A few highlights and lowlights from our journal

Mannequin's t-shirt says "Visit Indonesia Year 1991". Says it all, really!

As mentioned in a recent entry we maintained a crudely-written and very personal journal throughout the trip. In this blog entry we'd like to share some short extracts from the journal that we think are funny or evocative. These are presented unedited, in chronological order.

27th August (Northern Vietnam)
..First attempt at lunch revealed bowl of animal parts e.g. parts of jaws and tubes. Woman could not identify animal in point-it book. Instead settled for noodle soup in cavernous-looking cottage with blackened walls. Soup contained what we think was goose, but we really weren't confident about the hygiene so we left most of the meat. Felt bad because hosts were so sweet, letting us wash from their well, giving us bottles of (presumably boiled) water etc (which we soon ditched)..

29th August (Northern Vietnam)
..Pho [noodle soup] lunch with slightly intimidating policemen and shy girls who wrote notes for Z in English but wouldn't speak. H streaming with cold. Stuff being dried on road.. kindling wood, hay, mung beans and another sort, corn. Voices (hello hello) from everywhere. Final stretch hard work but saw man whose unbelievable load of dried fish and sanitary towels had fallen all over the road..

3rd September (Central Vietnam)
..Hideous day on H1.. 70kms, boiling, dangerous, thick as shit drivers, flat, headwind, hot, hot. Stopped every 45 mins for a cold drink. Noteworthy highlight was a pig on a moped having a prolapse.. how many points for that?..

..Z described mental torture of the day thus: ow my bum hurts, i'm hot, my hands are burning, try to think about something else, beep beeeep, you fucking idiot, no i don't want a grapefruit, hello hello hello, ow my bum hurts, i'm hot, ow my bum hurts..

4th September (Hue, Vietnam)
..Z woke H up at 2am to discuss strange noise coming from bed. HD looked on internet, diagnosed woodworm then went back to sleep..

8th September (Saigon, Vietnam)
..Later went out to the Rex [swanky hotel] for ginger mojitos on the roof top bar. 130,000 each but good and better value than beer (also over 100,000 – normally 10,000!). In loo older Australian woman said to H 'there was me worried about how I was dressed'..

10th September (Southern Vietnam)
..H lost the plot completely, shouting (at noone in particular) about the utter idiocy of Vietnamese road behaviour especially people pulling out without looking, driving up the wrong side, lorries hurtling through built up areas etc.

..H stopped to help four foot old lady across the highway..

11th September (Mekong Delta, Vietnam)
..Stopped in cafe to shelter briefly and have hot coffee to fortify ourselves for final bit. Slightly surprised when girl jumped up from a wheelchair to serve us. Decided to try an eccles cake thing from pig pie cabinet (pig pies everywhere now – Chinese thing?). H's was probably bean again, with slight lardy taste and egg yolk in centre. Z's was similar with peanuts, fruit and slight pork taste. Speculation as to whether they're meant to be cooked..

13th September (Mekong Delta, Vietnam)
..After lunch the pot-holed road became a paved footpath and then, suddenly, a water-logged sandpit. For 15kms. The wind whipped up and then it started to rain. H was beside herself knowing how far we still had to go. Very hard to control bikes in sand and double pedalling effort required. Z thought H's tantrum was quite funny, but H didn't think anything was funny. A man invited us into his house to shelter and then made it clear he wanted money. Some buffalos were running amok. Corrugated iron roofs were flapping. We battled on (H swearing at moto riders forcing her into the sand, cussing the local authorities etc)..

..Ate the watermelon for supper, had a couple of Tigers and watched Liverpool beat Man Utd..

18th September (Sihanoukville, Cambodia)
..Z chatted to some teenage boys with excellent English. One said he'd had his bike confiscated by police for 'flying' and wanted to know if kids in England are allowed to fly on their bikes..

22nd September (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
..Roads completely diff to Vietnam because although less people, there are cars and people don't know how to drive them..

28th September (North East Cambodia)
..$9 each for dolphins. H wondering what the f--- the 'Department of Tourism' in Kratie actually does when their only tourist attraction has zero information/ facilities. Boatman took us about 10 mins upstream then tied up with couple of other boats and we watched one dolphin for about half an hour, convinced it was tied down, before three others joined it..

23rd October (Thailand)
..Z led all day. First bit up over mountain range through jungle. Zoe rolled over a big snake and screamed like a girl. Later said it felt like running over an erect willy..

24th October (Thailand)
..We'd seen signs for a 'resort and spa' so we persevered but it was dark (and all the dogs were barking at us) by the time we realised we must have somehow overshot it. Stopped at a small petrol station where a young man quickly got his moto out and led us a short way back to an extremely basic knocking shop where the woman looked thoroughly irritated at having to deal with us. Room was basic but ok apart from the enormous spider. Z was very brave and – despite wanting to save it – splatted it with her shoe..

9th December (North Sumatra, Indonesia)
..Just as we were starting to slightly panic we came across something with an amazing view calling itself a Hotel. At first they said they didn't have any rooms (we couldn't actually see any) but then they said they had one room which they proceeded to 'make up', though this did not include putting a clean sheet on what was clearly a staff bed, nor could they give us a key. However beggars can't be choosers so we wheeled the bikes into the room and had a freezing cold mandi [shower] in the stinky outside loo before heading upstairs to the enormous deserted restaurant (incredible view) for what was a surprisingly good (though expensive) meal..

13th November (North Sumatra, Indonesia)
..Had a bit of a hoohah trying to decide which laughably overpriced shithole to stay in. 25 for a cell in a losmen [very basic accommodation], 90 for a cell with bloodstained walls and a stinky bathroom in a 'hotel' or 150 for a basic room in the 'best' hotel. Went for the 90 where it was as much as they could do to turn our water on for us..

14th November (North Sumatra, Indonesia)
..Day didn't start well. Crossed the road to get some breakfast and the town nutcase accosted us and talked drivel at us including saying he was a Hungarian journalist and telling Hannah she should see a doctor as she isn't pregnant yet and finishing up with oo baby baby. Girls in the noodle place could see we were disconcerted and did us a good breakfast with only a few bits of tripe etc in..

22nd November (West Sumatra, Indonesia)
..Woken at dawn by cats wailing. H went to shoo them away and took a couple of photos of the lake. We were away by 7. Very saddened to see one of the hotel men scraping the sweet pregnant cat off the road with a spade. One of the men said 'crazy driver'. We felt really sad about the cat and didn't feel it was a great omen for our day on the road. Quick breakfast in a fly-ridden stall then zoomed round the lake and down the hill beside a lovely fast flowing river. Rained briefly. H stopped to wipe rain off glasses and a gawping, waving man drove into the back of another motorbike, falling off his bike. A passer by said 'is he your friend?' as if we might in some way be responsible!..

25th November (West Sumatra, Indonesia)
..Ignored a quiet knock on the door at 5am on the basis that surely it couldn't be our door. Knock came again at 5:45 and Zoe opened it to find a woman proffering our breakfast of fried rice and tea. Surprisingly we both saw the funny side..

..It had become clear that H's crazed outbursts were contributing to Z's depression so today H vowed to cope with the shouting by saying 'I receive your love' to everybody who stared and shouted. This is a direct translation of 'terima kasih', the Indo phrase for thank you. Managed to keep this up most of the day..

..Saw some interesting roadkill: a monkey and a stripey wild pig with its head splatted off..

..In the heat of the late afternoon (around 100kms) H heard a kitten mewing in the middle of nowhere. Z took it to a nearby house to ask them to look after it which they hopefully will, though they were far more excited about Zoe than they were about the kitten. Asked her to stay the night..

..In Ipuh we had 'one of those moments'. Thought 'there must be a half decent hotel here' so cycled right the way through to the far side of town, looking for it. Nothing, only a run down truck stop. When we asked 'is there a hotel this way' some people said yes, emphatically, whereas others said no. There wasn't one. Turned back and the town's children all seemed to be following us and overtaking us on their parents' motorbikes. Then a truck ran over a cow pat at speed and it splattered all over Zoe's bike/bags/leg. We went back to the truck stop which was quite the most rancid place we have stayed. Utterly depressing, mosquito infested, and hot (no fan). There were intermittent powercuts but they didn't bring us a candle! Thank god for head torches. Z was almost in tears..

25th November (Central Sumatra, Indonesia)
..Some more people (up to four) were crammed into the seat behind us. A young woman sat and puked the entire way, dropping her bags of puke out of the window for dogs to eat (as everyone does). In one grubby village the driver had to back the van up a side street to pick someone up which we thought was rather lazy until we saw he had no legs. He was massive though and had to be helped up onto the seat next to Zoe by sidekick. He had with him a small plastic bucket, which we feared was for puking though thankfully he did not puke. He did, however, proceed to burp frequently in Zoe's face and poke her to ask her things in Indonesian regardless of the fact that she did not understand. At one point we asked to be let out to go to the loo and had to clamber over the back past pukey girl in order to get round legless burpy man. At this point the driver inexplicably drove the van into a hole, so all the men (except legless) got out to help push it. The driver looked very annoyed with sidekick for not seeing the hole..

27th November (Central Sumatra, Indonesia)
..We pass 5,000kms. Z first and H says 'what are you going to do to celebrate?'. Z says 'fart'. Since Z never farts this must mean it is a most auspicious occasion..