15/5/25
We had a very lazy start. We’d got used to being able to leave late. We found shops within walking distance. We bought some nuts, chia seeds and soya milk. A nearby pharmacy sold us some acne cream. Jonathan had a saddle sore he wanted to clear up. Then we had a coffee. Tasty and bean derived.
We’d decided to set off towards the Ho Chi Minh highway. We knew it would be hillier but quieter. This section looked interesting on the terrain map. The heat was coming early again. Sometimes there was very little air as we climbed. Jonathan had been noticing a pinging noise from his rear wheel on the climbs. It was definitely spoke related.
After 23km we stopped for some ice and Jonathan lubricated the spokes where they met the hub. Internet advice. When we were stopped he kept reading. A physics buff on the forum insisted such pinging had to be spoke/rim interface related. Jonathan glanced at the rear spokes. Not one, two or three but six spokes had cracks emanating from their nipples. F***. They were all drive side spokes.
It was too dangerous to ride on. Even though the rim had made it this far. It could be catastrophic. We headed straight to the nearest guest house. A careful kilometre back the way we came. We tried to work out our options. We mused for a while and contacted as many bike shops as we could. We could travel to Vinh. No new rims, just a semi-suitable wheel. A 24 spoke DT Swiss for 8 million Dong. Our only other option was to travel to Hà Nội. A few higher end bike shops. Still not easy to find a suitable wheel though.
We returned to the owner of the hotel. A man came out of a room at the same time as a woman. They didn’t even look at each other again. The woman rode off on a scooter as the man went to pay. We asked the woman about the possibility of transport to Vinh with the bikes. From there we would take a train to Hà Nội. A reluctant break in our unbroken line from Koh Lanta.
Never did we imagine it would be so easy. Expecting to pay a high rate to someone with a pickup truck, instead we were offered a bus. A mere 300k Dong for both us and the steel beasts. Not only that. The bus would come straight to the hotel door in half an hour.
As we waited in our dirty, spider infested hole, the heavens opened. Thunder rumbled deeply. Cracks of lightening divided the sky. And rain poured relentlessly. We stood outside with the bicycles. Anxiously waiting to see what kind of vehicle turned up. Never more grateful for the flexibility of the Vietnamese.
A minibus arrived. Already mostly full. Getting the bikes in looked ridiculously hard. But it was easy. Within a couple of minutes they were behind the rear seats. All the bags of mail and other goods you’d never expect on the bus were stashed somewhere else. Somehow. We slid into our seats. No seatbelts.
Jonathan was at the back and spend the journey texting bike shops and being cuddled by a drunk Vietnamese man who showed him pictures of him and his son in England. It was surreal. He was in Sittingbourne, Kent. Watching a Chelsea game. He kept whacking Jonathan’s arm. Trying to draw his attention from checking out rims and hubs. A 36 hole, 700c rim was very hard to come by.
Frankie sat near the front. She had a much better, or worse, view of the chaotic driving. Even more soul destroying was the fact we were driving back down all the roads we’d cycled. Our hard won progress of the day before demolished in an hour. We stopped to deliver the mail. Then a couple got off and a huge stack of wood appeared from under the seats. Our cargo was nothing.
Vinh station was quiet. We’d looked at the process online. We’d need to pay for the bikes and ship them separately. This was confirmed rather grumpily by the passenger ticket saleswoman. Jonathan went to the cargo office. A small dingy couple of rooms near the station. Another grumpy woman. He tried relentlessly to make her smile. This took just as long as filling out the forms. It was over an hour.
She needed a valid Vietnamese phone number. A pointless address in the UK. Passport number. She struggled to enter the unfamiliar information onto her computer. In between the filling of forms she was on the phone to her friend. It was just rabid gossip. She didn’t care Jonathan was waiting. She also seemed to be trying to inflate the price by trying many different options. But a bike was a bike was a ‘xe đạp’. It cost 71k Dong each. Far less than the 400k cost she’d initially quoted.
After the forms were printed she stamped them with the date 30/4/25. Jonathan queried it and she handed him the stamp to change it. Then stamped over the top. It looked messy. Jonathan had to attach the waybills and there was no other packing provided. This all took well over an hour. Then we had to buy the tickets for the same train, the SE6. The ‘foreigner’ sleeper tickets were 712k Dong each.
In the meantime Frankie had ordered food for us via Grab. It was delayed but we weren’t going anywhere. We had another 3 hours to wait. A delicious selection of soya meats and vegetables turned up. Including a soup that destroyed its container. It was probably biodegradable at least. We ate it sitting outside to avoid making a mess.
At 9pm, 40 minutes before the board said the train was due, a conductor came over and drove us into a state of panic. We should head to platform 3 for our train. We rushed out. With difficulty. Eight panniers, a top bag and a backpack. The train didn’t come. We stood on the platform looking at the NA2 train. Vietnam had some weird system of private train cars.
As we were waiting a train arrived on our platform but the carriages had no numbers. An angry woman kept shouting at us but we had no idea what she was saying.
It turned out that this was a private train for elites. We could see ridiculous double beds through the carriage windows. We were being told to go to platform 2 instead. Our train arrived. We walked past our bikes waiting on the platform. The cargo loading man rode suddenly rode up on the black Surly. He was delivering all the water bottles and our lock. The frame bags were still attached hopefully they wouldn’t go missing. We boarded and swiftly moved. We had the cabin to ourselves. For now.
The bike tracking airtags hadn’t moved. Jonathan always fears the worst. He went to look for them. Walking through the carriages he eventually arrived at the staff/cargo area. It was a scene you’d see in a film from 50 years ago. People stretched out in every possible location. Where there weren’t people, there were boxes, crates or something else. A man spotted him and promptly turned him around. Not suitable for people.
We lay in the bunks of our noisy room. It was hard to find sleep. The train was jerky and rickety. The children in the neighbouring compartment kept rubbing the paper thin walls. It was comfortable enough. We managed to book a place to stay in Hà Nội. There were thousands to choose from. We found someone bicycle friendly. We were scheduled to arrive at 4:30am. Not ideal. Lights flickered behind the curtains. The train tracks took the train next to the north-south road. The one we’d sought to avoid.
Surly They Won't Make It 