What More Could We Want?

So I’ve mentioned briefly how everything we need always seems to be just over my right shoulder. It’s getting a little ridiculous though now. We’ve had the surprisingly perfect hotel dropped in the middle of nowhere, multiple bike repair shops within eyeshot at the worst times, a bus station like a mirage, and then we happened to stay at the same tiny run down guest house in a town famous for its fried tarantulas (Danielle almost ate one, her excuse, “If they weren’t sitting in so much OIL…”) as two women from Holland who have been traveling by bike for the last 8 months. I’m pretty sure we were the only 4 people staying there and they were in the room across from ours and said we were the first women on bikes they had encountered the entire time. It was entirely reassuring to know that they had done it. We had come from opposite directions, they from Phnom Penh and us from Kompong Thom. I’m sure the people in the villages along our routes thought they were seeing things when a second set of girls on different bikes rolled through town the next day.

But it didn’t stop there. After we met Monki, the tuk-tuk driver/bicycle racer who seems to have properly fixed my bike once and for all we had another encounter with the bizarre today. After walking through the Central Market we were aimlessly wandering around with no plans. We zig-zagged down a bunch of roads and stopped on a corner to decide what we wanted to do. Right above my head was a sign that said Vicious Cycle Co-op. It advertised self serve laundry. We do laundry most nights in the sink but after riding for 4 or 5 hours in the dust and heat the sink wash doesn’t really cut it and after a serious laundry debacle in Siem Reap (our clothes came back wet, with NEW stains, a rip, and short a bra) we were besides ourselves with excitement.

It turns out the place is an adventure cycle touring business/laundromat/café and the owner, Adam actually asked us if we had time to sit down so he could help us out with our route.

We’ve been debating about where to cross into Vietnam and where to go once we get into the Mekong Delta. It’s like a web of waterways and small roads and we had no idea what to do and we leave tomorrow morning.



Adam sat down with us took out a Vietnam atlas and talked us through the best way to go, gave us advice on road conditions, towns with guest houses and then color copied all the pages we’d need from the atlas. He also advised us on the northern part of Vietnam and where we should go in Laos. Incredible. Even more incredible, they just opened last week and we were the first laundromat customers. I feel like it’s not that far off that the things we need are dropping from the sky.



He doesn’t have a web site yet but The Co-op is at 29 St. 130, opposite the Indochine 2 Hotel (adam@grasshopperadventures.com) for anyone looking for bike tours/planning/clean clothes etc…



So, we take off tomorrow for Takeo 75 km south and then head to the border at Ha Tien where we hope to take a boat to Phu Quoc Island (Sissa, your fish sauce!).



It could be a while until we have internet access again.