Another 6 days of continuous cycling has bought my total mileage cycled up to 943. I don’t really have too much to report on in my past week of cycling. We are still traveling along Highway 1 and will continue to do so until Saigon. The beeping and the hellos continue.
A cycling book that I read before I left stated Vietnam was 'flat or moderately hilly - perfect for beginners.' Whoever wrote this is a downright liar and I feel the need to have words with this person. The past week of cycling has been continuous up, down, up, down, up, down and we have now climbed two mountain passes. Kris put his altimeter on and one day we had climbed a total of 768 meters, another day we had climbed 423.
Climbing one of the steepest hills ever; slow and pushing hard. Look at how the lampposts drop down on the road and the way it disappears!
Whether it is the long continuous days of cycling or the hills, my body was screaming for a rest by the time we reached Nha Trang. My left knee is sore, my wrists were a bit tingly from the vibrations on the bike from the crap roads and my bum huuuuurts! I think, as a result of always being damp, whether this is from sweat or rain, I have also developed a rather pleasant adult version of nappy rash on my bottom! It is funny, but it is also so sore and making me so uncomfortable on the bike.
So, two and a half days rest in the popular beach town of Nha Trang is needed to restore mind and body. Due to lack of space in my bag, I forbade myself from bringing any luxurious items as I wrote about in one of my first posts. However, I am missing my epilator and I miss feeling at least slightly lady like, so I decided it was time to splash out on some waxing treatments; underarms, bikini and legs. All for the bargain price of £13.50 but what a bizarre experience and so different to the polite conservative ways that it is done in the UK. I had three girls working on me, at the same time. YES, at the same time, one was working on each body part. ‘Oww’ was an understatement. I felt like I was on a torture bed, I didn’t know where the pain would be coming next. One after the other, my hair was ripped out of my skin in various places of my body, it was all over so quick and I was left feeling like a plucked chicken that didn’t really know what just happened.
Why I wonder when I should be resting my body, was I feeling restless and itching to go again, and guilty for spending a couple of days doing nothing but lazing around and eating lots (weight back to normal now, if not a bit podgier)? My own mind confuses me, but I think it may be because I feel ready to move on from Vietnam now.
Tomorrow, we head to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now known as and there we are only a few days until Cambodia.
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