The Odyssey of Gertrude and Bertha: Part Ten – It’s the Final Countdown
Distance so far: I ended this journey with roughly 6700km under my wheels.
Repairs: Flat tire number three. And after a slight run-in with a motorbike, lets just say Bertha gave up on having functional gears and brakes. But a multispeed, extremely heavy bike doesn’t need gears or brakes, right? Right?
It’s been over half a year since we left Cambodia, our bikes, and each other to head on to our next adventures. And with that passing of time, some of the details have slipped away, replaced with more recent memories and a total change in life. Though some of the finer details may live forever in the past, there are so many things that are indelibly etched into my mind. Things like the day Soph and I misjudged the size of ‘towns’ we would be passing through, and found ourselves running frighteningly low on food and water, hiding from the sun in a seemingly abandoned goat shed. Or meeting up with Ziggy so he could join us (and retrace the route he just rode) in the most bike touring fashion ever: on the side of a nondescript road with zero ability to communicate and just trusting that we would eventually see each other. Spoiler alert: we managed. Or spending the first night of the Khmer New Year in a small wat outside of Siem Reap, building sandstructures for Buddha, partying with the entire village, and being laughed at because of our inability to pick up the local dances. I don’t think I’ll ever quite forget trying to navigate through Angkor Wat at night on the second night of the New Year, when every Cambodian seemingly arrived to party the night away, just as we were leaving to prepare to return for sunrise.
That being said, Cambodia was not at all what I had expected. But that’s one of the major joys of travelling: uncovering the unexpected. From what we kept hearing, Cambodia was going to be perfectly flat and made up completely of red dust. This wasn’t exactly the Cambodia I found myself cycling through. Maybe it’s because Vietnam was so difficult on a bike, or maybe it was because we decided to go through the oft forgotten northern portion of Cambodia, but for whatever reason, Cambodia gave my expectations the old one-two punch, and left me in awe. And on a constant search for shade and water. Cambodia is HOT, and this Canadian does not love the heat.
In Cambodia I also retired much of my clothing (or rather I accepted that when it disintegrates off your body, it’s no longer viable), Soph and I swam in a beautiful crater lake, and we enjoyed roads empty enough to play games of sleep biking, where you see how long you can bike with your eyes shut. (Note: do NOT play this game if there are cars around. You will not have fun.) Here we built bonfires in the middle of the day with no shade so we could cook meals that were hard earned, sweating into the heat of the fire. We watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat alongside the thousands of other tourists. We drank bags of sugar cane juice, mainly because they contained ice, and filled our bottles at the local water pumps, learning about the lives of the people around us. Cambodia was also where we realized just how far we had come. From riding 40 km at a push in a day to riding 40 km before breakfast, from not being able to change a flat to fixing them on the side of the road, and from being slow and nervous to having the confidence to truck surf, Cambodia was revelatory.
I may not have written about Cambodia right away. I got caught up with life back home. With responsibility and money. With celebrating events amongst friends and family. With small trifles. I built a bike. I was at my sister’s wedding. I got a new job. I participated in a triathlon. But I can never stop thinking about that trip. My experiences have changed me. They have made me stronger, made me more grateful, made me better. I am taking a break from traveling, but I am definitely not done. Giving away Bertha and Gertrude signaled the end of one adventure, but definitely not the end of all adventures. I cannot thank Sophie enough for joining me on this madcap adventure. It’s rare that you find someone who is willing to do something so different, and even more rare that you don’t kill each other along the way.
And I’ll leave you, dear friends, with the only thing I wrote while I was still on the road at the very end of this trip.
Now that it’s all over, I look back and I am amazed. I actually did it. I was challenged, I persevered, and I made it through. I look at my sun-bleached clothes, worn beyond tatters, with holes roughly sewn and dirt as an integral part of the fabric. I look at my bags, sewn up, covered in dust, and I remember what they have seen. I look at my tires, now bald from use, and I can picture the roads they have touched, the kilometers they have traversed. I look at my hat and helmet, now forever altered in their appearance from the sun and from constant use, and I remember the faces that have seen me, that have waived, that have helped me out. I am still myself but I am fundamentally changed. I don’t shy away from the unknown; instead I launch myself in head first without a map. I don’t fear the landscapes new to me, I relish in the challenge, the possibility of adventure, the test it puts me to. I will go home, and I will fall back into my quiet, relaxed ways. But I will not forget this. I will plan my next adventure. I will face my next challenge. And I will go forth with the knowledge that I will succeed.
