Just before the beginning of the pandemic Michelle and I traveled to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam and during our trip we took a week-long boat tour down the Mekong River, starting in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and ending in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was not a large luxury cruise that stopped at typical tourist attractions, but rather a small tour with about two dozen other travelers that made stops at places not typically visited by tourists. This allowed us to have an authentic experience of the culture of Cambodia and Vietnam.
One of our stops was at Vinh Long, a small city in Vietnam. (I may have the name of the city wrong, as I got confused with all the different stops we made on the trip.) That day we were scheduled to visit a family-run brick factory, an outdoor pottery workshop, and a palm plantation. Bamboo, our tour guide, gave us two travel options that day: we could ride in a traditional Vietnamese cart being pulled by an ox, or we could ride a bike. We chose the bikes because there were a limited number of carts and some of the passengers were not in good enough condition to ride a bike the whole day, while others thought that being pulled by an ox in Vietnam was a romantic experience that they couldn’t miss out on.
After a delay to take pictures of the ox and cart, the eight of us who chose to bike began to follow Bamboo, who was now in a hurry to get to the brick factory. Following Bamboo through the busy traffic of Vinh Long turned out to be a nerve-wracking experience. The streets were crowded with both vehicles and pedestrians and everyone was in a hurry and if you hesitated on your bike for just one second you could get run over. In Bangkok we had quickly learned that it is those who stop or make sudden adjustments while crossing a busy street are the ones who get hit. To cross a street, you had to walk slowly and the traffic would flow around you as the motorists turned to avoid you. It was difficult for Michelle and me to trust the drivers as we walked across the street and we now had to do it on bikes. I don’t recall Bamboo ever stopping to see if everyone was still following but ultimately we all did get to our destinations safely.
All the stops were enjoyable– I especially enjoyed the family brick factory because there were some cute children there who were curious about us foreigners. The only problem was that all the tours went over the amount of time they were scheduled, making the day’s tour longer than what Bamboo had planned. At the last stop, Michelle and I noticed that it was starting to get dark, and we began to feel anxious about the bike ride back to the boat. Michelle expressed her concern to Bamboo but he told us it would all be fine.
It was not fine. If trying to follow Bamboo through the city in the day was nerve-wracking then trying to follow Bamboo through the city in the dark with no street lamps and no lights on a bike was even worse. Once again Bamboo was in a hurry because we were late for our scheduled meal back at the boat. In the outskirts of the city you could barely make out where the road was, and you definitely couldn’t see any of the potholes. The worst part was Michelle and I ended up at the back and when we lost sight of Bamboo and the rider in front of us we had to try to remember our way back to the boat. It might have been a bit better but three of the riders managed to squeeze onto the shuttle that took the cart people back to the boat, so there were fewer people to follow. Once we got closer to the city center there was more light and since the traffic had died down from earlier in the day, we could finally relax and enjoy a bike ride on a warm evening.
We all made it back to the boat alive and we now have an adventurous bike riding story while traveling in Vietnam. We feel very fortunate that we managed to make the trip because it was soon after that the pandemic made traveling impossible, and who knows when we will get to travel again? When we do, I would love to go back to Vietnam.
One Last Kick 