Archive for March, 2008

Hien (Jason’s girlfriend) posted 80 of her top pictures from Vietnam on flickr.

One of my favorite:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hienerella/2371701566/?addedcomment=1#comment72157604325960134

The “boys” in their “suites”. Corbin, Nathan, Jason and Ken.

Here’s a great picture of us in Vietnam (from Irene):

Red suits are cool!

–corbin

Last day of riding! We did 70km today, and it was hot, but we had a few hills that broke up the flatness.

Today was a great day of riding. The scenery was beautiful!! I had the video camera and got some great video that I hope to add to pile. Unfortunately, that means I didn’t have the DSLR for as long, but at some points I did take a few pictures.

They start here.

Jason riding through the fields. We saw lots of these rice fields everywhere:

Don’t drink and drive with just flip flops on:

Typical village barn:

One of the interesting things we passed today was granite mine. They actually mine granite by hand, with a hammer and chisel! It is quite amazing, and when riding down the street we could hear the ‘tick tick tick’ of them hitting the granite with the chisels. I took a little bit of video of them doing it, as it was so astonishing to me. After we passed that, we came upon some gorgeous coastal scenery. There are a lot of beautiful islands (or, “ice”-lands as one of our guides would say) nearby and I was quite happy to gaze at them while we road along. After we passed all the islands, we road through a small town and hopped on a bus to travel another 50 or 60 km to arrive at a real four start hotel in the destination beach town. The town is quite touristy, but I saw some gorgeous boulders on the way in that I hope to get my climbing shoes on. Right now Louise is sleeping, so I’ll have to wait a little while until she wakes up. At 2:30 pm we will be leaving to catch a plane to Siagon, our final Vietnam destination!

The kids love us:

One of the last rest stops — it was HOT out

HDR image view from the hotel

I think I got the current city wrong; it is Quay Nhon and not Quan Nhai.

After a great rest day we preceded to do 100km of riding. It was tough! The sun was blazing, and there was a lot of flat riding. But, Louise and I made it through (along with a bunch of the others). it was quite cool, as many of the people had not done a 100km, and it was their first. I brought the digi cam and took a few pictures. Pictures from today start here.

The 100km was tough riding. There were some beautiful boulders that we passed, and some cool stuff that I wish I could climb. Apparently there is a lot of granite in Vietnam! (more on that later..). We also went by some more coastal scenery.

The following is another HDR image that I generated. Unfortunately, I forgot to reset the ISO speed and left it on 400. This produces a grainy image when viewed at full resolution. I actually uploaded the full size image to the site, so click on the following image and hit the magnifying “plus” in the top right hand corner of the image to see what I mean:

But, even non HDR images look pretty good:

Nathan riding:

One of the coolest things we saw was at lunch. Well, it was cool, and unfortunately a bit sad. The lunch place has a pet monkey that they keep chained to coconut tree. It is quite sad, as the monkey can only move a few feet on its *very* short 3′ chain. It is also very vicious, which is probably due to it being in such confined captivity for so long.

Yet another bay picture:

Today was a relaxed day where we basically did nothing. Well, Ryan got hit by a motorbike, so he did do something (more on that story later!)

I took a few pictures today and you can view them in the album starting here: http://picasaweb.google.com/corbin.dunn/VietnamUnicycleTour/photo#5178687466536374530

Here’s some more detailed description of some of the things I saw today.

This town is a beach town, and other than the beach is full of boats. While walking along the shore you will see lots of crabs scurrying around:

There are lots of boats around, and people in small round wicker basket like boats traveling to and from the boats or little fishing nets that hover over the water. This particular gentleman kept his helmet on for the rough seas:

Fish is brought from the boats to the market on the beach via little round basket boats. They use clothing basket like things to carry all the fish.

The fish in the market is rather smelly and it is almost astonishing that they keep some of the fish right on the sand. The market is literally on the beach:

Now, an interestingly solved problem. how do they get one of the boats up onto the beach for repairs (and to sleep under)?

Here’s the target boat, which I played around with in Aperture:

The answer is a large old military beach truck:

And some axles + wheels to pull it ashore:

Well, tomorrow is a 100k day, so I should get some sleep. Louise is already in bed!

Today is a rest day, so how about some more pictures?

Here’s a few from Geoff:

Kids going crazy:

Me wheel walking:

–corbin

Day 5 was more riding, but started out with a 45 minute boat ride down the river. We piled all the unicycles on top of the boat and enjoyed the serene settings as we floated down to the start of the ride. We rode about 55 km on some back roads that varied from pavement, to dirt, to gravel. Before the ride, Nathan and i put on some short 110mm cranks to make it a little easier and to spin a little faster. This was my first time every trying such short cranks, and I do like them, but I think they work different muscles. I didn’t bring the DSLR and instead brought the camcorder again.

At the end of the ride we hopped on the bus and drove for a while to the hotel. I wasn’t feeling super great; I got sunburned and it was starting to affect me. I felt really tired and worn down, even though we didn’t have that long of a riding day.

The hotel was a “four star” hotel, but that was really a joke. Nathan said they probably went to “getastar.com” and purchased them. The rooms smelt moldy, and the A/C had no way to turn it off or change the temperature. Andy’s room didn’t have a shower curtain, and our “double” was supposed to have one bed but instead had two. Hein saw a gecko in her room cruising around on the walls.

I put up with eating a little food for dinner, but I also discovered that my digestive track wasn’t feeling well either. I probably wasn’t being as careful as I should have been with touching my fingers to my mouth, and that may have caused my stomach problems. I decided to take it easy and go to bed early and play around with the video for a little bit. I really need to figure out Final Cut Pro, as it is difficult to import video into it from the HV20. It seems to have trouble finding the right timecodes; especially right at the start.

Day 6 started out early. We got up at about 5:50 am to get an early breakfast. Breakfast was not so great; the hotel food was sort of lack luster, and Louise had trouble finding anything that she really felt like eating (but, she is a rather picky eater). After breakfast we piled into two busses for a 100km / 2 hour drive to the start of the ride. We had to take the bust due to the tour only being 12 days. Normally Jason (from Grasshopper Adventures) makes the bike versions 14 or 15 days long. Since we are skipping a few days (to allow for travel time), we had to cut out some of the riding and drop in a bus ride. Right when I was getting on the bus I discovered that I lost my sunglasses, which sort of disappointed me as Louise bought them for me and I really liked them. At least I had brought a spare pair along, but they are pretty crappy and falling apart. I hate losing sunglasses!

I brought the DSLR today instead of the video camera. Here are some pictures of the ride, which was quite enjoyable.

Chickens on the side of the road. Other things we see on the side of the road: rice drying, peanuts drying, peppers drying, some roots drying, and hay drying.

Don’t fall in!

Me riding in the patties.

Rob’s uni

Rob riding down a scenic area

don:

nathan walking up the “hill” (aka: speed bump)

Christoph saying “take my picture up there!”

Okay…okay..

Rob:

Christof (ph?)

tom b:

me wheel walking

The bay

Well! I’m a few days behind for blogging. Hoi An was an amazing town, and we were fortunate to have a full rest day to play around and enjoy the city. The city itself is a girl’s paradise. One almost every street there is a tailor shop where they will custom make any clothing that you want, overnight (or faster if you are leaving soon). Louise went crazy and got a bunch of pairs of pants made, and a dress shirt. Andy was set on getting a custom suit made for his wedding, and I had mentioned that I would possibly be interested in also getting one made. He made a joke about me getting it in red, and I really liked the idea and decided to get one. Andy has some of the pictures, so hopefully I can get them from him soon to post here. The suit is amazing, and they do a really good job. In the end, it cost $80, which is cheap for a custom made to order suit using material of my choosing. Louise also got a skirt made of the same material so we can go to parties and have matching clothing. Andy got his suit (including a dress shirt) and a pair of jeans copied from a favorite pair that they brought from home. Irene also got some matching jeans from an old favorite pair and a cute jacket. Jason got a nice casual jacket with a killer red lining. Hein got a bunch of cloths too. It was a lot of fun just thinking of the possibilities and the fact that they custom make everything for you.

Late last year Louise and I had discovered a cool light shop in downtown Santa Cruz called “Om Gallery”. They make a lot of oriental looking lights made out of fabric. We like them a lot, and bought a nice one for our dining room area and den area of the house, but they were rather expensive. We also knew that they get their lights made in Vietnam, so I expected to see light shops in town and we were not disappointed. We bought a few more lights for our bedside tables. We have yet to figure out how to get them home, and we will probably end up buying some more luggage in Siagon.

Another great thing about Hoi An is that Hein (Jason H.’s girlfriend) has family in the town. So, we went for an excellent family-style dinner at her family’s restaurant, and it was killer! They treated us really well, and the Vietnamese are very hospitable.

Louise trying on her pants

Irene, Louise and Andy in the shop:

The market:

The fish:

Dried squid

Me and Louise:

Matthew Wagner, a fellow unicyclist from Arizona, took a great picture of me at the top of a hill on some military bunker thing:

http://flickr.com/photos/matthewwegner/2331021924/in/set-72157604060630923/

Check our his complete set of pictures at: Matthew Wagner’s pictures on flickr.