Yesterday, I had two surprising encounters regarding impolite behaviour, I just forgot to mention and remembered them during cycling. During cycling, I remember many things again that I wanted to write down and didn’t. Some of them I manage to write in my phone as a note when I make a break. When I write the diary, I look at the notes and normally add them.
A man on a motorcycle ahead of me had lost his cap. He held shouldered some tools, so I thought it is easier when I give him the cap, I unfixed my shoe from the pedal, stopped, picked up the cap and gave it to him. He took it, turned and drove away without even looking at me. Ok, why not, he had not asked for helped.
The second was the manager or owner of that hotel. His whole attitude was somewhat rude, but 2x I thought, that is not the right way to deal with a guest (the only one there). I ordered food and when it was ready, he brought it, but didn’t even stop his (at that time at least 30min long) phone-call, just with a rough gesture placed the plate and cutlery in front of me without even looking at me. When I was finished and showed signs that I want to pay and leave, he again didn’t take notice of me, so I went to find someone else. This person went back to him, shouted at him, he stood up came to me, but continued a computer-game on his phone and his call for another minute before finally mercifully taking my money and turning back to his phone, while he gave me the change. His English was bad enough that I even didn’t consider to criticize him. But today, I wrote a reference to the hotel on tripadvisor (and earned a “junior badge” for that – whatever I do with it)
My second note was: floods. Yesterday, I not only saw fields and whole tracts of land under water, I also couldn’t pass a street that was too deep under water and had to do a detour. Both had impressed me and today I wondered why I still had not written about it yesterday.
Today in the morning, I left without a chance to greet anyone – if I would have liked to…
In the beginning, the streets were wet, but it didn’t rain, and later the wind, my true companion, even dried the streets. Mr.G led me again to a small street, but this time it was not shorter, the road surface could have been better and it was hilly. So, at the next detour, a real detour, even a road sign showed that it would be 31 instead of 30 km and would come back to the main road again, I disobeyed. This was a challenge for Mr.G who always offered a way to get back to the right path. What I never understand in such a case:
When my road and his route finally meet, he doesn’t want to go on, he wants to send me back on the route I should have been coming on.
So far, I never was motivated to try what would happen then. Should I go back to the point where I disobedient or to the start of the tour or would he after a while deem that I had repented my sins and suggest to turn in the right direction as friends again? Worth trying, once!
Today, only 80km were left to reach Dong Hoi, But after 60km, I wondered how I could have done 120km more a few days before. That reminds on another thing from yesterday! I had been extremely tired for 2-3 hours during the day. Sometimes, my eyes closed, and I had to use willpower to re-open them, because I knew that after a second or two it would be a rude awakening. With a dry and warm place at hand, it would have been easy to handle the situation, but I felt too cold to sit down anywhere, even if it would be dry. So, I tried to keep my eyes open, sometime riding standing. But there came the moment when I simply had to stop. (Btw, today I had to stop more often to find a natural restroom than I drank, maybe because of the soup and big glass of tea I had got a Soleil hostel?) I walked for a while and after that I was better again.
Now I wrote a lot about yesterday, but today was nothing special, except that it didn’t rain for the complete 5,5 hours I was on the road.
In Dong Hui, Mr.G wanted me to turn right from the main road, but that would have meant to jump down from the bridge to the road under. I didn’t, and “we” found to the hotel on other roads. After checking in in the 4-bed-dormitory (that I again shared with no-one) I bought some food for my stocks and went to a restaurant for rice, vegetables, egg and a soup. After finishing the big portion, I ordered the same again. And after that, I ate sweets for about 1000Kcal. But it was breakfast (part II), lunch and dinner, all in one. Like yesterday, I then took my shower, this time at 16°C and with a window that couldn’t be closed. But it was not that hard, because outside, it also had 16°C and was dry, so I was not that undercooled, and the water again was warm enough. Everything was prepared to jump into the bed immediately after the shower and stay there again until the morning.