Christmas Day Swim

This is the first year I've spent Christmas far away from home and in a hot climate. It didn't feel like Christmas; this isn't a bad thing, just different.

One of our fellow travellers had a Bermuda Santa shirt on and our guide gave us each Santa hat, but that was really the extent of it. I did get my Christmas Day swim though. Slightly warmer than Bude and as you'll see, I did wear my hat.

A great day's cycle today, although the details vary a little on who you ask. The facts are that it was just over 50km and the temperature was around 33' and humid. I would then say it was a lovely undulating road. Niall would say it was uphill the whole way. Either way we both enjoyed it.

Lunch was at about 40km and included hammocks being put out for us and a picnic lunch. The "happy rooms" (aka toilets) here for the ladies were interesting. We were taken into a house by a young girl. Asked (gestures as no English) to remove our shoes to walk through the front room, then to put on other shoes. We then walked out to a covered back yard which was basically a pig farm with a few chickens. There was one basic toilet. In case you're wandering the men only had the option of the bushes. Lunch ended with some wonderful Vietnamese coffee.

There was quite a lot of time in the coach today (cycling pace is fast), and it isn't the most comfortable. To break each journey up Lam finds things for us to stop and look at. Today it was Dragon Fruit. We stopped at a Dragon Fruit Farm, basically someone's garden. We then stopped a few minutes along the road to taste the fruit. It was very nice.

Lam has been talking up our hotel tonight for a while. None of us were convinced, but it turns out to be quite special and not always in a good way. The place is a huge newly built 5* resort and everything is on a big scale. It was summed up when a few of us visited 'the happy place' on arrival; they could not have been more different to the pig farm.

The rooms are luxurious and we have a verandah looking out over to the swimming pool. Everyone was a bit over excited by all of this, myself included. We had a great swim and then arranged to meet for cocktails in the bar. This was where the cracks started to show. The hotel is not busy and the staff seemed to be struggling to cope with our group. We went on to have dinner on the terrace and were immediately confused by having to order fish by weight. The food and service were awful. It was good for group bonding, but not good for hungry cyclists or Christmas dinner.

Happy Christmas!