Jono Cane's Blog

Day 26 18/11/2009

Distance Cycled: 87km

Repair cost: 50000 Dong

Today I didn’t leave the Hotel till just before midday. I grabbed another bowl of Noodle soup from down the road and some nibblys for the journey. I knew I didn’t have to cycle far only to get to Dong Ha just less than 90km away.

It was much more of the same terrain from every other day on Highway 1.

I did encounter my first problem with my bicycle… nothing serious (well at first) just a flat back tire. I pulled over on the side of the road to patch up the puncture but again I had a bunch of locals turn up, 15 to be precise that basically did the job for me.

Whist fixing the puncture I noticed that the back tire wasn’t looking so good, it was rather run down, I thought it would last till I got to Dong Ha but unfortuanately the repaired puncture was leaking a little air. So for the 45km I had to cycle to Dong Ha I had to pull over every 5-10 km to inflate the tire. This was only so good till the last kilometer before the tube would not hold any air what-so-ever. Luckily for me there was a mechanic/bicycle repair shop accoss the road. I took it there and had some dinner while the guy attempted to fix the wheel. Again unfortunately the size of the wheel is uncommon in Vietnam and he could not find a new tire, although he did attempt to prolong the durablility of the tire by cutting a rubber tube and placing it between the tire and the new tube. I cycled off after paying 50,000 Dong but before long the tire had deflated again. L

Just as the tire deflated I saw a Westerner walking along the road, Michael was from the Ukraine, nice guy but didn’t really have anything interesting to say even after he had traveled around Asia for 3 years. I joined him for dinner… second one for me and found a small crappy hotel thing paying only 60,000 Dong where I crashed for the night.