1.28.2025
Distance: 58.72
Total: 11,670.58 mi, 18,777.96 km.
Tomorrow is Tet, the Vietnamese new year, which seems like Christmas, New Year's, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.
In preparation, all week people have been out in the streets washing their vehicles, tidying up their houses, schlepping pots of yellow chrystanthemums, and traveling home with improbable piles of luggage strapped to their scooters.
Today's 20 mph headwind did not deter them. But it did wear me out completely. In a headwind, cyclists have to work a lot harder not only to move forward, but also not to move in any other direction. We must also be on high alert because everyone else is getting blown all over the road, too.
My wind-riding skills have greatly improved on this trip. As I was noting this today, though, a family of four rolled by on a scooter carrying an infant, a tree, and a live chicken. So I can't get too proud of myself.
Perhaps the headwind was why some old dude decided to try to push me with his scooter along National Highway 1. I realized someone was propelling me when, all the sudden, I did not have to pedal. I turned around and saw him on my tail, grinning in his helmet.
I quickly pulled over onto the shoulder. I then had to spend several minutes explaining (through Google Translate) why I could not accept his "help." I then appeased him with a photo shoot. At the end, he grabbed my quad and gave me an impressed thumbs-up.
I'm not gonna lie: This episode irked me. But I'd still take a nutty uncle trying to give me a push with his scooter over angry young men cursing me out from their pickup trucks. The latter happend six times in the U.S. South. And nowhere else.
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