Day 7 - Not all days are great...Rain -Ride Extraordinaire!
Rain, punctures, dirt and chaotic lunches all added up for an interesting but challenging day. Today's ride took the group from Hoi An to Qui Nhon, which is a total of 290 km. We managed to cycle a great distance of 120km, 30 of them dry and the rest of them in pouring rain. The ride was basically a flat ride which made it easier than our last, however when it was all over we were dirty and soaking wet. We managed to benefit from a serious tailwind which enabled us to have an average speed of 26.5km for the ride. While all of that sounds good, I had my first flat tire today at around the same time I started to think that I was going to possibly finish this entire trip without using one of my spare tubes. It also occured at the same time as the rain started falling hard and in a location with little shlelters or bike repair shops around. I fixed the flat in 5 minutes or so and it carried me the remaining 40km we had to finish for the day. That in itself is a new record as the last flat tire I fixed on my own only lasted 1km (re: Jon Kushner's early morning repair) so I guess that is the silver lining on the cloud.
After finishing the rainy ride today we drove into a small city for some lunch. Since we lost our English speaking guide it was a challenging process to order our lunch today which resulted in a two hour lunch with so much food we were unsure of what it actually was. The food was good however....but since we had so much we stuck it all on Neil to finish. I explained to him that it is not polite in Asia to leave food on the table so he took one for the team and managed to eat enough for six people! 
When I saw Neil there with all that food and drink it reminded me of the cartoon I used to watch as a young boy called Rocket Robin Hood. On that cartoon there was a portly fellow named Fryor Tuck who enjoyed eating and drinking copius amounts of food and drink....a flashback to the past! Neil did a great job for us all. In Vietnam Neil is known as the Happy Buddha!
When lunch was completed we hopped in the bus and started our three hour bus tour to our next destination. Nobody was keen to ride anymore as we were all tired, cold and wet. Arriving just before dinner, we had some time to wash the sand and dirt off our clothes and riding shoes to get ready for tomorrows 150km ride. We will be heading to Nha Trang from Qui Nhon where we will stay for two days. Our ride is scheduled to start in four hours but as I sit in bed listening to the rain pounding down I am not sure what today's ride will be like...if it happens at all.
Fixing a flat....we pulled into a tailor's shop to fix this flat as it was the only place that was around when the rain started getting heavy
Charlie - Riding the bus to Qui Nhon
Stops on the way
We stopped at some interesting places along the way (in addition to the tailor/bike repair stop). The people were all very friendly and we also saw some nice dogs.
This dog looks like a mini Shanghai, our friend Annie's dog.
On a slightly different note, Bob and Carol went to the Rose Bowl before coming on this trip so I thought it would be nice to share a photo from that event.
