Have you decided to continue? Are you willing to pay the additional $3,000 after all that you have spent already?

--Gary Scheer

My accident blew my budget all to heck but if you don't count that, I tried really hard to stay within my $500 per month budget. That doesn't count the expenses incurred when my renter left and I had to cover utility bills. So I can't give a figure right now until I go home and sort out everything.

At this time, yes, I'd spend another $3,000 to finish out the year.

We arrived at our hotel from the train at about 6AM. Ate breakfast while waiting for room assignments to be prepared. At 7AM, we started unloading bikes and gear bags and by 9AM, everything was pretty much done.

First thing we all do is inspect our bikes for damage. I've been lucky until today. I had a front flat tire and when checking to see why, I found that something had rubbed for a long time on my rim and actually filed a notch in it and wore a hole in the brand new tire that I put on when we got to China. I immediately showed it to the bike mechanics and they said it would be replaced by TKA.

So this afternoon, I spent two hours in the mechanic's line waiting to get a new front wheel, tire and tube. I had to change the tire myself but at least I didn't have to pay for the damage. I wasn't too happy since it was a brand new tire and I don't think the new one is as good but that's the way it goes.

Can you share with us your feelings and position on the TKA bailout.

--Norm Baird

I'm frustrated, mad, semi-depressed, but not going to dwell on what's happened. In the brochures, he warned us that fuel costs could rise and that there could be a surcharge at sometime. I don't know what was said in the contract. I don't have a copy here.

I'm just not happy with the way it was handled and that he waited so long to tell us and then only gave us two options, pay another $3,000 or go home. I feel the whole thing could have been avoided if he had been up front with us a lot sooner.

Mistakes were made on the first two flights, causing more money to be spent. Japan was a fiasco. There's a lot more involved than just fuel costs in my opinion.

We ate breakfast and had to stand around and wait quite a while for the gear truck to open so we could load our bags. That was a pain. We all wanted to get started early because it was hot. But, alas, we had to wait, or take the chance our bag would not get loaded.

I followed Denise and Marguerita out of town but there were about 20 of us who got lost and cycled around in circles for half an hour. So we added 5 km. We were riding on the main street through town and there had to be 20-25 bicycles or motor scooters to every car. It was so neat. It was just a sea of bicycles with a car or truck thrown in once in a while. And this was a 4-lane highway.

However, the cyclists and scooter drivers were almost as bad as car drivers, weaving in and out and getting really close. But it was the most fun I've had cycling in a big city. Denise led us and once we got out of town, we flew. We didn't realize until later that we had a tail wind so we just thought we were hot stuff. Oh, well.

After checkpoint, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch and/or cold drink. We had lots of time to kill since we knew we'd probably wait quite a while to be bussed. Turned out, we had several afternoon delays. Marguerita's chain came off twice and Denise broke a spoke. So we took longer than planned. Once we arrived at the bussing point, we were too late to catch the bus heading out. So we were first on the next bus and had to wait almost an hour to leave.

One of our Vietnamese guides was taking orders for beer or coke and sending locals out to get it for us on their motorcycles. He had quite a little enterprise going there. We were extremely hot but didn't realize until our tour guide told us later that it was 37 degrees Celsius outside, which is equal to about 101 degrees F. Good heavens. No wonder we were so hot. Only thing that kept us going was that breeze.

The road to De Lat was a nice back-country road but pretty torn up. Big pot holes where the pavement had broken up so it was slow going in the bus. Took us 3½ hrs.

All day long we had seen mountains inland and we were headed right up into them. Our guide told us the weather would be much cooler, as in cold, and I thought to myself, YEAH. We drove towards the mountains and then went straight up them. A few people decided to ride the second half which was another 120+ km.

What was in the initial agreement when you signed up with TKA? Don't they have to deliver what they promised?

--Alice Horton

I do not have a copy of the contract here so can't check specific wording. For the most part, he has delivered what was promised: a place to sleep and two meals a day, not always the cleanest of accommodations or ample food, but adequate.

I have read about the possible premature ending of the trip and your mixed feelings about what to do. Perhaps the riders could ask themselves this:

If airline fuel prices had decreased, instead of increased, do you think TKA would be offering to give you money back because you had overpaid?

--Rides2c

Probably not.

Are there any riders left who have pedaled all miles?

--Dan Zenner

To my knowledge, the same group that I reported last time is still hanging in there. Sad thing is, not all of them will continue with TKA to New Zealand which I think is a real bummer.

How could ANYONE not like bananas?? Where did that start?

--Sandra Carpenter, Connecticut

Believe it or not, there is one other rider on this trip who does not like bananas but doesn't have quite the same aversion to them that I have. I was told that when my mother fed me strained bananas as baby, I spit them back out in her face so I guess this is something I was born with. I really can't even stand the smell of them.

I'm happy to say that most of my friends are really sympathetic to my idiosyncrasy and try not to torture me too much.

Had a super restless night. I was awake from 1:30AM on, and finally just got up soon after 5AM. I hate it when that happens. But I was on the road early, which was good because it got hot quickly.

The first 30 km were mostly uphill, then 30 km of down. The rest of the day was flat. It was 39 degrees Celsius when we got on the bus. Our group of Ed, Willma, Inge, Sharon, Randal and I were considering riding part of the 156 km to get to camp, but the heat killed that idea. There were a few who did it.

Da Lat was cooler way up high but not even close to being long sleeve weather like we were told. Our hotel is on the beach tonight, but a slight comedown from last night's superb accommodations. We have a bed and hot water so I'm not complaining.

Mileage: 68.3 / 8,534.1 (Today / Cumulative) [KM: 109.9 / 13,734.2]
Elevation gain: basically flat all day

As you near the end of the journey, can you tell us any changes, for better of for worse, you can detect on yourself? Undoubtedly you must be in better physical condition, but is it noticeable for someone who knows you well?

i.e. How many pounds have you lost? Any physiological changes? How about psychologically, are you more relaxed, tense, patient? Given the nature of bicycling, have you become a solitaire, introverted person, or more sociable? Are you now more contemplative or philosophical? In general, have you acquired significant wisdom? i.e. Do you have greater cultural understanding/tolerance now? Are you a better, richer (by that I don't mean economically) person? Is your love for bicycling still there, or are you ready to retire (from cycling) as soon as you get back. Lastly, $30K+ for some is a significant investment. Was it worth it?

--Humberto R. Cortes

Ed, Willma, Dr.Sharon and I headed out about 6:15AM and it was already hot. It was so cool going through rush hour traffic with nothing but bicycles on the streets. The bus traffic once we got out of town was pretty heavy and boy do they love their horns. I decided today that the trucks and buses with the longest and loudest horns get the right of way. Some of them just lay on the horns until they intimidate any and all traffic in their path. It's really irritating when you are riding because the noise level is so loud. For two days now I've had a headache and I know it's from the noise.

We awoke early, read in bed and finally loaded our gear on the trucks just before breakfast. We visited the internet to check for last minute mail before returning to the hotel to stand around and wait for the buses. I want to thank everyone who wrote and encouraged me to go on with TKA. It's nice to know that my readers agreed with my decision to continue.

Then we waited in line at the airport, waited to go through security, waited to get our ticket and on and on. Seems like all we did all morning was stand in line. We left about 12:15PM and arrived at 2:00PM, a nice short flight with lunch served. It went really fast, only to stand in line through immigration, customs, ATM, to load gear, and for the buses again.

It was HOT out of the terminal and for some reason, all the buses stopped outside the terminal gates for more than a half hour and just sat alongside the road. No air conditioning or ventilation on the bus. It was stifling. I slept almost all the way to the hotel. Too hot even to read.

Two interesting things happened on the plane today. I left my seat to talk to a staff person up in first class and when I returned, there were three banana peels on my seat. Neil was sitting next to me and I immediately accused him of being the guilty culprit. Of course, he denied it and Charmaine said he was innocent and that I should talk to Alan. Well, I had just passed Alan and he was asleep so I really didn't think it was he this time. Neil had to remove and bag the peels and then brush off my seat before I'd sit down. The nerve of it all.

Later I left my seat to make an announcement to the choir and when I returned, there was a whole banana inside a plastic dish from lunch sitting on my seat. Again, I was sure Alan was innocent. But I still don't know for sure who is to get credit for throwing me into a tizzy fit twice in less than two hours. I'll find out though.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we had another long wait until we received our room assignments. It was so hot and nowhere to go. Most rooms were three to a room but we lucked out and only have two. What a luxury.

My first impression of Vietnam was that it is highly populated by people and bicycles and that the people are very curious about us and very proud of their country. There are so few cars, quite a few motor scooters and millions of bicycles of all kinds. The highway is shared by all, including the local people drying food on the highway shoulders and the animals pulling carts or being herded here and there.

The people are friendly and seem to be very happy. Living conditions vary from palm-frond-roofed huts to brick buildings, most without windows or doors. It is very hot with lush growth everywhere with occasional rice paddies. Beautiful countryside.

We lucked out with no rain while there even though major flooding was happening in the south.
Mass transportation is mostly by slow trains, which the locals laugh about. They just accept that it takes days to go anywhere. Bicycles and motor scooters were going faster than the train we were on at times. It was kind of funny but sad.

I enjoyed Vietnam but have no desire to go back.

After taking care of bike details this morning, Margherita, Alan, and I took off for a walk down Patong Beach. Margherita decided to go wind surfing and signed up for a half hour instead of an hour because she and I had a snorkeling tour planned at noon. We laughed ourselves silly as she headed off into the ocean. After numerous attempts, she did take off and went sailing way off to the south. We kept watching as she became a smaller and smaller dot.

After 45 minutes and the fact that time was running out, I left to go back to the hotel while Alan waited for her hopeful return in time to do the tour. Although, at the time I left, it seemed highly unlikely she'd make it in in time. At 5 minutes before noon, she comes running into the lobby and we ended up holding the van for her while she changed and grabbed the essentials. Later, I found out that she flagged down a motorized vehicle that pulled her into shore. The wind was all wrong and kept taking her further away from shore rather than into shore.