With a seven week term break it's hard to say where one trip ends and another begins. Obviously my ride around Hainan Island started at 6:15am on Tuesday, January 31, 2006. However, it really started on Monday morning at around 8am on Phong Ngoc Quyen street in Hanoi at the Prince Café Hotel. Just because Mike was leaving Vietnam didn't mean I also had to leave. And since I'd brought my own transportation there was nothing stopping me from riding my bike back into China. I still had another two weeks left on my visa and could have done it.

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         The last day in Vietnam wasn't a particularly good start to a holiday, or a particularly good end to one. Our hotelier decided to pull bait and switch tactics on us to force us to pay her more money for the pre-arranged taxi. My boxed bicycle was suddenly "too big" for the taxi cab and apparently this taxi wasn't allowed to have luggage hanging out of a bungeed down trunk lid (we even provided bungees). That I had done it before in Hanoi or that nearly every other taxi did was irrelevant, for this taxi and only this taxi it was against the rules.

         I was leaving the country with no plans to come back for quite some time and I'd had the sudden revelation that as a foreigner I had no face to lose in front of this woman. That as far as she was concerned I was nothing more than an easily duped source of money and I let vent the frustrations of three weeks of people lying, cheating, and refusing to hand over change. It wasn't like it was that much money but I was sick and tired of it.

         At the top of my lungs.

         At 8am.

         On a holiday.

         So we got our taxi to the airport at the pre-arranged pre-paid price.

         I had many hours to wait before my flight. Not quite so many as Mike did but still more than I'd like. The worst part about it was that they wouldn't let him check in and go through security with me, so I ended up on the wrong side of the barrier from him when I discovered that those persistent nagging "final boarding calls" that had spurred me through the lines were for an airplane that would be delayed and delayed again.

         My Airbus would leave three hours late with only seven passengers.

         As the only passenger in the deepest darkest recesses of Economy (a ticket I had been sold on the grounds that the flight was full) I led the Business Class revolution and we all ended up in the cushy seats before the flight even took off.