I almost got killed in Holland. My brief encounter with the Grim Reaper happened while I was peddling furiously through a quiet suburban neighbourhood, trying to keep up with the group of 40- to 60-year-olds that were part of a bike-and-barge tour.
Being only half their age, I didn't want to be seen as the weak link. I thought I was doing great until I heard yelling from the front.
"Keep to your RIGHT, Malaysian!"
I was well aware that the Dutch had differing traffic rules (that is, to never keep left unless you have a death wish); however, a van had conveniently perched itself on my lane, forcing me to abandon all common sense and do what I was repeatedly told not to. I swerved left.
Just as I looked up to see the source of the voice (it was Fenna Eleveld, the ever-so-sensitive leader of our biking group), I also saw - to my utter horror - a myopic 80-year-old manoeuvring her car towards me.
Disaster ensued in slow-mo. With a little "Eep!", I instinctively turned left towards the sidewalk, before hitting a large rock. I somersaulted off the seat and into the dirt. My bike landed just inches before me, its wheels spinning in mid-air.
Stopping for a picnic at a scenic spot.
So what do you do when your arms are scraped and head is reeling? You laugh, brush yourself off and get back on.
This was, after all, just another day on the road. I was the third person to mimic a crash test dummy on our ride through the awe-inspiring Dutch countryside, and certainly not the last. Everyone rushed to my side with words of concern and pats of encouragement, but it was more for a bruised ego than anything else.
Mind you, the last time I rode a bike was when I was 12. I don't even have a bike at home. What prompted me to join this tour was my need to do something different.
After all, what's so difficult about cycling an average of 15km a day for four beautiful, warm April days among the tulip fields, before retiring to a little cosy boat (also called a barge) in the evenings?
My assigned barge (christened Holland) came complete with its own professional crew, to ensure that we were well looked after and (more crucially) well fed. Our dream team consisted of Ad (the skipper, who had to expertly navigate us from town to town via narrow canals), Marieke (the resident cook, who was in charge of whipping up delicious gourmet food throughout our entire stay), and, of course, Fenna.
It seemed easy and enticing enough in the brochure. But, boy, was I mistaken.
Pain in the butt
A few metres away, a wild pony and its mother stopped their grazing to blink inquisitively at the 13 of us whooshing by. That was enough to send the Italian in front of me into a fit of hysterics. He slammed on the brakes and jumped off his bike, almost causing a pile-up.
"Ti Amo! Ti Amo!" ("I love you! I love you!") he cried, practically hopping from the excitement. "Belissimo!" ("Beautiful!")
Though surprised at first, I would soon come to expect, and even look forward to, this jovial intermission. It's easy to be blasé on Holland's roads because the wide, flat landscape offered unobstructed, picture-perfect vistas of rainbow-coloured flower fields and an astonishing number of animals - big, small, furry, feathery, airborne and flightless.
Having neither mountains nor hills meant that the Dutch countryside was the perfect avenue for a non-cycler like me to start out (and show off). It was the first leg of the trip and we were on our way to Haarlem, a quaint, beer-brewing town dating back to the 10th century, just 20km west of Amsterdam.
"Italian, behave!" barked Fenna, shooting the man a stern look.
Fenna, I must say, isn't quite as heartless as she sounds. As our leader, she had to keep us in line (cycling side by side is only allowed if there's no traffic), maintain order and occasionally direct traffic flow on motorised lanes so none of us would end up in the ER.
"I've been doing this since 1983," she told me. "And I must say, I've seen lots of Germans, Italians, Americans and Canadians on this tour, but never an Asian.
"I assumed the people from your country don't cycle very often. Is it because the wealthy ones would rather get around in their air-conditioned cars?"
Explaining this peculiarity to her wasn't easy, but it's no surprise that the infrastructure in Holland and Malaysia are worlds apart in terms of user-friendliness. We'd get run over by the juggernauts that rule Malaysian roads, for one.
The Dutch, on the other hand, take their two-wheelers very seriously: there are some 16 million bikes in this nation of 16 million people, and the number of bikes to humans is increasing disproportionately every day.
In Holland, they have special bike lanes that extend in a systematic cobweb-like network throughout the country, connecting peaceful, picturesque villages to big, smoggy cities.
A tulip field.
Over here, bicycles are king.
I've seen a woman getting (painfully) elbowed in the rib by a cycler in Amsterdam simply because she had walked into his path. Everyone (with the exception of trams) must yield to these menacing little machines, or else.
Fancy bikes are not a common sight here. My own rented bicycle was typical of the Dutch model. Insanely practical and dreadfully black, it had a standard tubular frame, straight handlebars, 7-speeds, hand brakes and a narrow rack in the rear. Most importantly, however, it had the cheap, built-in lock to prevent somebody else from riding away with it - something that happens far too often here.
It is said that this style has its roots in the Nazi occupation of Holland. The Nazis tried to confiscate the bikes from the locals, and bikes that were spared became symbols of the resistance. As a result, today's bikes are believed to be from that era, or are actual reproductions of them.
Unfortunately, the Dutch did not think about changing the bicycles' rock-hard seats either, and it soon became the greatest source of my agony. Before I could start whining, however, Fenna pointed out that our trip was akin to a "lazy Sunday bike ride".
"Oh, this is nothing," she said, grinning. "You should join the tours for those who are keen on cycling up to 100km a day. These 60-year-olds would've put you and I to shame."
Ride of our lives
Canals don't usually bother me, but seeing one running right alongside the bicycle lane made my palms a bit sweaty. I've been told that a good portion of bikes in Holland end up in them, not because of the cycler's recklessness, but because highly intoxicated revellers tend to toss them in there.
Still, an amateur has the right to believe otherwise, especially at times when there's nothing but murky water beckoning sinisterly all around.
That's because 70% of Holland is either at or below sea level. An early Roman historian Pliny the Elder had wondered in writing "whether one should consider that country as part of the land or the sea".
Today, however, Holland is protected from the sea by dikes (artificial slopes to contain water) and other barriers, giving an illusion that everything is fine and dandy.
The first windmills were also constructed in the 16th century to drain the land and keep it dry. We came upon one of the hundreds of working windmills left scattered around the countryside, and its owner invited us in.
Unlike windmills in other parts of Europe, Dutch mills are in many ways quite primitive - using canvas sails and turned to face the wind by hand. Due to the physical work involved, the miller is as fit as a fiddle at 60. He was also the first (and last) person I saw cheerfully stomping around in wooden clogs, so "the cows wouldn't step on my feet". (Actually, he was joking. In Holland's wet and cold climate, only clogs will keep feet dry and warm from the muddy land at all times).
Millers today are hobbyists rather than employees, and they're required to spend only a minimal amount of hours on manual labour. And for every few hundred thousand rotations a mill makes, they earn about €400 (S$810) - not a lot considering the upkeep of a mill costs much more than that.
The windmills in Holland.
"Technology has brought an end to a mill's usefulness," he said. "They're being preserved as living monuments today, but they don't work as well as the electric pumps.
"I love my life here. Out here, you're close to nature and you get to educate others on how important the old mills are for the environment. And me and my buddies, we like to brag about how fast our mills can turn."
But no matter. Windmills and pumps aren't quite enough to save Holland from its water woes. The country is sinking, and fast.
"Like Al Gore said, global warming will cause a real problem here. Holland will soon be like the lost city of Atlantis if this goes on," Fenna said.
This predicament is most apparent to bikers who, at certain routes, would be able to notice how some houses seemed to be submerged in water. The water was at level with our shoulders, concealing the houses across the canal and revealing only their roofs.
This and the nagging discomfort felt by my poor derrière made day two and three almost unbearable. But we were on our way to the most photographed place in the world - Keukenhof in the small town of Lisse - and there's no better way to reach it than by bike.
It was high season for the tulips, and the fields have burst into a kaleidoscope of shades so exquisite you felt like chucking all your worries and plans aside to run out and touch them.
The beauty of a bike ride is that I can. But not before slipping on a pair of recently purchased clogs.
For more information on bike and barge tours, visit www.4windstours.com
