SE Asia Conquered... To the Far East!

So glad we are done with Vietnam. We took a major beating there. Not only ourselves but our bikes. Coming out of Hanoi I broke another spoke and had some guy who didn't really know what he was doing fixed it. Then after about 67 percent of my gears went. I could only ride in a select few. This was not easy especially with all the hills in China. I got killed there.

The road in China though has been really rough and there was nothing in between towns. As such if anything went wrong we would have been royally screwed. I was always worrying my bike was going to collapse at any second.

Right now we are in Nanning. Both Trevor and I were super worried we were not going to find a decent bike shop to fix up our bikes. When we got into the city it was pouring like crazy. We got drenched from head to toe. It was like swimming in a pool really. Once we found the bike shop it had moved to another location. Trying to find it was extremely difficult when you can't understand a word of Chinese. After going back and forth 2 cyclists saw us and noticed we wanted to go to the shop. Luckily they worked there and led us to the shop. The shop was great and even had our bikes for sale! After I type this post we are going back to pick up our bikes. This was a huge relief. I was thinking we may have to pop into Hong Kong and get them fixed there and then find a way back into China. But that is now out of the question since it is very difficult to enter China without proper documents. I am super glad we got our visa in Bangkok (thank you ladyboys once again!).

Pic 1: Since there was absolutely nothing in Hanoi, I had to do the repairs myself. That's me somewhere in the Old Quarter working on my bike.

Pic 2: Me on the road down crappy Highway #1. The road wasn't as bad coming out of Hanoi heading north as it was from Vinh to Hanoi though... but still not good.

Pic 3: The guy that fixed my spoke but I think did more damage to my bike. Like I said my gears were screwed up after this...

Pic 4: Didn't see a lot of nice scenery in Vietnam but this looked pretty nice.

Pic 5: Enter the dragon.

Pic 6: Me very relieved as we found a place to stay in this small town of Banli. I think it was the only room in town. If we didn't stay there that probably would of meant going into the night on our bikes... not good...

Pic 7: A lot of huge spiders on the side of the road.

Pic 8: Me walking in water in Nanning. It seriously came down super hard. We were riding in deep water getting absolutely drenched.