| Hello everybody, First of all thank you very much for all the responses to my last emailand for your concern about my fever. I love receiving nessages and newsfrom home, it puts things in a very different perspective. But I alreadysaid that before.My fever is gone now and I am feeling much better. It turned out that mybody was just reacting to an infection in my knee. While we were still inchina, riding through the mountains one day, I saw a really cool villageand wanted to get a picture of it. Except that I decided this at the lastminute on a downbhill, so when I took a sharp turn on my bike, on gravel,I hit the pavemnent and got a cut on my knee. It bled and we took apicture of it (my knee...and the village). The problem was that the restof the ride, mud kept being flung off my front wheel right onto mybleeding knee. We had a first aid kit but I didn?t feel like diggingthrough my backpack for it, so I just let the blood and mud dry uptogether like good friends. Everything was well, but a few days later,when we first crossed into vietnam, I hit my knee on my pedal and the cutopened up again. After that it got infected, and when we got to hanoi Igot the fever and body aches I wrote to you about in my last email. Thenext day my knee was getting more swollen and it hurt to walk. I wasthinking of taking some of the penicillin we brought with us from home, Iwas going to give it one more day, but then we went to a bookstore and edsuggested that I look up infected wounds in a medical book. I found a bookon infectious diseases, with pictures, where it showed all these peoplewith horrible looking infections, mostly complications from minor wounds.I got so scared by that, that I told ed that I wanterd to go to thehospital ?right now?. This was a complete change of course, as before hecouldn?t even get me to put a bandaid on it or wash it properly. We wentto the hanoi international hospital, where for 15$ I saw a doctor in lessthat 10min from the time I walked in. she told me that my cut got infectedand was causing all the other symptoms and I should get on penicillin.This I did and everything is ok now. We are now in saigon, got here yesterday. I really love it here! Hao andAnhtuan, your home town is very nice! This city is really vibrant, you canfeel it in the streets. Although as I said last time the people haven?tbeen the friendliest while we were riding, there?s something about vietnamthat I really like. I think that it reminds me of Romania, in a good way.What it is exactly, I cannot tell, but I think it may be the way peopleare in the streets, how you really get a feeling of a community ?everything and everyone is mixed together ? the fruit and vegetablevendors, postcard sellers, cyclo drivers, business people ? everyonesomehow fits in. There seem to be no fast rules for anything, but peoplesomehow know ? the most blatant example of this is traffic ? it?sabsolutely insane and very scary at first if you are used to follow rulesand suddenly find yourself having to make your way in this chaos. Thereare bikes and scooters everywhere, riding in every direction, passing youon either side. Same with cars and vans. They often ride the wrong way inthe middle of the lane. Lights don?t matter and there are no stop signs.Yet somehow it all works out, and it seems like people are very aware ofwhat is going on around them. If you keep a steady pace and don?t make anysudden moves, people will go around you and all is usually ok. Here are some of the things I saw or experienced in vietnmam, which Ireally liked:1)Baby water buffaloes ? I saw two of them so far, while riding to Hanoi.They were so cute! We?ve been seeing water buffaloes throughout all theasian countries we?ve travelled so far. They always impressed me by thefact that they are so big and strong, they look so powerful, yet at thesame time so gentle. They work hard all day long, people use them foreverything, from ploughing their fields to carrying huge loads to themarket. Yet I?ve read that they are very patient and demand very little interms of care and looking after; they are also very intelligent, and theylook it. The first time we saw them, in thailand, there were a few of themcooling themselves in a mud puddle, only their heads sticking out. I hadnever seen a baby until we got to vietnam, and now I love water buffaloeseven more. I think that I will really miss them when we come bac home.Riding through asia, as we do, through rural areas, they become part ofyour surroundings and you forget that in some places they just aren?t.2)Dragon fruit ? as the name implies, this fruit really looks like adragon (to me anyway). It?s got purple-pinkish-fushia skin with greenishscales. It?s pretty big, the size of a large mango or small papaya. I sawthese fruits as we?re riding along, in baskets that women carried on theirshoulders or heads. But I never knew what they looked loke inside or whatthey tasted like. Until one day in hanoi, when we found a woman sellingdragon fruit on the side of the road and decided to buy two. They werereally cheap, and we didn?t even know how to eat them, so we asked thewoman to cut one for us and she did. When I opened it I was so happybecause it was really beautiful inside. The middle was sparkling whitewith little black seeds, and the contrast with the pink/purple skin wasreally striking. I took several pictures of it before we ate it. It tastedreally good too. Nothing really powerful, not like pineapple for example,yet it had a suddle flavor that got me really addicted, so I?ve beenbuying dragon fruit ever since.3)Yesterday, our last day in hanoi, we went to the buffet I had missedwhile I was sick, at the really nice hotel I wrote to you about last time.It was really good, but the best thing was this desert, whichunfortunatelly I don?t know what then name of is. It is a traditionalvietnamese desert, made by mixing all kinds of unrecognizable (for me)things together into a muddy mess (kind of like the traffic situation),and it tastes so amazing. I really hope to find it again somewhere. In the past few days we?ve been spoiled by the big city. Actually, eddoesn?t really enjoy cities. The chaos that gets me so excited usuallyannoys him. But I think he was thankful to have some western food for achange, grocery shops and various other conveniences that are only foundin large cities. Although I really liked these past few days, I amstarting to feel kind of antsy now, like I want to ride again. My kneesare feeling much better, and full sensation has returned to my fingers. Igot some padded gloves today, so my hands shouldn?t go numb anymore. I amready for tomorrow. We are setting off towards cambodia. All in all Ithink we have about 800km of riding left to do. And then what? Ed goeshome and I meet my sister and andy in thailand and malaysia. And then? Idon?t know. I guess it?s back to work, back to normal. Do I sound excited?The one thing I am excited abut is getting back to my volunteering work.Halyna, get ready! Part of me really wants to come back home and be moreregular, and part of me doesn?t, but it?s not too sure what exactly itwants to do? Oh, guess what? My bike is back the way it uset to be again! While inhanoi, we found some 2nd hand 27? tires and bought them and installed themon our old rims. We also bought two spares. I was very happy to get rid ofthe old, rusty, wobbly and most of all heavy 28? wheel I got in china. Just before we came to internet, we visited the war museum in saigon. Itssubject is the vietnamese-american war, and as I expected, I was reallydepressed coming out of there. The picture is portrayed very differentlythan what you see in movies, etc. in north america, but that wasn?t it.What got me down were the photographs of horrible things done to somepeople by other people. It also made me think that probably things likethat are happening right now to some people somewhere in the world. Verydisturbing. That feeling of guilt at having such an easy life onceagain?. I know I had other things to write, but I can?t remember so I will endhere. Thank you again for writing, I think this trip would be verydifferent, lacking something I really love, had I not been able to shareit with you this way.(Sorry for the capitalization. I don?t capitalize, but I?m writing in wordnow, and it?s doing it for me, so now everything is messed up. Ah, theproblems I have to deal with?) I?ll write again soon,Raluca |
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