Trip Log 39: Mekong River Valley Adventure Day 7: Ho Chi Minh City

Day 7 Farewell Saigon
2019/12/21

I had fully a whole day to kill. My plane didn’t leave until shortly after midnight. I had several tasks I needed to accomplish and I was in the right neighborhood to get them all done easily.

Flat Again
The first task was to see how badly I messed up my rim and tire by riding on a flat in Phnom Penh. After breakfast I attempted to fix the flat again. The tube was messed up but fortunately the rim was okay. One of hostel (hostel, not hostile, they were very friendly) cats looked on while I used the sink in the shared bathroom in the hostel to look for leaks. The patch on the original hole was leaking around the edges and I found two more holes and pulled a very fine wire out of my tube. It probably came from a blown out truck tire. I was doing some of this work out on the cluttered sidewalk in front of the M.O.M Hostel & Cafe. The guy from the motorcycle shop next door saw me breaking a sweat airing up the tire and offered to blow it up with his motorcycle air compressor. Nice of him to offer but by the time he found the right adapter for his compressor hose I could have finished the job at least twice.

I left my bike locked up in front of the hotel while I ran my next errand a few blocks away. The next task was to change some more yen. The FX office was just a few blocks from the hostel. I changed some more yen to dong. To my great surprise I had less yen than I thought. I only had 3,000 yen. I thought that I still had at least one 10,000 yen note. I wonder if I accidentally used it to pay for something. It could happen given how many zeroes are in the local currencies of Vietnam and Cambodia. A 10,000 dong note and a 10,000 riel note have the same number of zeroes as a 10,000 yen note and they are more common. Anyway, If so, it is a sweet windfall for whoever received it. I also decided to make a cash withdrawal on my credit card. I had no problem using my credit card in Vietnam. Now I had enough walking around money for 1 day and enough to pay my bills.

When I got back it became clear that Velotta, the granny-geared goddess of bicycle riders, was balancing the karmic scales for the five days of good fortune that she showered upon me during my journey. The tire was flat again!

Box o’ Bike
The final, and perhaps, the most critical task was to get my bicycle ready to go on the airplane. That was easier than expected. Again, thanks to my guesthouse being so well located, I was less than a kilometer from an English speaking bike shop, Mr. Biker Saigon. I aired up my traitorous tire once again and said a little prayer to Rotunda, the trickster god of tires, that the air wouldn’t leak out before I reached the bike shop. I rolled up to the shop and asked for a box for my bicycle. He didn’t blink an eye at my request. For $10 dollars I got the box and packing service. Money well spent.

With the afternoon to kill before I had to return to the shop to pick up my boxed bike I set off to do some sightseeing, on foot. I found walking in District 1 of Saigon quite pleasant. Not because it was the cleanest city with the most pedestrian friendly infrastructure. I liked it because the streets were lively and colorful. There was nothing odd or out of place about a foreigner walking around. Also, I was in no hurry to get anywhere. I got some lunch. I went to the plaza and paid my regards to the golden statue of the great leader, Ho Chi Minh, found a geocache, and got a ride in a rickshaw.

I returned to the bike shop about an hour before it closed to pick up my box o’ bike. I am glad I got there early. There was a misunderstanding about when I needed it and when I arrived it still wasn’t done. A call from the attendant to the manager cleared everything up. The bike mechanic took about a half hour to dismantle my bike and very neatly wrap it in bubble wrap and pack it into my box. When all was done the mechanic called a Grab (Asian equivalent of Uber) car for me. It took about 45 minutes to get to the airport. My flight didn’t leave until midnight so I had hours to kill. In fact, I got to the airport before my check-in time. I rearranged my bags and found a dark corner to audit the inside of my eyelids for visual information leaks. I am happy to report no findings.

Since, my luggage check-in experience at Narita was so expensive I didn’t pack anything else in my box. I brought my panniers on as carryon luggage. This backfired on me a little bit. My ticket had restrictions on carry luggage as well. When I checked in the woman working at the check-in counter warned me that they may weigh my bags at the gate so I should rearrange my belongings to somehow make them lighter. Perhaps she meant to say throw something out to lighten the load. Anyway this was ridiculous advice and I didn’t believe that anyone would weigh my bags at the gate. I was wrong about weighing bags at the gate. Sure enough there was a scale at the gate counter. It seemed like they were weighing bags at random so I was hoping I wouldn’t be picked. I was picked. They were very zealous about the weigh-in. Not only did they weigh my two panniers which were full to the brim but they also put my waist pouch on the scale. I was over the limit. They made me check the bags and pay a fee. Even with the fee to check in one pannier it still was less than if I put everything into the bike box.

Suspicious Box
Despite sleeping most of the way back I was still very tired when I arrived in Narita. I bought a ticket for the limousine bus to Tachikawa. I had about an hour to wait for the bus. I put the cart that all my luggage was on as near to some benches in the arrivals lobby as I could and then sat down to wait for the bus. I dropped off to sleep. While I was paying a brief visit to Dreamland all the other travelers who were also waiting on the benches and whose luggage was preventing me from putting my cart nearer to the bench left, leaving my cart alone in the middle of the thoroughfare. My lonely luggage captured the attention of the airport police. I returned from Dreamland to find an officer eyeing my luggage. I hopped up immediately and informed him that the bags were mine. When he asked me where I was I told him I fell asleep on the bench just a few meters away while waiting for the bus. Before I knew it Officer Friendly was joined by two more officers. I was surrounded by uniforms. I told my story again and showed them my gaijin card and my bus ticket. They determined that I and my big bicycle box were not a threat. I was free to go. I decided that it was time to leave the arrivals lobby. I removed myself and my non-threatening big bicycle box to the bus stop. Thus was I welcomed back to Japan.