Short Version:
Another week of Vietnam, including some long days in the saddle,
ruins, damage, pyjamas, puppies, fighting chickens, a Pass, passing,
conflicts, collisions, graves, ducks, rabbits, no headstands, no
beer, beer, a wedding, balloon v powerline, giant statues, small
statues with giant testicles, German Shepherds, Dung Quat, Amerkin
atrocities, and a night ride, with collision. And a not-delicious
fish.
Long Version:
We've left Koh Tao, which means Turtle Island, which is a mildly
appropriate name given that one of us (me) saw a turtle on a night
dive. Had to produce the video evidence before Lovely Wife was
convinced of the veracity of my claims, despite the swearing on
various things and the backing of all the other divers who were
there. Suspicious Wife! We also saw many other creatures, and were
bitten by more of them than was entirely necessary.
Now in Khao Lak, gateway to [dramatic music] the Similan and Surin
Islands, where we are going for a 5-day liveaboard dive trip, on a
Swedish boat, leaving this afternoon.
First, though, we have unfinished Vietnamage to relate...
~~~~~~~~wavy lines indicate travelling backward through time~~~~~~~~
Hue (0km)
Not all that long ago, Hue was the capital city of one of the empires
that ruled this part of the world. Nowadays it is home to a
more-or-less ruined citadel and palace complex, with many
bullet-holes, and some temples, without. We saw these places, once
we'd collected the only-slightly-damaged bicycles from the train
station early in the morning. Also early in the morning, caffeine at
a noodle stall across the road from the hotel, alongside many locals
and puppies. All the women who worked there – and there were lots
of them – were wearing pyjamas. All day. Every day.
Hue to Lang Co
(92km)
Ma-in-Law had handled the 72km rides to and from the village with
ease, so we decided to try her on a near-100km day. Left Hue nice and
early, although neither as nicely or as earlyly as planned. Learned a
dog-management trick from some local kids who, lacking air-horns on
their feet or bicycles with which to alert meandering canines to
their approach, yell “Beep beep!” Worked a treat, on both dogses
and people.
Leaving town was a rural riverside ride with many temples towards the
coast, where we turned south and rode a narrow, lightly-trafficked
road past sea views with boats, rice fields with people and
water-buffaloes, and more temples and graveyards than you could shake
a stick at, unless you shook a stick at each one, which you could
probably do if you were in a car or on foot, or even on a bicycle if
you were prepared to take that risk for what would be, really, a
pretty shit reward. Probably. Although now that I think of it, I
don't actually know what the reward for a successful stick-shaking
endeavor might be, and am just assuming it's a “personal
satisfaction” sort of thing. In which case, it's a bit shit. If
there's some sort of financial, solomonic, or medical benefit,
though, it might be worth doing. Someone should do some research.
We shook no sticks, but did wave “hello!” to a lot of children.
We played road leapfrog with a wizened old crone on a motorcycle who
was moving fowl around; when we first saw her as she passed us she
had a cage full of chickens on the back of her bike, with an empty
cage perched on top. Next sighting we passed her as she was walking
to her bike clutching the legs of maybe eight or ten indignant ducks
(we could tell they were indignant by the quacking. Because we speak
duck). Then she passed us, ducks still gripped in her meaty,
bike-control-manipulating paws. Why not in the spare cage? We'll
never know, because we didn't stop to ask when we saw her for the
fourth and last time, taking evasive action at a chaotic
intersection.
We also saw a much younger woman with a cage full of cute little
bunny rabbits on her motorcycle. I chased and caught her, then
purchased two rabbits, which we have in our luggage. No, wait, that's
not true, apart from the seeing and chasing parts, which are. Never
caught her though, which is a shame, because those bunnies sure did
look tasty.
We rode the length of a sandy peninsula, then visited the ocean one
last time before crossing a bridge to the mainland for some hill fun.
The beach was covered in garbage. We stayed just long enough to void
our bladders and eat some crazy Vietnamese fruit, then set off again,
up and over some smallish hills, through many villages (and almost
right over top of one or two of the more obnoxious and/or stupid
teenage boys who thought it would be funny to leap out in front of
the bike, either not having a clue or not caring that evasive action
at high speed on a fully-laden touring bike is no simple matter,
and/or that if I DO run into you it's going to hurt. You. A lot.)
Crossing the third and last hill of the day took us to an area where
there were roadside stalls selling what was either fish sauce, rice-
or corn-wine, and distinctive ugly pottery. Here we witnessed our
first crash as a car and a motorcycle came together. No-one dead,
unlike something like 37 other incidents every day on Vietnamese
roads, which is a scary but unsurprising statistic that we overheard
from a conversation between not-very-reputable random strangers.
A large crowd of people near a hut in a field turned out to be
watching the lottery being drawn, and then we reached Lang Co, and
grabbed rooms at the Lang Co Beach Resort, and got clean and ate
delicious foods and went for a walk on the beach and looked at the
fishing boats with their bright colors and their pointed and
seriously curved bow and stern and then we walked back through the
fishing village to a restaurant where the staff attracted patrons by
standing roadside and waving a torch around but they didn't have any
foods we fancied so we went next door and ate lots of delicious foods
while the extended family went about their business all around us and
then goodnight
Lang Co to Hoi
An (69km)
Started the day riding up and over the Hai Van Pass, which is a bit
famous and quite spectacular, and kind of cool, especially given that
there is a tunnel underneath through which all trucks and most cars
and buses pass, leaving the overhill road for motorcycles, tourist
vehicles, and us. Fantastic climb, and I don't say that often. The
railroad follows the coast around the headland, and climbing towards
the pass looking down the trains far below it looked a bit like a
model railway in action. On the road, the facial expression of the
oncoming motorcyclists were often priceless, as they took in the
sight of a trio of sweaty whiteys crawling up the hill on loaded
bicycles. Lots of thumbs-ups and smiles.
We'd originally planned to do headstands and drink beer at the top,
but settled for not doing headstands and drinking a can of soft drink
each instead, just out of notice-range of the swarm of
coffee/hat/stuff vendors that infest the top of the pass, who were
anyway occupied with the tour bus passengers who were wandering
around, looking at the old French fortifications (built atop the
leftovers of older, cooler empires).
The down on the south side of the pass was kind of fun – passed
several motorcycles and a car or two, and a solo cycle-tourer riding
up the other way – and then caffeination at the Danang harbor
waterfront near where we watched some fishing action and marvelled at
the round boats and saw a sidewalk fishmarket where all sorts of
weird and wonderful and stinky sea-creatures were available for
purchase.
Danang is a thriving port town which sits at the base of what the
Amerkin occupying forces once called Monkey Mountain, at the northern
end of the 20+km stretch of sandy ocean beach which the Yanks, with
an unsurprisingly awesome grasp of geography outside the USAnus,
referred to as China Beach. Far enough away from the front that they
didn't shoot the place to bits, unlike Hue, instead using it as an
R&R destination, and a location for a 90s TV show where all the
nurses were uber-hot, which is probably exactly how it really was,
honest.
In the here and now, business is booming in Danang, and new
developments are going up all over the place. There's also an
enormous Buddha statue that we rode past before turning onto the
coast road for the run down to Hoi An, past the Marble Mountains,
which is a cluster of five small mountains made of marble... or was,
before the marble quarries ate two of them. As we passed the
remaining hillocks, one of which has an elevator-serviced temple
built on its peak, and where the road was lined with statuary vendors
(Lovely Wife liked the lion, because it had enormous testicles), a
bus driver decided to pull up beside us, and then pull over to the
side of the road to let some people off. This caused us some issues,
as we were occupying a rapidly-shrinking space between bus and
roadside drainage ditch. So we stopped, rode around behind the bus
and passed it, with some beating on the driver's window with a fist,
and some hurling of abuse in his very specific direction. Sneaky
suspicion that there may be a next stage in the tale meant putting a
little extra distance between me and the so-called ladies, and sure
enough, the bus rolled past them, aligned itself with me, matched
speed, and started coming my way, forcing me towards the edge of the
road. Cue fist-waving, masturbatory gestures, and shouting of
dastardly imprecations from me. Cue horn-tooting and further and
escalating intimidatory driving from the bus driver. Eventually, he
left, without actually running me over. Hooray! Fuckwit.
Hoi An (0km)
Hoi An is famed as a tailor town and as a tourist destination. It has
delicious foods, and really nice hotels, including the Thanh Binh 3
Serene Hotel, which has bannisters carved as dragons, and where we
stayed for two nights, because it was time for a rest day. Hooray!
Chris, Le and Matt, duplicating our trip except on bikes with motors,
were already there and settled when we arrived, so it was a convivial
couple of days of eating and drinking a lot, interspersed with a wee
bit of shopping for the so-called ladies and a beach mission for me,
and with a motorbike-hire run back up the coast to Danang for a
closer look at the Buddha statue, and the peaceful park in which it
stands. Except that it was the last day of the Tet holiday period,
and the place was packed, and far from peaceful. The mildly mutoid
statues of Buddha's minions were pretty cool, but there's really no
circumstance imaginable where being around that many people is even a
little bit pleasant, except maybe at a professional wrestling event.
My motorbike ran out of petrol, so we got some more from a roadside
stall, and then we went back to Hoi An, and saw a covered bridge that
was built to connect the two sides of town where different ethnic
groups were housed, and which had its own Buddhist shrine and statues
of monkeys, and then we ate delicious foods at the White Marble and
then early to bed because big ride day tomorrow!
Hoi An to Quang
Ngai (168km)
Early start was earlier than previous earlies, which was good because
it meant less traffic as well as potentially arriving at our
destination before dark, except we got a wee bit not properly lost
but slightly misdirected a couple of times and ended up riding
further than originally planned so it took quite a while to get to
not the place we were planning to ride to.
Also up early to go places were some arrogant French people, and the
drunk Vietnamese guys we'd seen the night before being rude to
convenience store staff. This morning the one who awoke first spent
quite some time wandering around the hotel yelling for his pal (I
assume)... at 0530. If I wasn't already awake and doing stuff I'd've
loathed him even more than I did anyway.
First chunk of the day's ride was country lanes and villages, with
morning propaganda from the regularly-spaced speaker towers, and then
Highway 1 (AH1), which is an arse of a road to cycle on most of the
time, but not actually that bad between sunup and 0830, which is when
we stopped for coffee. We then set off onto some tiny country lanes,
through huge swarms of dragonflies and villages which, judging by the
reactions of the villagers, don't get a lot of Westerners-on-bikes
traffic.
Reached our AH1-parallelling turnoff, discovered it was a railway
line rather than a road, and carried on riding away from our
destination for another several km before we hit a canal and
canal-side road which took us the right way through some really
pretty countryside for a long way and with the occasional floating
item of interest to view, including a dead dog and a surprisingly
large number of dead roosters, although we eventually passed a
roadside cock-fighting ring which may have been the source for the
parade of fowl corpses.
A short stint on AH1 with a helium-balloon fail funeral interlude at
a crossroads town, and then we hooked off the other way, towards the
sea, and the seaside restaurant with the puppies and the kittens and
the many songbirds in cages, and the not-delicious
massively-expensive fish dish and the spilled bowl of dipping sauce
that soaked various Puppet-items, including helmet straps, and let me
tell you, riding in the heat of the sun in a cloud of dipping-sauce
stench is not particularly pleasant, so please don't knock me off my
bike and run over my unarmored head please thanks.
We passed Dung Quat port, and saw signs for Dung Quat beer, which we
coveted. The roads were wide and new and smooth and near devoid of
traffic, which was good, and there was a series of abandoned resorts,
and then the roads got smaller, and then we were on country lanes
with raised causeways, off one of which a fat, smiling man on a
motorbike forced at least one of us, rebuckling the rear wheel badly
enough that a roadside repair session was necessary.
All afternoon we were in the part of Vietnam where the Amerkins
covered themselves with some of the most infamous unglory of their
visit, murdering several hundred villagers, including children, in
case they were enemies. We never actually found the My Son atrocity
monument, possibly because we didn't really try, but we also didn't
find the place we were planning to stay, and ended up carrying on
quite a long way further, arriving at Quang Ngai after dark and after
a crazy lady rode her motorbike into the side of Ma-in-Law's bike.
Then we didn't know where we were going and ended up crossing the
river a couple of times amidst streams of motorbikes and bicycles
before we found the hotel we'd been told to seek, which we'd already
biked past at least once, and where we showered at length, ate
delicious foods at an outdoor table looking over the river, and then
slept really really well but not for as long as we could have, which
is pretty good going given that we were sleeping in a hotel that
Google Maps said was in the middle of the river.
Quang Ngai to Sa
Huynh (68km)
No better way to start the day after a record-length ride than with
an attempt to learn how to fix a show-stopper issue on one's bike.
Wheel truing is, apparently, really difficult to do even if you have
a clue how to do it, and I can attest to the fact that having a crack
in front of a sizeable audience of Vietnamese people at 6am does not
make it any easier. Eventually, there was no longer any major
discernable sideways wobble in the wheel, and off we went... with me
bouncing my way across the bridge and through the town, as my
no-longer-actually-round wheel made its condition known. Rats.
Almost didn't make it out of our second coffee stop as they had
hammocks in the shade, and we were tired, and the day was hot, but we
eventuay managed to drag ourselves back on the bikes, and reached Sa
Huynh early afternoon. Used the nicely-specific address instructions
found on the intertubes to navigate directly to the wrong hotel.
Wait, what? Eventually, the confused Westerner cluster attracted the
attentions of a helpful gentleman with the world's longest
facial-mole-hairs, and we found our resort, which was a) nowhere near
where the intertubes said it would be and b) hosting a wedding, which
meant there were lots of people in their best going-out clothes,
including lots of midde-aged women in very short skirts, most of whom
eventually left on motorscooters. There were also some druncles doing
some pretty awesome drunk unclery, including abysmal karaoke backed
by a live band which played some cool stuff in between the horrific
Vietpop the druncles seemed to favor.
Got clean, got fed, sent email to the hotel's management alerting
them to the fact that one of their competitors had hijacked their
online presence. Fixed wheel again, and this time more properly. Ish.
Swimming. Napping. More delicious foods, although not what we really
wanted, because that was only in the menu the Vietfolks got to order
from, not the stripped-down one we had to use. Dung Quat beer. More
swim. Bed. Sleep.
Sa Huynh to Quy
Nhon (137km)
Another early start, this time in the mist. Eerie. Atmospheric. Not
ridiculously hot. AH1 not stupidly busy. Schoolkids on way to school
were entertaining to behold and to interact with but dangerous to be
around as the day brightened and the number of trucks and buses on
the road increased.
Luckily, we had a non-AH1 road to play on.
Unluckily, it was made of a series of concrete slabs, all tilted at
slightly different angles, so riding was not entirely pleasant. We
rode on the dirt shoulder instead.
We crossed a bridge beneath which a family were harvesting something
from the riverbed, and began to see prawn farms with spinning
aerating wheels. These were very interesting and exciting, up until
the point where we'd seen so many of them that they became little
more than impediments to the views of the glorious surf beaches that
ran down pretty much the whole coast.
A couple of short, sharp climbs and flying descents saw us visit and
then depart a gorgeous, remote, sparsely-populated bay where one of
the few inhabitants tried to sell us some 8-inch freshly-caught fish,
and her husband tried to convince us to go swim in the sea, and then
they took their two children and left on a motorscooter to go sell
their fish in a bigger town except for the one they dropped on the
road.
Many of the graves here had small statues of German Shepherd dogs on
them.
More prawn farms. Some salt manufacturing facilities. Friendly people
with terrible teeth. Friendly people with terrible energy drinks.
Friendly people with blocks of ice, meant for our coffees and sodas
and terrible energy drinks, but more enjoyable and digestively safer
perched atop a sweaty head for maximum cooling effect.
Sugarcane drinks, made to order by running the canes through a
motorized mangle.
A deserted 4-lane highway we didn't take, a rolling narrow country
lane that we did. Views across a shallow bay to temple towers in the
distance, lit by the blazing sun. A whopping great big bridge with a
ute full of rowdy celebrants broken down just before the crest, an
8-inch drop from the western end of the span to the causeway linkage,
off which at least one of us got air and resultant applause from
bridge attendants. A massively busy intersection or three.
Quy Nhon.
The Seagull Hotel.
AC, showers, beer.
~~~~~~~~wavy lines indicate travelling forward through time, to the
present~~~~~~~~
It's boat o'clock, again, and I'm still only halfway through Vietnam.
So, here's some hooks to get you back for the next instalment:
Crashes, leprosy, ugly fish, false prostitutes, bad chocolate, the
Dong A Granite Company, a tailwind, cows, a deluge, Ruskins,
Amerkins, delicious foods, more crashes, vomiting, a 34km downhill,
weasels, a hosing down, free stuff, and a sunset dip.
x
us
