A Vietnam Adventure – “From child hood dream to the ramblings of an old solo biker"

When you’re riding a bike for many hours of the day, you get a lot of time to spend thinking about things and sometimes you end up thinking about the strangest (and often pretty meaningless) things. During today’s ride, an incident happened that got me thinking about whether RIBBED is better than SMOOTH and, in doing so, I arrived at my own conclusion!

Let me start with the back story…

It was May and I’d been living in the Emirates for about a year. The weather was starting to get extremely hot but I was desperate to have a weekend away on the bike. I’d been out on several day-long rides over the past few weekends and with temperatures now in the mid 40’s, I’d started to get used to riding in such extreme heat. I’d worked out that there were three important factors to consider when writing in these extreme temperatures:

1. Cover as much of my skin as possible. Despite the temptation to ride in as little as possible it was very easy to get burnt without even knowing it (due to the breeze on your constant).
2. Wear my water bladder and ensure that it was filled to the top. It could hold 3 litres and this had been enough to last a full day’s ride in these temperatures. But if it needed refilling that was easy to do at any garage.
3. Stop regularly to rest.

So, with my confidence now riding high, I came up with the idea of leaving school after work on a Friday (we finish at 12pm on a Friday so I’d be on the road by 12.30pm), crossing the border into Oman (which is only 30 minutes from school) and then riding down to Muscat (which is only 3 hours from the border). It all seemed perfectly feasible, despite temperatures being in the mid to high 40s.

So, the following Friday, I took the bike to work, fully packed for a weekend away. As soon as school finished and with skin covered and water bladder filled, I headed off for the border.

I’d crossed the border many times previously (although mostly in the car) and it was always a very easy process. It’s also usually pretty quiet with previous wait times of no more than 10 to 15 minutes. Furthermore, you’re usually through the border and on your way within 30 minutes.. However, as I arrived at the border crossing on that Friday afternoon, it seemed as though all of Al Ain had also decided on a weekend trip to Oman and as a result, there were huge queues. This is where things started to go wrong for me and where I started to learn a very important lesson.

If you haven’t crossed the b order before then I must point out that when you’re queuing at the border crossing, you stay in your vehicle and wait your turn until you reach the front of there queue at which point an Officer from the UAE immigration checks your documents before allowing you to proceed through ‘No Mans Land’ and on to the Oman Immigration queue. Where again you remain in your vehicle until you reach the front of that queue.

In a car this is all fine, a bit inconvenient if the queue is long, but with AC, snacks, access to your phone etc. you can happily pass the time until you get to the front of the queue. However on a motorbike, with all of your riding gear on and every bit of skin covered, you have to stand in the heat…slowly edging your bike forward until you eventually get to the front of the queue. At that point I wondered why they didn’t have a special lane for motorbikes or allow me to go to the front of the queue – besides dealing with one expat on a. motorbike is much quicker than a car full of people. Instead, I had to wait for almost an hour, until it was my turn, all the time standing in the midday sun. And then, of course, the whole process was repeated as I waited in the queue at the Oman immigration.

This was not something I’d accounted for in my plans and as the minutes ticked by, I could feel myself becoming more and more affected by the heat.

Constantly sipping on the hose from my water bladder; removing my helmet; and trying didn’t seem to make any difference and I could feel the situation get worse and worse.

Eventually I made it through both borders and, by this time, I’d convinced myself that with only 3 hours to go, the breeze on my face (even though it was a very hot one) and access to water in my bladder bag, everything ws going to be okay….

“You just need to get moving Paul, then you’ll feel better”.

But I was wrong. After about 20 minutes of riding towrads Muscat, I started to feel unwell. Dizzy, lethargic and shivering.

“Stop being sill Paul, push through, you’ll be fine.”

But over the next 10 minutes it became apparent that things weren’t getting better and I needed to turn back. The only problem is that I had to repeat the whole process in order to get back into the UAE. Following that I still had a 40 minute ride to my apartment.

To cut a long story short, that was a very difficult and worrying ride back. Fortunately the border crossing into the UAE was quiet and I didn’t have to wait long. But by the time I got back to my apartment things were pretty bad! I was feeling very ill and contemplated going straight to the hospital – it felt like a combination of heat stroke and dehydration.

Arriving back into the apartment, I went straight to the kitchen to grab more water as I knew I needed more fluids (besides, my bag had run out on the way back). Reaching to get a glass out of the cupboard, it ‘hit’ me! “

Why didn’t I think of it before? Electrolytes!” There in the cupboard, next to the glasses was the tube of electrolytes that I had left over from a recent trip to India. “Why didn’t I think of putting them into the water bladder?”

Four or five glasses of water later (with electrolytes) and I fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke, about 3 hours later, I was starting to feel a better. Electrolytes…..that was the problem. Although I’d been constantly sipping on water, the temperature had been so hot and I was sweating so much that I was excreting salts and minerals faster than my body could replace them and the water alone wasn’t enough to stop me from feeling ill. That’s why electrolytes are so important. Not only are you replacing the water that you’ve sweated, but you are also replacing all the salts and minerals that your body has excreted in your sweat.

That day I learn two very important lessons:

1. Lesson 1 – Electrolytes – no matter what time of year it is, you need to ensure that you are replacing not just the water but also the salts and minerals contained in your sweat. Needless to say that my cupboard is now full of those electrolyte tablets and sachets.
2. Lesson 2 – In future, if I arrive at the border crossing and there are large queues, go into the building and ask them to process me exit/entry more quickly. I’ve done that several times since, and the Officers have always been very accommodating.

So, by now you;’re probably wondering what has all of this got to do with the title of this BLOG – ‘Ribbed or Smooth’?

Well, my oldest son who is a competitive cross-fit athlete in Dubai, often competes in competitions in temperatures that are very hot. He had to learn very quickly how to manage this and ensure that he replaces not just the water but also the salts and minerals. Well, it was him that introduced me to Picard Sweat!

This is a a pre-mixed electrolyte/rehydartion drink that is now readily available in shops and garages throughout the UAE (and no doubt other parts of the world). So now, when I’m heading off on a ride, I can take these bottles with me, fill up my water baller with them and even stop en-route to buy more. They’ve actually become part of my daily routine – whether I’m exercising, travelling or just doing normal everyday things.

So, back to today’s bike trip….when I was preparing my things to bring on this trip, I included a whole box of electrolyte sachets. However, when I was in Ho Chi Minh City for a few days I discovered that Pocari Sweat was readily available in Vietnam. AMAZING! So, I grabbed a few and put them in my bag, ready for the first few days of the road trip.

Okay, okay….RIBBED or SMOOTH, here we go…

I noticed that the Pocari Sweat bottles here in Vietnam are RIBBED. Whereas the bottles in the UAE are smooth (like the pictures below). What I discovered about the RIBBED ones (which was super-helpful) is that they can be easily attached to the outside of my bags (or my Insta360 mount), using bungee chords, making them easily available when I stop – side of the road, traffic lights etc. RIBBED bottles are AWESOME!

However, what about the SMOOTH ones? Well, today I had to buy some more as I’d run out of the ones I bought in HCM but much to my disappointment, the shop only had SMOOTH bottles. Nevertheless, I tried attaching them to the bike in the same way I attached the RIBBED ones – wrapping 2 bungee chords around them – and then headed off down the road. But, less than 5 minutes into the ride, both bottles slipped out of their budge chords, bounced down the road, spilling Pocari Sweat everywhere! In that moment it became clear to me….RIBBED are much better than SMOOTH!

So, if you have a view on which is better, please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

As for today’s ride, it was stunningly beautiful. A combination of mountains, villages and my first sight of the Vietnamese coastline, which really surprised me. The water is tourqiuse, the beaches are golden yellow and there’s no one on them. You can literally pull up and have the whole beach to yourself! I’m surprised that I don’t hear more about Vietnam being a beach holiday destination as it certainly has the weather and the beaches for it. I’ve not made it into there water yet but hopefully tomorrow I will get the chance – hoping for warm but not too hot!