30/5/25
We’d visited all the sights in Hanoi. Or at least all the places we felt were worthwhile. Jonathan had been obsessively watching all the Indiana Jones films during the past week. They were surprisingly dark sometimes. The man from the bicycle shop messaged. He didn’t know we’d left the old wheels so that they could reuse the hubs. A little bit nerve wracking. We thought everything had been communicated.
We started watching a film called Before Sunrise. A fairly famous film about a couple who meet in Europe. There are two sequels each released 9 years after the last. The same actors. We didn’t finish it but instead went upstairs to pack our clothes back into our panniers. That was one less thing to worry about. Frankie had started learning Spanish. She was keen to know another language and this was the one she was most familiar with. It wasn’t going to help us in the immediate future though.
Frankie made a large bowl of fruit salad for us and we watched Your Friends and Neighbours. We nipped out for some tofu and vegetables. We were having fresh spring rolls again. For dessert Frankie made what she now called “stove top brownies.”
It was in the evening that Jonathan panicked. He decided he should message the wheel building guy to check which spoke lacing pattern he would use. He didn’t seem to know anything. In response to a picture of the different options, the man said it would be ‘2 cross’. That’s not what we wanted. ‘3 cross’ was best for a stronger wheel. The wheels shouldn’t have been started yet so hopefully the message would get through.
Surly They Won't Make It 