Day 7
Country
We left the hotel in no rush, had breakfast in a nearby cafe and then set off planning to get back to Vietnam that day crossing the border near Tay Ninh. No sooner had we covered 1 km we got pulled ver by the police. The charge? Riding with headlights on during the day! We always ride with our headlights on for safety reasons. In fact all new bikes sold in Europe have their lights permanently on and you cannot switch it off. We tried to explain the reason we had our lights on to the three police officers but they were having none of it. One copper in particular wanted us to pay a fine a.k.a. backhander/bhakshish/bribe whatever you want to call it. We made out we only had Vietnamese dong but he kept wanting "5 dollar". In the end, after checking our passports and driving licences, two of three officers relented and told us to get going and turn the lights off. One of them even came and wished us safe travels.
Not sure if it floods a lot in these areas because most of the houses along our route were built on stilts. Half way to the border, we were making good progress and Ron's rear tyre went pop! All the slime we had put in the tube flew out instead of sealing the puncture. The tyre also had a small gash in it. I later discovered that there was a piece of metal partially buried in the tarmac and partially sticking out which had caused it. I had spotted a compressor outside a shop only a few seconds before so we turned around and found the tyre shop. It was a setup where the man fixed bike tyres and his wife ran a little cafe. It was obvious they lived there too. However, they did not have the right size inner tube for our bikes. So I took a picture of an inner tube (as I didn't have translator), left Ron at the tyre shop and went looking for a tube. 10 km later I found a petrol station who had wifi and let me use it. I looked up the right size of inner tube for our bikes on the internet and then found a shop which had the right size tube. Rode back and got the bike fixed. The man had very basic tools but did a good job of it and also repaired the punctured tube. So we now had a spare.
When I paid the lady $5 worth of Riels, she said it was too much and went to give me change. We were just grateful they fixed the bike for us and were more than happy to pay for it. It would've cost us at least 6 times as much in the UK to have the same work done. But the lady wouldn't take any more money and as I had refused the change she gave gave us each a nice cold Red Bull instead.
Two hours later, the road ended abruptly. We found ourselves at another locals-only border crossing where we couldn't cross back to Vietnam. So we had to retrace our steps a km back take the next road and then travel a further 40km to a "proper" crossing. It was getting late but we made it back into Vietnam, past all the Chinese casinos near the border just before it got dark. Tay Ninh was still a further 40km away and we did not want to ride after dark for all the trucks' headlight main beams and bugs so we found a hotel near the border for the night. A a gecko jumped out of Ron's bag when we were unpacking! An illegal immigrant from Cambodia to Vietnam!
Ron was still coughing and had a nasty cold so we found a pharmacy and got him some Strepsils etc.
