From the Library

[Biggles]

Racing the storm and time, I leant forward over Panther and twisted the throttle, nearly jumping out of my skin as a deafening thunderclap cracked over my head.
Something at that moment made me remember it was Easter Sunday. It was 3 p.m. About now, back in England, my parents would be belting out hymns in Church and my nephew and niece would be tearing open Easter eggs, their faces smudged in chocolate. How Far And Away that all seemed from my present situation - not enough food and water, no idea where I would sleep tonight and about to get drenched by a tropical thunderstorm. But I was happy; happy to be alone, happy to be pushed like this, enlivened by the adventure. Easter eggs could wait until next year.
It was on days like today that I really revelled in the solitude. I was engaged, focused, determined. On my own, there was no one to help me and no one to complain to. If I was with Marley I probably would have grumbled about my leg hurting, the thunder, being tired. But so what? So what if my leg hurt?
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p229

[Biggles]

Lao children like these are a world away from our mollycoddled urban offspring. Smart as bobcats, by the time they're eight they can hunt, fish and look after each other, roaming the jungle in feral packs. This raggle-taggle bunch of Mowglis may have only come up to my waist but they were tougher than most British adults would ever be. Small as they were, I had to trust them. I jokingly made strongman gestures with my arms, at which they giggled and bounded off through the trees, naked bottoms glinting in the sun. By the time I caught up with them they were swarming around Panther, the leader hacking at lengths of bamboo with a machete, marshalling his tiny troops. It was a scene straight out of The Lord of the Flies. Removing my luggage, I watched as they thrust two long poles through the spokes and hoisted my precious Panther over their heads.
The leader barked his orders and in they all dived, five or six children on either side. I stood on the bank with the smallest ones, clapping and whooping with encouragement. The bamboo buckled. Brown water lapped at the wheels, but slowly they wobbled across. Triumphant, they put Panther down on the far bank and hurtled back for their money. The leader took my fistful of notes and sat on a rock, divvying out the booty with the professionalism of an Irish bookie. When it had all been snatched away he looked at me with imploring eyes and said, "Dollar, dollar." I knew then I wasn't the first foreign biker to come this way.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p238-9

[Biggles]

When Mr D arrived just after 8 a.m. I was kneeling on the gravel beside Panther, replacing her blackened spark plug.
"Where you get your bike from?" he asked, looking at Panther disdainfully.
He screwed up his face when I told him. "Your friend in Hanoi no good - why he not get you better bike?"
Biting my tongue, I looked over Panther's seat at his hired 125-cc Honda Wave moped and asked if it was any good.
"Better than yours," he said curtly, cupping his hands to light a cigarette.
If he carried on like this we were not going to enjoy a harmonious relationship. Panther may have let me down a few times but she was my Trail partner, and I was fiercely protective of her.
Armed with the old and new maps we set off east towards the Vietnamese border along the same unblemished tarmac of Highway 78. Mr D rode in front of me, slouching over the handlebars, flip flops hanging off his feet. Several times we overtook mopeds carrying wide trays of water snails, their drivers advertising the slimy snacks with the aid of crackly megaphones. Lightly cooked in chilli they were quite delicious, insisted Mr D. Judging by how people rushed out of their houses waving for the mopeds to stop, he wasn't the only one who thought so.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p267-8

[Biggles]

South of here lay the Tonle Srepok River and a single dirt road known as the Mondulkiri Death Highway. Really a skein of oxcart trails, the road ran 30 miles south to the town of Koh Nhek in Mondulkiri province. From there it continued another 60 miles to Sen Monorom, a popular trekking destination. The Chinese had just started work on upgrading it but for now it's a dirt track through uninhabited forest, notorious enough for the Lonely Planet to dedicate half a page to it. It warned that the road was impassible in wet season, and that in dry season it should only be attempted by 'hardcore bikers' with 'years of experience and an iron backside'.
 I'd heard about the road, I'd read about it in the Lonely Planet, but never for a second did I consider not attempting it. The North Vietnamese boi dois had walked this same route, trudging the last few hundred miles towards Sen Monorom and Saigon. The only other way south was a 300-mile diversion back via Ban Lung and Stung Treng. Panther and I had survived the Truong Son, surely there was nothing we couldn't tackle now.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p281-2

[Biggles]

Early the following morning Panther and I were ready to hit the road again. There she was outside the mechanic's shack, sunshine glinting off her glossy pink flanks, her idling engine purring like a contented cat. The freshly-showered mechanic squatted beside her, a clean red sarong wrapped around his pint-sized waist. Through Nisse's Cambodian stepson, who come to help me translate, he explained that the whole bike had been taken apart, washed and rebuilt. She'd had a new piston and valves, a new cam chain - the fourth one – a new clutch, a new crank shaft, a new gasket set and an oil change. Since the new piston needed to be kept cool for the first hundred miles, he had rigged Panther to a homemade drip. A 10-litre water container had been strapped between the seat and the handlebars, from which a tube dripped onto a damp cloth wrapped around the cylinder barrel. It made her look like she was fresh out of intensive care.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p297-8

[Biggles]

Blue sky, scudding cotton wool clouds, hot wind, scorching sun and the smooth quiet buzz of Panther's drip-cooled engine. It was a beautiful day to be riding a Cub in Cambodia. But as I rode west towards the Mekong town of Kratie on that same dull Highway 78 my mind interrogated the events the past few days. Should I have turned back when the first man warned me about the mud? Was I too hasty in giving the engineer and his driver water and lending them Panther? If I'd left the two men under the tree, ridden on to Lumphat and sent help back to them I would have probably been OK. Was I right to leave Panther and walk for help or should I have stayed and waited for someone to pass? Did I panic unnecessarily? Round and round the questions tumbled, exploring, questioning, doubting, blaming. The engineer had shafted me. That was for sure. If I had a crash between now and Saigon and died of head injuries, it would all be that bastard's fault.
No. Stop.
Dwelling on the engineer or my missing helmet was futile. Anger wasn't going to get me to Koh Nhek or get my helmet back. Maybe the helmet thief needed it more than me. Maybe day it would save him in an accident. What had happened had happened. It was all part of the adventure. I must accept it and ride on.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p298-9

[Biggles]

"Don't you get lonely?" he asked me. "I mean, what did you do on all those nights in Laos when there was no one to talk to?"
I considered his question, thinking about those nights in Ta Oi, Kaleum and Attapeu; those long days of riding. I'd felt alone at times, yes, but never lonely. Not once. When I wasn't occupied with Panther or fiddling with equipment I'd spent contented evenings just sitting, watching, thinking, writing. I had revelled in the simple art of observation, undistracted by companionship or television. Consumed by the purpose of my journey, I hadn't had time to feel lonely. Backpacking can be a purposeless occupation; drifting between towns, islands, hostels and air-conditioned buses, only talking to people if you have the courage. I may have been alone in the jungle, but I always had the Trail.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p303-4

[Biggles]

I wasn't finished yet. I had to remain in the present, drink it all in, concentrate on the road. Anything could happen between now and the Palace.
My anxiety gave rise to indignation as to Vietnamese driving habits. I may have been used to them by now, but I was far from understanding the illogic of it. How could people turn onto a busy road with neither a glance to the left nor the right? How could people never ever look in their mirrors and think it was fine to swerve all over the road while texting, smoking or holding their baby? Why did young girls cycle the wrong way down the road in the middle of the counterflood of traffic? 
Several times the same people I had cursed then slowed down to wave, smile and ask me questions. People paid so little attention to other road users they might as well drive blindfolded. Their traffic sense defied every iota of human survival instinct.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p330

[Biggles]

I pictured Mick and John, the Lumphat road workers, the mechanic in Kaleum, all the people who had helped me along the way. I thought of those days in Laos when I'd fought to get Panther through the mud, sand and mountains. At the time I had cursed those execrable roads, but twenty years from now I knew those to be the days I would remember. I thought about Cu Chi and how, beyond the mannequins and propaganda, it epitomised why America could never have won. United by a mission to unify their motherland, the Vietnamese communists would have fought to the last man.
More than anything else my mind dwelt on how futile the War had been. More than six million men, women and children from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, America, Thailand, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines died. Tens of thousands have died since from UXO and the after-effects of Agent Orange. And for what purpose? 
The Reds won anyway. The outcome would have been the same if America had never fired a single shot.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p334

[Biggles]

Panther had spent her last night in a shed next to the hotel, in the company of several other mopeds and a resident old couple. "Hanoi?" said the man, as he watched me check her over in the morning tuning her for the home run.
"Hanoi, Lao, Cambodia, Saigon!" I replied, hardly believing it myself.
His face creased into a smile and he shook his head, gabbling something to his supine wife. She rose from their mattress to watch, and the two of them waved goodbye as I cranked the kick-start and rode away through the palms.
On the final 30 miles into the heart of the metropolis there was no countryside any more, just a seamless stream of little concrete houses and bending palms funnelling me south. Today was 20 April, ten days before 'Liberation Day', the anniversary of Saigon's capitulation and the end of the War. Already commemorative flags lined the roadside, red and gold silk fluttering between the trees. Riding in the midst of them I thought about those last days of the War in Vietnam, how almost thirty-eight years ago to the day Communist tanks were streaming down this very road. All the key southern cities had already fallen to Hanoi; only Saigon was left. In the end the tanks rolled into the city almost unopposed, along streets strewn with the abandoned uniforms of the deserting ARVN. The last Americans had fled in helicopters and most foreign correspondents had been evacuated. Among the very few who remained were the English writer and poet James Fenton and the soon-to-be-fired Rolling Stone journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who had flown in with $30,000 in cash strapped to his body. Both survived to tell the tale.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p335-6

[Biggles]

Thanking her, I kicked Panther into life. But the kick-start sputtered and popped. The engine remained silent. I realised what had happened at once. In my anxiety to find my way and reach the Palace in one piece I'd entirely forgotten about petrol. Now, 5 miles before the end, I had run out of fuel. What an idiot! As luck would have it, there was a petrol station less than 400 metres up the road. I wheeled Panther there along the pavement, laughing at my ineptitude.
Now it was truly the final furlong. We inched towards the finish line, pulled along in ten lanes of traffic, a tiny particle in the city's endless two-wheeled cavalcade. Half an hour later the New World Hotel rose up on my left. I must be close. Outside it, the traffic lights turned red and I stopped in the front row amid a battalion of revving mopeds.
"Does anyone speak English?" I asked, addressing neighbours.
"I do!" replied a teenage boy, leaning over the handlebars of his moped a few rows away.
"Brilliant! Do you know where the Reunification Palace is, please?"
"Yes. I'm going that way, follow me." What a stroke of luck.
The lights turned green and a hundred tiny engines thrummed into life, leaping forward; the charge of the Honda brigade. The boy ducked and dived through the streets, past grand French buildings and down leafy boulevards. Every time I thought I'd lost him I caught sight of his brown helmet, bobbing like a cork on the sea of traffic. Then, there they were, the grey iron gates of the Reunification Palace, the same ones the NVA tanks had surged through on 30 April 1975.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p337-8

[Biggles]

The boy said goodbye and I waved as he vanished into the traffic.
This was it. I rode Panther slowly towards the gates, savouring the last 100 metres of our journey, stopping only when I felt the front wheel bump against the gates and knew I couldn't go an inch further.
"We've made it, Panther," I said out loud, leaning over the handlebars. "We've bloody made it."
A group of Japanese tourists stopped photographing the Palace and looked at me.
I didn't want to get off my beloved Pink Panther. I couldn't believe we'd actually done it. For ten minutes I just sat there, staring at the white facade, smiling, savouring the moment. Six weeks, three countries, 2,000 miles, four engine rebuilds and one hell of an adventure later, my Ho Chi Mission was finally over.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p339