An Epic Journey - with Elements of Epic Fail

This is a story of my 6-week bike trip to Vietnam, a very exciting country in South-East Asia. It was an “epic” journey – epic, as I rode somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 kilometers, rode to the northern border with China, the western one to Laos and Cambodia and also experienced long sections of the eastern coast of the South China Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean. I carried a great guide book in German, from Stefan Loose (no, I am not getting paid for mentioning the name), it contained sone 18 not-to-miss highlights on the cover, out of these I had to pleasure to visit all but three (well, to put it differently, I actually followed these highlights quite religiously – Florian, if you are reading this, thanks for the good suggestion!).

I chose the word “epic” as it reminds me also of a suitable expression – that of “epic fail”. Yes, this otherwise wonderful journey was riddled with many set-backs. Right at the beginning, I got soaking wet while in my tent. Then I had lost an impressive armada of items, my sunglasses, my favorite bathing suit, a leather toiletry bag (that I received as a present) with my Braun electric shaver and electric toothbrush, a front light, a solid bike lock (this one might be returned, but still hasn't been) and a tape – the monetary value of these items was couple of hundred euros. Let us clarify right here, none of these items were stolen, they were forgotten or simply dropped by me somewhere. Then at an overnight stay at a hotel, I forgot to pick up my passport at the reception when checking out and roughly hundred kilometers away I let out a very loud curse when I realized this, I guess its echo of this is still terrifying the small mammals and birds living in the vicinity.

Even worse were my bike troubles. Yes, my friend from Hungary living in Munich, Peter Budai, knows me well enough that I usually would start worrying about bicycle maintenance when on the actual bike trip, but not this time. A few days prior to my trip, I took my bike to a mechanic for a full check-up, also to a guy called Peter from Hungary living in Vienna, and asked him to replace my rear tire, check the cables, take care of the brakes and to ensure the crankset is working well. This is the guy who had formerly repaired the bolt holding my derailleur. I had five major issues on the trip: the tire he replaced was torn on the rim, which caused three exploding flats in a row till I found the problem, the cable for front gear was broken (twice, the second one was not Peter´s fault), the brakes malfunctioned, the crankset was rattling and had to be replaced, and, as you might have guessed, the bolt holding the derailleur broke. Oh, almost forgot, I also had a case of a ripped chain. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you want the address to a good bike mechanic in Vienna – or maybe rather not, I prefer not seeing him in the near (or the distant) future.

While on the trip, I tried, with some success, to regard these issues as part of the adventure. What do you on a remote mountain road near the Chinese border when your derailleur brakes? How do you return from the jungle on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to retrieve your passport? Can you find a suitable bike shop in some remote town to fix your disc brake? I was forced to go through all of these experiences and in a certain way they gave extra spice to an already very adventurous trip. So except for the items lost, no major harm done. Though, thinking about it, I could have probably seen even more of the country, were it not for these breakdowns. I estimate to have lost about 5 biking days due to these issues – but then again, they kept me awake…