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The Best Posts of the Blog

Road Bone’s Rampage: The Final Statistics

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Back to doing some data analysis, I added things up and found out I rode just about 3,700 miles. That sounds like a lot, but what does it mean? Doing some Google Maps, San Diego to Portland, Maine is ~3,100 miles, Seattle to Miami is ~3,300, and Anchorage, Alaska to San Diego is ~3,100 miles. So the take-away is: Road Bone’s a bad ass.

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Road Bone’s #1. Victory in Hanoi. I asked the guy at the hostel to take my photo.

Summary:
Distance: 3,690 miles
Days Cycling: 45
Avg Distance: 82 miles per day
Time Cycling: 278.6 hours
Avg Speed: 13.25 mph
100-Mile Days: 9
120-Mile Days: 4
Fastest Avg Speed: 17 mph
Longest Distance: 122.4 miles
Longest Time: 10:12 hours (6 AM to 6 PM with a few breaks)

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During my final 5 days, I cycled 533 miles from Luang Prabang, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam. After cycling for two months, my body was prepared for this self-imposed 5-day gauntlet through craggy mountains on unpaved road. I’m proud of the 3,700 miles I cycled, but I’m especially proud of my cycling accomplishments in the mountains of Northern Laos, turning two-day distances into one. Road Bone, the magician, making the impossible possible by simply turning the pedals.

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A note I forgot to share: People loved it when I rode cocky. Many times I would ride with no hands. It was to relieve the pressure on my hands, and it was also nice to sit up on the bike instead of being hunched over on the handlebars. The response I would get from this was great. The hellos and the smiles were much bigger. And when it was late in the day, and the sun was fading, I’d take off my shirt. Shirtless and riding high with no hands was the ultimate in cockiness, and the ladies loved it the most. Typically, the ladies who rode by on their motor scooters were conservative, but when my shirt came off, I got some big waves, and I broke a lot of hearts.

Bike Touring along the Mekong in Cambodia

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This post is long. I usually like splitting stories up into short, digestible posts, but I left this a long one to document the rich experiences I had in just one day in Cambodia. I think this was the best day I’ve had on this bike tour.

Money Gift and Corruption

As I left Vantha after breakfast, I gave him $20. He said, “I’m not looking for money.” I told him it was a gift. With 4 kids and making $2 per day, I figured he needed it more than me.

When I returned to Laurence and Gisella’s caravan to retrieve my stuff that I left with them for the night, Laurence and I got talking about corruption and money in Cambodia. He’s refused to pay the standard $2 stamping fee bribe at the borders because he doesn’t want to support the corruption. Laurence even refused to pay the $20 entrance fee to Angkor Wat because he realizes that when a Cambodian makes $2 per day, $20 is highly overpriced and he’s sure the money’s not going to preserving the site. When tourists willingly pay the fee, it confirms Cambodians’ beliefs that foreigners have endless cash.


Cambodian house — like a treehouse — elevated on stilts for shade, I think.

I started feeling bad for giving money to Vantha. White foreigner throwing his money around. And Vantha is 15-20 years older than me — was my charity insulting coming from a younger guy?

I suited up in my tight cycling gear while some farmers started looking at my map. They were intrigued by where different countries and cities were. They were also really interested in the foreigner’s sunscreen that I was putting on my face and arms. I offered them some, and one farmer had a blast putting it on his nose. It was a big laugh for everyone.


Rock Star t-shirt.

Horny Principal

Vantha had asked me to visit his school, so I stopped by on my way out. It was weird. I sat in the teacher’s lounge as the principal asked me questions. His main interest was girls. “In your country you can sleep in the same room as your sweetheart?” I said yes. “Ohhhh. In Cambodia you must be married to your sweetheart to fuck.” The combination of “sweetheart” and “fuck” was shocking. He made it clear that he preferred the sweetheart rules in the US, “I want to go to your country tomorrow. You can find me some girls.” I told him yes, of course; I’ll be back in a month, but you should go tomorrow, Horny Principal, and wait for me.

I got to Kampong Cham, a big town, and found some Western food. Seriously y’all, Western food is really awesome. It sucks eating instant noodles, pork fat, and meal of bones. Cheeseburgers and banana pancakes with chocolate are much better.

Nowhere Road

Then I tried finding the continuation of the small road along the Mekong river towards Kratie. My GPS showed that I was right at the turn off for the road, but all I saw was dirt. I wandered around for a while, and then decided to plunge into the dirt.


This was the turnoff I took from the main road. You’ve gotta have faith, and you’ve gotta really want it.

I followed faintly worn paths for a while, and took some wrong turns. Farmers shouted at me to turn around, and pointed me in the right direction. I looped through corn fields, slid through sand, and pulled my bike through mud pits until I finally found a wide, red clay road. It’s the journey, not the destination, right y’all? (Sometimes when I’m really hating a road, I say this corny saying to myself. It takes my mind off of hating the journey, so I can channel all my hate to this phrase).


Really feeling out in the middle of nowhere.

Cambodian Volleyball

Volleyball is a surprisingly popular sport in Cambodia. Volleyball courts are set up in the dirt everywhere and there’s usually a game going on. On my ride I passed a 2-versus-1 game, so I stopped and joined in. I could hold my own, but they were really good. A few times I blocked the ball at the net. I felt like Volleyball Shaq. At the end, I bought cans of soda for my volleyball friends.

Mekong Native One

At the end of the day, I turned down a road towards the Mekong. I wanted to swim and look for a camping spot. It was a really secluded area with only cattle and a few farmers around. I jumped into the river, washed myself, and did my laundry. Drying off in the setting sun with my native Cambodian krama slung around me felt awesome.

Sleeping on the sands on the bank of the river would have been great and easy, but I returned to the road for some food, and then I saw a Wat (Buddhist Temple). When I went in to ask about staying there for the night, I was directed to the head monk — a surly, fat guy who was smoking a cigarette. He laughed at me with the other monks and then sent a child to show me where I could sleep. A bamboo bed with a straw mat and a mosquito net in a small, one-window room inside the temple.

After loading my bike into the room, I “showered” publicly at the well in the courtyard. All the monks bathed here. Showering, brushing their teeth, and doing their laundry. As children watched White Man, I dumped water from a bucket over my head and toweled off with my krama.

Cambodian Drinking Party

I left the temple’s grounds to find some food — monks only eat breakfast and lunch. I sat down at a food stall right outside the temple with a bunch of young guys who were working through a case of Angkor beer. One of them spoke some English, and he ordered me a glass so I could take part. Every time my glass got half-full, one of the guys topped it up. And about every five minutes one of them would initiate a tipping of glasses. Drink, cheers, top up the glass. It was endless. The English-speaking guy told me that they had been working in a factory in Korea; good money and a better opportunity than this farming community in Cambodia can provide. When we got to the last can of beer, I was feeling woozy. I asked how much I owed but the guy waved me off saying he’d pay. I couldn’t let him do that so I drunkenly left a mystery wad of cash and walked off thanking them. But as I left, the krama I was wearing as a skirt unraveled. It was a cool exit.

Monk Mobile Phone Music

When I returned to my monk room, the monk sleeping next to me was playing some terrible Cambodian music on his mobile phone. I was too tired to care, and I passed out on the hard, bamboo mattress. But in the middle of the night, I woke up with a really dry mouth. After I drank some water, sweat beaded all over my back. I was dripping wet. There was no fan in the room and the window was closed. I felt sick, and even sicker having to listen to the Cambodian love ballads on the monk’s phone.

I couldn’t get back to sleep with the heat, the hard bed, and the monk’s music, but I had to do something. I got my headlamp and stood over the monk’s bed looking for his mobile phone, but I felt really creepy watching him sleep. The phone was tucked in close to his cheek, and I would have felt weird reaching in to turn it off, so I got my hammock and went outside. I strung up my hammock between two pillars underneath the temple. It was breezy and comfortable, but I placed it badly — I could still faintly hear the monk’s mobile phone. I slept for a while until it got cold. Then I went back upstairs onto the hard bed, and let the Cambodian love songs take me away to sleep.

Staying with a Cambodian Family

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After finishing his teaching, Vantha and I walked up the dirt road and along a path through banana trees to his house where we sat in the empty area underneath (typical Cambodian house setup). His wife brought us hot water to drink – yeah, not tea, but hot water. Vantha has four sons, and when I arrived a couple of them were playing. Vantha prompted them to say hi to me, but they were shy. Vantha pushed the older one forward towards me, “Good morning.”

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As a teacher working from 7 am until 5 pm (with a two hour lunch break – that’s normal in Southeast Asia) followed by two hours of private lessons, Vantha makes $2 per day. He’s a professional and almost everyone else are farmers. I wonder how much money the farmers make in one day.

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Vantha’s house. You see these small fires everywhere — they’re burning garbage.

Vantha told me about the B-52 bombs that were dropped in his village when he was a kid. He and his family took shelter in a bunker, and the bombs left big craters in the ground. One bombed-out crater is now being used to grow fish – that pretty damn positive, right y’all?!

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The living area turns into the wide-open sleeping area when you roll out the straw mats.

After mentioning something about visiting the Killing Fields, Vantha told me that he was part of the Khmer Rouge, the rebel group under Pol Pot responsible for the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s. I should have realized since I was in a farming community and the Khmer Rouge was made up of mostly farmers, but the genocide is so bizarre that it seems almost fictional. Vantha was only about 10 years old at the time and he said he had to do a lot of hard work in the fields and got very little food. I didn’t want to ask if he killed anyone. Actually, I did want to ask, but it would probably be a little rude, right? I’ve never asked, “Hey, did you kill anyone?”

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Vantha’s youngest son getting some pants. Most of the time, he walked around with a shirt and pee-pee.

“When a Cambodian woman gets married, there is only one.” Vantha spoke about the loyalty of women in Cambodia, and how they honor their parents by “taking their advices.” He says many Westerners like Cambodian women for this, but as my sister, Eleanor, said, “Cambodians are kind of like the Irish of Southeast Asia – they’re ugly.”

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We went upstairs to eat. Vantha’s family was sitting on the hardwood bamboo floor huddled around about five bowls of food. Pork, egg, rice, onion, and green beans. He invited me to join, so I sat and picked at what was available. My soft Western body had a hard time finding a comfortable way to sit on that floor.

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The kitchen area.

Vantha’s wife laid out a straw mat on the floor for me to sleep. I went to adjust the orientation of the mat, but Vantha told me I should sleep with my head towards the South. “South is head, North is legs, East is birth, and West is falling down” – he meant dead. Just one of their many strange, superstitious beliefs. I also wonder if North is head. As long as my head isn’t pointing West I won’t be falling down.

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Sleeping on the hard floor was really hard. My hip bones hurt the next day from sleeping on my side. Vantha’s whole family slept on the floor every night. Their bodies have grown up being exposed to only hardness and so they’re hardened; a bamboo floor probably feels like PosturePedic. And us Westerners need our premium air sleeping pads and pillows for camping. I think a Cambodian going camping would be seriously ultralight.

Mekong River Villages in Cambodia

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The highlight of this trip so far has been cycling along the Mekong river in Cambodia between Phnom Penh and Kratie. It took me three days on bumpy, dirt roads, but it was worth it for the people I met and the experiences I had.

For those people who said, “You gotta take lots of pictures,” this one’s for you! (and the next few posts describing these few days along the Mekong)

From the reactions I got, it seems there aren’t many tourists who come through on this road. It’s going to be difficult to give up being a celebrity when I return to the US.

I had to go very slowly most of the day, around 10 mph, so I wouldn’t break a spoke in my wheel. My hands and butt really hurrrt Charlie, and they’re still hurrting.


Farmers washing their cows in the Mekong river

As the sun was getting low, I turned off the road towards the river to look for a spot to hang my hammock.

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A huge caravan was parked on the bank of the river. Laurence and Gisella, a Swiss couple, have been traveling in a converted shipping container for four years, and they’d been camping in this spot for a week. It was good to meet some English-speaking people, and they’d already established that area to be a White-foreigner-camping zone.

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Laurence seemed like he was having a blast with the locals, but Gisella kept to herself. When I told her I was going to walk back into the village to find a place to eat, she said in her Swiss-German accent, “Everyone just stares at you. It’s not so funny.”

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I took a dip in the Mekong to wash off, and to launder my clothes. The muddy river floor was a gross feeling, but feeling native was great. I crouched third-world style on the wooden boat and tossed my clothes around in the river. Then I hung them to dry on the bank.

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There was a small shop on the river bank, and I ate instant noodles and three ears of corn – very few options. Then I went into the village.

There was no sign of a food stall, and it was getting dark, so everything was shutting down. I came to a Khmer-English center, so I pulled in there to ask about food. There was a class in session, and when I presented myself — tall White man in skimpy red short shorts — everyone laughed. After speaking to the teacher, Vantha, for a few minutes, he told me, “You stay with me tonight. Can you stay?”

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Vantha had one more private English lesson to teach from 6 to 7 pm, and then he would take me to his home. He passed me off to old man, Sambath, for the hour. I wish I had taken a photo of Sambath. He was a bony, weathered old man who was full of life and excitement and had a crazy laugh. He spoke some English, and some French. Sambath brought me to a house where I was fed more instant noodles, and we sat speaking simple French and laughing. “Comment t’allez vous?” And when we spoke numbers, we cracked up. “Soixante neuf. Sixty nine! Hahahahha!” I loved it.

Luck is Real Good: Staying with a Vietnamese Family

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Towards the end of the day, I saw a bunch of people standing in a circle at the side of the road. It was a cock fight so I stopped to take a look. As I approached, the attention shifted to me – White Man with a big helmet and a big smile.

A young guy started speaking to me in English. He was the first person in Northern Vietnam (outside Hanoi) that I’d met who spoke pretty fluent English. I asked him some advice about what food is available besides Pho. He told me to come to his house so he could write some things down for me.

Hoang (sounds just like Juan) and his dad offered me some banh cuon, which is a densely packed rice log. The dad didn’t speak any English but we exchanged a lot of nods and smiles.

Since they were sharing with me, I brought out my small flask of bourbon which I brought exactly for this purpose – offering alcohol is a really good way to bond with someone and it transcends language. The dad loved it.

Soon after, Hoang invited me to stay the night with them. And he told me that his mom would be cooking a traditional Vietnamese dinner since it was still Tet. Duh, of course I would stay!

One thing I thought was interesting was how much they use slippers. At every entry way there’s a line of cheap plastic slippers. There’s inside ones and outside ones. None of them fit me – my feet are too wide – but I scooted around in them and obeyed the inside vs outside slipper rule.

After I told Hoang that I was also going to visit Cambodia, he said it is very dangerous there, although he’s never been. I remember some Mexicans telling me that Guatemala was really dangerous. I think it’s pretty typical to have prejudice against your neighboring country.

And Hoang also told me to be careful with my electronics, like my iPhone and camera. Many people in Vietnam will want to steal them. They’re safe with him and his family but other people will take them.


I think this rain water collection is cool

I brought an old, unlocked cell phone with me on the trip but I realized I’ve got no one to call if I buy a local SIM card. So I offered the phone to Hoang. He loved it. He thanked me many times and said his mother could use it. I wish I had packed more bourbon and more old cell phones.


This is their living room with a picture of Ho Chi Minh elevated up in the center above the TV. I think this is pretty common — Ho Chi Minh seems like the Vietnamese version of a George-Washington-Abraham-Lincoln hybrid. People here love him, and he’s on all the money.

The whole family got up really early because I said I would leave at around 7 AM. Hoang’s mom made me breakfast, and no one else ate.  I really felt like the guest of honor.


Hoang’s mom runs this small shop that’s right outside their house. It seems almost everyone in the countryside of Vietnam runs a small shop like this.