Surly They Won't Make It

21/5/25

We had finally come to realise that we were both probably a little ill. Jonathan had noticed on the day we’d taken the train that he was light headed. He had developed a cold sore too. Depleted was an understatement. Our bodies must have crashed once we stopped moving.

Frankie nipped out for more flour, then cooked up some pancakes again. We thought we had bought coconut sugar syrup. But it was bitter. We mixed it with coconut milk and sugar to lighten it a bit. 

The new rims and tyres were boxed up and ready to leave the UK. There was nothing simple about getting them to Vietnam. Cost is based on a combination of volume and weight. If the box wasn’t dense enough then it would default to weight, in this case we’d pay for 22kg despite it only weighing 8kg. 

Finding the address of the house we were staying in was problematic. It didn’t have a clear name or number because it was on a side street. At least it had a big sign outside: ‘Olive Garden Homestay’. Vietnam doesn’t really use postcodes. Not like we were used to. The whole city of Hanoi was under the postcode 100000. Even finding that out took a while. DHL was no help whatsoever. 

The main obstacle to overcome was customs. Every item had to be declared. A tariff code identified from the HMRC, a description of the item, what it’s made of, what it’s used for, and its value. We inputted the value pre-VAT. Bicycle rims and tyres have separate unique codes. It’s not as simple as them just being bike parts. Not only that, there were potential export conditions for tyres. It wasn’t clear how we’d overcome that obstacle apart from just ignoring it. There is a preferential trade agreement between the UK and Vietnam. It only applies to goods made in the UK though.

The most hilarious part was that we needed to identify the country of manufacture of each item. The rims could have been made in the Netherlands but also Hungary or China. Schwalbe is a German company of course. But it doesn’t make its tyres there. Until recently they were made in Indonesia. Guess where they’re made now. That’s right. Vietnam. After checking the labels, two of the four tyres were made in Indonesia and two in Vietnam. You can’t buy them in Vietnam easily. They’re not made for this ‘market’. 

It took hours to double check all the information and make sure it was correct. We couldn’t help but reflect on the UK’s recent withdrawal from the EU. If every small business has to fill out this nonsensically complicated information for every shipment then it’s no wonder it would decimate trade. Especially if they sold a large number of different products. If every voter had had a go at completing the process we are doubtful the outcome of the referendum would have been the same. 

Finally, we were able to purchase the expensive, £150 postage. It didn’t end there though. There were 6 copies of the customs forms that needed to be included with each shipment. They all needed to be signed with a declaration. Thankfully, Lawrence was happy to help do all this on his end in Wales. Then he took the parcel down to the parcel shop, wrote some backup information on it, and sent it on its way. It was almost like a weight was lifted but now we had a long wait for it to arrive. All we could do was cross our fingers now. 

Meanwhile, it had been pouring with rain outside. Heavy, tropical style. It relieved us that we hadn’t been able to go anywhere today. Even if we’d wanted to. In the end we just walked up to what we called ‘tofu alley’. On account of all the soya stalls there. We bought some blocks of tofu, came back and bought some more herbs. Frankie liked the Thai basil. Jonathan was partial to the oregano, which looked just like stinging nettles.

Jonathan cooked the exact same meal as the day before. Uninventive, but delicious all the same. We couldn’t believe how quickly the day had slipped away. It was like we were in some kind of weird time warp. Our mood and mental states were strange. The whole experience continued to be unusual. It was like we were in limbo. We couldn’t leave, but we also didn’t want to leave. It was hard not to feel like we’d never be energetic again. We had to be ill.