2) Cold. Who gets a cold when it's 100 degrees out? Acutally it's now around 70, so perhaps it was the climate change of going from the ridiculous heat of everywhere else in this country to the moderately pleasant constant drizzle of Da Lat. That was yesterday.

3) Mountain biking mishap (he's ok though - I'll state that up front). We postponed the excursion one day to give his cold a full day of rest and recuperation, but this morning on a particularly nasty steep downhill (and did I mention muddy? Very muddy) he lept acrobatically off of his bike and in an attempt to save stressing the ankle somehow tweaked the heck out of his back. We were just about at the farthest point on the trail, so he had a limpy 2-hour walk back to the sealed road, poor fella. Yes, strike three, and Carl is in traction. (I don't actually know what that term means - in reality, he's drugged up on advil watching mindless television upstairs).

The good news is he'll make it (he's a strong one). It's also nice that yesterday we decided to give ourselves a break and upgraded to the Novitel (the 2nd nicest hotel in town), so we are relaxing in relative luxury (we even ordered room service for lunch!). The bad news is he's down for the count (we're thinking of renting a DVD player). Unfortunately we have a flight to Cambodia tomorrow, so hopefully he will have a rapid recovery - go Carl!!!

Other than this minor tragedy, the ride was actually very fun - extremely wet and slippery, but (except for that one spot) not too steep in either direction. The bikes were decent, and the temperature perfect (got a little chilly when it started to rain; again, poor Carl walking home in the rain a day after spending the day in bed with a cold). We also had the fun coincidence of our two Irish friends booking the same ride as we did even though our attempts failed at passing them a note through their hotel telling them where we'd booked. So we had a fun group and a good adventure. Viv has a few "body illustrations" of a few of her escapades, but I will leave that to her telling - my contribution is this: it wasn't easy biking!

Now off to play paparazzi with some Vietnamese propaganda posters...fascinating...

written by  GoBlue on July 1, 2007 from Da Lat, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Joc's Journeys
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my poor brother..i hope he is doing well?? was that a mud bath or whatever you guys are sitting in?? that should help the back and ankle...hope all is well ( or getting better) stay safe and say hi to everyone....
staci

written by  staci on July 5, 2007

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Tell carl to step it up a notch or I'm going to come over there and kick his other ankle, making him even more dead weight! You can't be "dub dub" and fall victim to an ankle, back, and respiratory injury all at the same time. I'll check with the other judges, but that may be three strikes - all at once. We're deeply disappointed. How do you like that support from the states?!?!? :)

written by  Patrick Timm-Ludwick-Lyon on July 5, 2007

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