65 km
We set off quite happily after several days off the bikes, heading to La Gi where we were planning to stay the night. Daniel had found a great little hotel and we thought we may stay there 2 nights before the final few days to Ho Chi Minh. Unfortunately things didn't really work out. To get the long version you will have to ask us over dinner and drinks or read the book i am trying to write as i have not yet had enough food or sleep to tell you about this eloquently and without swearing.
In the short version we left at 8 am and immediately felt awful. I turned purple with the heat which was annoying as i haven't been going so red recently being fitter and all. Daniel also found the first stretch tough as it consisted of hill after hill, not always followed by downhill. The traffic was horrendous, I don't know why but it was the worst we have experienced and I felt really vulnerable all day. When we got to a turn off we needed to take it wasn't there. We were told by some locals that we had missed the turning but the maps all told us differently and on top of that we hadn't seen a turning. We carried on and realised the locals did in fact know the area better than us and the cartographers. All 3 maps that Daniel has with us confirmed that the turning we needed would be AFTER this small town. We go through the town, no road.We continue along the road patiently waiting for the turning, no road. Daniel was not very happy, i would go so far as to say he was angry. There was some shouting and cursing. We refused to turn round so we just decided to continue toward Ho Chi Minh on Highway 1 and stop at the next hotel we found. We didn't find anywhere to stop for lunch as we had been hoping to get to La Gi and have a nice dinner there.
We were both hungry and thirsty and getting desperate when this weird man started sort of following us. He would ride just in front or behind us and look at us, but not say hello or be friendly like most people have been doing, he just kind of rode near us and watched us from the corner of his eye. We sped up, he sped up, we stopped, he stopped. The worst thing was that he had loads of piglets in a cage on the back of his motorbike and a cage of baby ducklings on the second cage above the piglets. I just didn't want to spend the next hour riding with this man. As we stopped again to try and lose the loser Daniel noticed a sign for a resort. We rode gratefully down this mud track and after some effort on our part we managed to get a room for the night. The name resort was not warranted, i can only say that i assume it was still in the process of being developed. We were in the middle of nowhere really, not even in a town and i honestly have no idea why anyone built this 'resort' where they did. There was no food to be had so Daniel asked the lady for a kettle and 10 minutes later 2 pint glasses full of hot water appeared. We had a packet of mushroom flavoured noodles with us and we shared that between us.
We didn't have any dinner and knew we wouldn't get any breakfast the next day so we felt very virtuous but neither of us slept a wink in this very strange place. My bike fell over in the middle of the night and made us jump out of our silk sleeping bag liners. Perfect end to the perfect day.
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