Buckled Wheels and Bucking Bufallo

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What an eventful day! I woke up feeling much better and ready to get back into it. I know yesterdays entry sounded a little negative, but I am still very happy to be doing what I'm doing. A few kilometres after leaving last nights town, I ran into a fantastic stretch of downhills with magnificent views over a river. My ass was still pretty painful but it started to get better as I went on. I should probably have been paying more attention to the road, rather than the views. As I came to the bottom of a glorious downhill travelling at around 45km/h, the road curved around some trees before the up hill. As I rounded the corner, I noticed too late that a local farmer was walking a herd of 5 or 6 water bufallo over the road and a bus was coming the other way. I had no choice but to slam on the anchors and head towards the bufallo and hope that they would scatter. Unfortunately the bufallo didnt see fit to move and I smashed into the side of one of them. I was still going pretty fast, maybe 30km/h. My bike was on the ground and I was looking up at this huge beast of a bufallo(they are massive creatures when you are looking up at them!!) I quickly assessed that I had no damage apart from a skint knee, but the bufallo was squealing and bucking which was making the others anxious. I rolled away from them and the injured one was kicking his legs around like a bucking bull. I didn't know they could be like this as they are normally so slow and calm animals. They all kind of ran off in the direction of the farmer and the crazy one who I had hit, took his revenge out on the front wheel of Ark, breaking spokes and crushing a part of my hub in his haste to leave the scene. The farmer found great delight in this and he and his family were all laughing. After I took stock of the situation I also saw the funny side. Its not often a cyclist hits a water bufallo at speed and walks away I imagine. I sat with the farmer drinking tea and eating Kumquats while working out the best solution to the problem. They took me by motorbike tractor to the nearest town where the local bike guy gave his best shot at rebuilding my front wheel. He couldn't even get it semi fixed so I took a bus for the remaining 60km to the border town of Ping Xiang, where I was delighted to find a Giant Bike dealer. He didn't have spokes to rebuild the wheel and he didn't have a wheel which would fit my bike(damn 700cc wheels), so he told me he could order them and I could be off in 3 days. I couldn't stay in China that long because of my Vietnam Visa situation, so I crossed the border on foot, stuck Ark on a bus and headed the 160km to Hanoi. It was a tough choice, but under the circumstances the only choice, unless I wanted to go all the way back to Nanning and start over after getting Ark fixed and a new Vietnam Visa. At least I can spend a few days in Hanoi, getting my bike and visa fixed, learning some vietnamese and applying some savlon to my tender cheeks....

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Photos

Long lonely road
This was taken about half an hour before the buffalo smash

Comments

[cindy]

funny
oh,my god . i almost died laughing at my computer,which also made my daughter confused while she saw me laughing too much. you are a real optimist. hope you are fine now.

[Jan/Mum]

Another one bites the dust uh uh
Just a fleeting thought...................you do have insurance don't you????? Sounds like your having a fab time - gonna try and get some people to sponsor you.