H2H 2012 - Ride Day 1 recap

Dear diary,


My kneeeeeeeeeeesssseesszzzz!!! Unfortunately, I've been injured since pretty much the 2nd day of the ride. I can't pinpoint exactly what has happened, but it sure does hurt. If anybody out there can help diagnose me, holler. 


Well, photodump time!


Day 1

Odometer reading at the start of the ride

All of my lovely donors! :D

Getting ready to ride out

Our first red light!

The first part of the group got a little ahead of the rest of the group, so we got lost for a quick minute. After getting into contact and finding out where to go, we find them trapped in the middle of traffic. So, what happened? Our lead van (donated by DHL, go DHL!) that is transporting all our bags decided to stop right in the middle of the road and wait for the rest of the riders to catch up. Some poor motorbike driver thought he could nudge the van out of the way and lost the battle.

Still not sure what ended up happening, but we ended up waiting around 30 minutes for it to get sorted out.

Group huddle to keep warm while we waited

"My" yellow beast. Lovin dem walls

Quinn "The Thriller" Miller, Corey "with an E" Gibson, The Great Dane, MacaRhona n Cheese Phu, Heineken Mallegrom

Guess the butt

On our way to our first town, we passed by a ridiculous golf course

Halfway done with ride day 1, we decide to grab some lunch. We find a place for lẩu (hotpot) and get our tummies warm. 

the cleanest of all the riders. !!!

The restaurant was freezing. Wide open doors and windows. I took a peek into the kitchen and noticed they had a bunch of fires going (duh.) I asked the bosslady if I could warm myself up in there and she said "Anything you want!" Hollered at some riders and we got to work.

Anna took it one step further and tried to dry her sweater

Our heater

Riding commando in under 50degree weather = a very freezing butt.
Plus, the fire was dying, so I had to throw some gas on it. 

Beef & spareribs & chicken innards, yumm!

dê núi (mountain goat) becomes dê tường (wall goat)

Coxley riding into town

Arrived! Hòa Bình

It was cold, dreary, wet, muddy. 90km (with an extra shortcut of +17km) and away we go. 9 more days of tardy updates for y'all. Be patient!


7:20 right now and time to set out for breakfast before 99.1km today. So close to Huế! We'll be riding by Hamburger Hill and a giant cemetery today. 'Til next time, friends!


xoxo,
tinothy

1 week down/1 year down!

Dear diary,


We haven't had much reliable internet access lately. Everybody has been lagging on the blog updates, tinmai included. This will be a quick wrap-up of the past week. 


Today marks the 7th day of the ride. We are just over 500km into our ride (1/4 of the way) and will be arriving in Huế in about 4 days. It'll be the 1/3 mark of the ride and will be our first rest day with pizza and other fast foods available. At this point, everyone is craving something from home. After spending some restless nights in shady, moldy, smelly hotel rooms, a taste of home will be very refreshing. So, here's a quick recap of what we crazy riders have been up to.


Day 0: Visit to Cat Dang Village - where part of your money will be going to repay the library that was built.

The riders sitting around to meet the commune leaders

Phong being a good student

The 8th graders waiting to play duck, duck, goose

VN steal the flag

Don't let the photos fool you. The students were very shy and weren't really talkative. Joe, Kirsty and I tried our darndest, but we had to settle for some physical games to get them up and active. Once school let out for them, we hopped back onto our bus and headed to lunch with the community leaders and board members. we got to tour around the kindergarten (another project that your funds will be supporting) while lunch was getting prepared.

Leaf turtle!

I wish my students knew all of these

There were some photos of the kindergarten students in the classrooms. We had some fun looking for the most interesting looking kids.

I don't know if it has to be with being Vietnamese or being children (or both) but their seats were ridiculously tiny. Here are the two tallest riders we have posing with the smallest chairs we'd ever seen.

They absolutely stuffed us with food and rice wine. As much as I tried to turn down their offers, it just wasn't gonna happen. 

Such powerful eyebrows.

 After lunch, some of the students put on performances for us. Flowers, drums, balls, spit - they had it all!

Getting dey well-deserved snacks

The most swagtastic gentleman that day

What happens when you let the students run around with your camera.

Bé Huyền! If you couldn't tell, my face is saying how adorable she was.

Chris and I were the last two to leave the school. We had such a great time
hanging out and being childish with the kids.

After our visit, we walked back to our bus and stumbled upon a random elementary school where the students were much more active and willing to give it a go with us all. Lots of screaming and cheering and chasing and playing and we sure got to expend enough energy to knock all of us out for the 2.5 hour bus ride back to Hanoi.

Trying to leave, Phong was accosted by the community leaders and was forced to give a kiss farewell.

Back at the hotel, the workers/owners had their daughters hanging around and we were playing with them.

Homegirl was not having it.

Of course, she couldn't resist my expert mask-making skills.

On our way to our first team dinner. I was stuffed in the back, which explains the face.

Cheers to rice wine!

I swear, no more laggin on posts. Everything just piles up. I still have 7 days to update y'all on. It's getting late and I want to sleep. So, 'til next time!


Oh, did I mention: today is my 1 year anniversary of moving to VN! Time sure has flown by rather quickly. It certainly doesn't feel like it's been a year. More about this later.


Cheers,
tm