself. I now have 3 power pars, 17 almonds and half a bag of dried mangosteens left. If anyone wants to overnight me a care package

to Cambodia, I’m definitely not stopping you.

OK, there are so many strange noises in my hotel room I’m not quite sure what to do. There must be a cat in here or something? I’m too afraid to look. I think it’s under the bed now and not in the garbage can. There are lots of barking dogs outside, they are everywhere here. That and roosters. And giant hogs. A hog couldn't fit under my bed, that I am sure of.

I need to complain for just a little bit more and then show some lovely photos. There are 4 great people on this trip and the guides are really nice. However, there are also people on this trip that I truly cannot stand. The WI ladies being the worst. I didn’t think they could get any more surly! To top things off I overheard one of them saying she brought Triscuits with her on the trip. Do you have any idea what I would do for a handful of Triscuits on a normal day in Amsterdam? A LOT. In Tra Vinh Vietnam?? Indescribable. Maybe Miss Crabby Pants would be willing to trade for it? I need to give this some careful thought.

Tomorrow is going to be another tough day – 90 km’s through the Vietnamese mud. I can’t decide if I want to wake up with food poisoning or take the ride through the mud. I guess I’m good with either option.

I’ll end with some nice pictures of where we went today, because it was pretty amazing. Thai has already taken 600 pictures, so I didn't get so many (it's sort of tricky taking photos while riding a bike, especially for me).

I realize how lucky and fortunate I am to be here, especially when you look at how happy the Vietnamese are despite their very difficult living conditions. OK!! I'm done complaining and will sleep happily with the cat or rodent or whatever it is that is bunking with me tonight.