Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur

by Yvonne Blomer

Blomer takes you into Southeast Asia by bicycle with her husband Rupert, their two companion-like bikes and her experiences cycling over 4000km through 4 countries over three months with the little devil she takes everywhere, her type 1 diabetes. A travel memoir, Sugar Ride explores the love of cycling and the roads it can pull you up, down and along while detailing the experience of having type 1 diabetes and the literal ride of sugar that daily injections of insulin, food and exercise create. Part loves story, part true cycling adventure and part dance with the body’s strengths and weaknesses, Sugar Ride is an exploration of past adventures and how to feel about those experiences in the present.

Genres: Travel

264 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 15, 2017

Reviews

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expectation and experience collide....How to reconcile what your body wants with what is available. p33

Yvonne Blomer was diagnosed with diabetes when she was still a child. The books title does not only reference a sweet ride but the role of blood sugar and the amount of work it takes to keep it in balance when you are cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lampur and your routine includes extreme physical exertion.

YB and her husband Russell were not inexperienced tourists. Instead of going straight home from their jobs in Japan after working there for a couple of years, they decided on this adventure.

We are exploring what we do not know. The things we do not know are exploring us.p113

YB is a good sport, and I liked it that after her initial explanation she was able to be casual about her diabetic regime. So there is a lot of sweetness here between people met on the road and between YB and Russell as he caters tenderly to her special needs. There are medical emergencies and stomach problems. There is no record here of argument and whining is kept to a gentile minimum. I do admire their pluck and their rapport. I like it that Russell gets to tell his version a number of times.

What I didn't like was the lack of chronological sense. Yes every segment is carefully dated and there is a detailed chart of days and distances in an appendix. But not only does she skip back in forth in time there are the italicized comments throughout, and these are even more scattered. It breaks the arc of the journey and I found it jarring to be reading about an incident in a restaurant in Thailand and the next section taking place two weeks earlier in a different country.

I appreciate that this was a couple of people trying to live their lives with integrity, and they did grapple with the ethical questions as they witnessed the effects of colonialism and war; the impact of tourism on village life, and the different ways of the places they passed through but I would have liked more of it. I wanted more pictures, more than a passing reference.

So this for me would be 3.5 rounded down

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A three month adventure cycling through Southeast Asia in 1999 reveals much about Blomer's
determination and resolve as she deals with her diabetes (hence the title), and the complexities
of travel. Her format includes reflections on the past from the present and an occasional retelling of key moments by her husband, Rupert. The chart at the back of the book maps the places and distances per day of their journey from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur. "We are hoping to be welcomed... is that how it all started, explorers and settlers arriving. What we don't really know is how we are perceived. Not even on my own street am I entirely sure..." An honest travelogue with blisters,
mud, derailed chains and seized pedals, and triumph of all that is possible.

[Story Circle Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The roads have etched themselves into the skin of my belly," Yvonne Blomer writes in a reflection of her bicycle journey in 1999. After teaching in Japan and before returning to Canada, Blomer and her husband Rupert Gadd cycled in Southeast Asia for three months. Blomer writes in the present tense for an immediacy with the travel entries. She writes in the past tense for her current-day reflections of each day's travel, over time and terrain.

Blomer's reflections are thoughtful, spirited introspections with a sense of responsibility and awareness of the customs and the history of the countries through which she has travelled.

Memories of travel aren't chronological and so it is with Sugar Ride. A few pages in, Blomer and Gadd are in Hanoi, Vietnam at the beginning of their cycling journey. She returns to Vietnam throughout the book.

On October 31 in Thailand, Blomer is pedaling behind her husband, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. She recalls finding out at the age of ten that she has diabetes. A nurse at Edmonton General Hospital told her never to use diabetes as an excuse. That advice, Blomer says, "created a filter through which I looked at the world and through which I looked at myself."

In Vietnam they visit the barren landscape of Ho Chi Minh Trail, "the legacy of Agent Orange." In Bangkok, headed for a floating market, they become part of a "honking-revving-coughing-smoking-stinking chug of traffic" that wears on them.

Divided between the two bikes are bags (panniers) with the supplies Blomer needs for a total of 460 insulin injections (four or five times a day) over three months. She keeps the insulin, sensitive to the heat, at the bottom of a pannier with frozen bottles of water.

Even in the early days, Blomer writes, "my ass hurts, my back hurts, my left shoulder is so tight . . . " At one point during the journey, she has trouble with her blood testing machine and needs to get manual strips from a pharmacy. As a vegetarian since the age of twelve, finding vegetarian options is often a challenge. And she has a rear tire blow out while in the middle of a rush-hour traffic roundabout in Malaysia. When she gets back to Canada, Blomer needs surgery as while in Thailand, her right thumb kept locking in a bent position.

Sometimes "Rupert's side of the story" is included such as encouraging Yvonne to have some sips of a yogurt drink when her blood sugars are low when they sleep in one morning near the Ngang Pass, Vietnam.

They were used to bowing from their time in Japan and try to honor local customs during their travels. She admits in a reflection that, "the intricacies of a deep understanding of all the cultures and languages we met in the three months we travelled were beyond us."

In an earlier reflection, she writes: "We are exploring what we do not know. The things we do not know are also exploring us."

It all matters, Blomer reminds herself: "It all counts: every dog that followed or chased us, every child who waved or adult who gave what we needed, who smiled or bowed or showed us how to live in this part of the world, where we do not always know our place or who we are."

This is a personal book. It is about so much more than what is seen and explored and stumbled upon along the way. It's about who we are while not at home—in this case, Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos and Thailand, four countries with long histories of colonialism and war.

Yvonne Blomer is a poet and her writing is lyrical no matter what the circumstances. Her memoir is thought-provoking, while also being a smooth ride.

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

[Ron S · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thoughtful & poetic travel memoir unfolds in non-chronological order, jumping back and forth from the late 90's to present day. Blomer is as much concerned with wondering what it means to be "The Other" and the tricks of memory as she is about her insulin levels, and the book is all the better for it. This isn't a book for those looking for practical insights while planning to cycle tour SE Asia; there are guidebooks available for that sort of thing. This will appeal more to someone apt to read Cheryl Strayed or Bill Bryson, drawn to philosophy and anthropology as much as they might be to pedaling. Blomer is Poet Laureate of Victoria, B.C.

[litost · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written journal of what the author felt and experienced bicycling for three months through Southeast Asia in 1999. Though it’s like the journal was dropped on the road then printed in the order it was picked up, as the book follows a random timeline. The other structural issue is the inserted italicized parts at the end of each section that represent the author at her current age commenting upon her younger self. For me, these parts range from unnecessary to incomprehensible. Still a good travel narrative.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

After discovering this book at a local bookstore, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Yvonne Blomer is a local author from Victoria, BC, as well as being the Poet Laureate. Anyone who enjoys travel or cycling will like this book that describes her adventures biking from Vietnam to Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia. Interestingly, she mixes the chronological order and descriptions of each place. Her detailed writing about the challenges of having diabetes while dealing with riding each day really opened my eyes to the condition.