Author: ninemilesperhour

12th FEBRUARY 2019

There’s no breakfast option at the Binh An Guest House this morning, so I stop for food at a Banh Mi stall on my way out of the village. Banh Mi are essentially just little filled baguettes and are a legacy from when Vietnam was part of French Indochina. The baguette is sliced lengthwise, like a Subway sandwich and usually filled with one or more meats and some local vegetables. So far I’ve seen fillings of pork, beef, chicken, egg, tinned fish, omelette, sausages and pate, although I’m sure I’ll encounter many more varieties in the next month or so. The meats are topped off with ingredients like sliced cucumber, pickled carrots, coriander leaves, chilli, soy sauce and fish sauce. Banh Mi stalls are becoming a more common sight as I cycle further South, and they provide such a cheap, easy way to start the day. Today I have two egg Banh Mi, which fill me up nicely and cost 20,000 Vietnamese Dong. That’s my breakfast taken care of today for the ridiculously cheap price of sixty pence.

With my stomach full, I follow a straight, flat and gloriously quiet road away from Chan May Bay. From my humble surroundings last night, I’m now cycling past large international resorts and spas that overlook the more exclusive Lang Co beach. Because I only have a short ride today, I decide I have time to faff about to try and get some ‘In Action’ photos of myself cycling. I don’t normally bother with this, as I find it a chore setting up my camera and then riding past the same spot three or four times just to get a shot of myself cycling. Nevertheless, I find a roadside milestone, set up the camera and dutifully ride past a handful of times in the hope I get a decent picture.

I’m going to be traversing the Hai Van Pass today, a hulking chunk of mountain that was once a natural barrier between kingdoms in ancient Vietnam. The name apparently translates as ‘Ocean Cloud Pass’ due to mists that rise from the sea and cloak the mountain. This route over the pass used to be part of the main North-South road, but now the twisting 21km trek can by bypassed by using a shorter, straighter 6km tunnel. The road splits before the pass – cars, buses and lorries will generally use the tunnel, whereas scooters and cyclists have no choice and must use the mountain road. One exception to this is petrol tankers, who have to crawl slowly up and over the pass, forbidden from using the tunnel as a potential explosion hazard.

For the start of the climb I just take it easy and get into that slow, plodding rhythm I use for big hills. Road signs are telling me that the gradient is only 8% at this stage, which is just about manageable even for me. The fact that I’ll probably be stopping to take scenery pictures every few hundred metres is certainly going to help too. Not long after starting the ascent I’m treated to a spectacular view back down towards Lang Co beach, the very spot where I was cycling thirty minutes ago. Now I’m above a location where a large lagoon flows out to meet the sea, both waters coloured a brilliant azure blue. The sands of Lang Co beach stretch off for kilometres into the distance and I can just about see the beach I walked along last night. I spend a while taking photos and marvelling at the view. It’ll take me forever to get over the pass at this rate.

I trudge upwards until I reach a tight, right hand bend, where an Asian guy suddenly jumps out into the road in front of me and starts taking pictures. I’m breathing hard, whilst trying not to laugh at the absurdity of his actions as I creep past him. A few metres further on I realise that this man has just been taking the very same ‘In Action’ shots of me cycling that I was trying to manufacture earlier this morning. It would be great to get a copy of these pictures, so I turn around and go back to see him. It turns out the guy is a Chinese tourist in his forties who is here with his family, and also an avid cyclist. His son, Han, speaks good English and says he can e-mail me the pictures later as Chinese don’t have access to Facebook or WhatsApp. I’m not entirely confident that he will, but I’m hoping he’s true to his word.

It’s warm near the bottom of the hill, but luckily roadside trees and the twisting nature of the pass itself means that I remain shaded for large parts of the climb. I take more rest stops as I get higher, although the pay-off is that the temperature does become cooler with height. A few scooter riders offer me encouragement on my ascent, and occasionally stop and talk with me when I’m resting. It’s great that’s it’s only me and the scooters up here. There are also a small amount of tourist buses, cars and petrol tankers, but otherwise this is two-wheeled transport heaven. When the Top Gear team rode motorbikes for their Vietnam Special, the Hai Van Pass was a highlight with it’s winding roads and breath-taking views. I’m stopping so often to take pictures that I’m only slightly tired as I near the summit, whereas normally I’d be knackered.

I reach a viewpoint just below the top, where a different group of Chinese tourists have stopped to take photos. A couple of the women ask if they can pose with my bike to make it look like they’ve cycled to the top. I don’t mind their cheekiness though, as it means they’re happy to reciprocate and take pictures of me too. By this point though, things have started to become rather misty and almost a little chilly. The cloud line has drifted ominously down the mountain to nearly the same level I’m standing at, and it’s time I got moving again. Another few hundred metres of steady climbing then gets me to the summit, where the landmark is denoted by a collection of ramshackle tourist stalls lining the road. At only 500 metres high, the Hai Van Pass is not the tallest, but it’s definitely one of the more spectacular roads that I’ve cycled.

At the top I just roll straight past the market stalls and begin a speedy 10km descent on the opposite side. Now I’m over the pass I can look across a huge bay to my left and see the tall city buildings of Da Nang in the distance. The downhill zips past and I’m soon back down at sea-level, riding along the seafront and being buffeted by a strong, blustery headwind. I Google Map my way towards my accommodation and cross one of the seven bridges that span the city’s Han River. Da Nang is Vietnam’s fifth largest city, with a population of 1.2 million, yet it still doesn’t feel stupidly busy like Hanoi. Thank Goodness.

I continue pedalling to a lovely, leafy suburb that sits between city and beach to find my Homestay. I’m dawdling up the street, trying to read house numbers, when a guy who’s been talking with his neighbours realises that I must be his house guest. He shows me in and gives me a bottle of Desperados as soon as I sit down. The cold beer mixed with tequila and lime is going down beautifully after all today’s climbing. He’s a nice guy, although our language barrier means that most of our communication relies on Google Translate. I bring my bike inside and leave it parked on their wooden-floored lounge, alongside the family scooters.

From here a ten minute walk takes me to the beach, which has a row of tall hotels dominating the strip along the seafront, giving the place a Gold Coast or Miami feel. It’s a busy beach too, with sun loungers and straw umbrellas monopolising the sand. I order another two Banh Mi and watch messy waves dumping on the shore whilst waiting for my food to arrive. Then it’s back to my Homestay to meet the rest of the family. Lin, the wife is lovely and disarmingly helpful, always making sure I have a bottle of water on hand. Their oldest child, Michael, is thirteen and quite an earnest young man who spends most of his evening studying. Cherry, who’s six, is quite shy at first but then comes out of her shell and transforms into a giggling, mischievous little monkey. Studying becomes increasingly difficult for poor Michael as Cherry starts getting more and more hyper. I spend a while in their lounge just chatting with the family and munching on biscuits that Lin keeps feeding me. I’ve been made to feel very much at home here, so I’m more than happy to have a Rest Day tomorrow and stay in Da Nang for one extra day.

 

 

 

 

11th FEBRUARY 2019

Before I depart the excellent Charming Riverside Hotel, I have my final breakfast on the fifth floor overlooking the Perfume River. I stuff myself with omelette, baguette, banana pancakes with chocolate sauce and a plate of sliced fruit prior to checking out. Downstairs, on the wall in reception is a large printed map of Vietnam, which lets me see how far I’ve cycled since starting in Hanoi. I’m making great progress, and by the time I’ve ridden a further 100km to Da Nang I’ll be halfway down the country. I toyed with the idea of cycling that 100km in just one day, but pushing myself to cover big distances in this draining heat is precisely why I felt so crap on my arrival in Huế. Plus there’s a big mountain pass between me and Da Nang which would make a long day even tougher. Instead I opt to cover the distance over two days, and will stop at a place called Chan May Bay tonight.

Thankfully, it’s only twenty-two degrees when I leave this morning, sheltered by intermittent cloud cover and cooled by a welcome fresh breeze. For the first 20km I’m on a quiet-ish road out of Huế, before I rejoin the big QL1A road that bypasses the city. Then it’s a further 25km of busy, noisy traffic which leads me to a fork in the road just before a tunnel. Here I have the choice of taking a longer, steeper road over some hills or the more direct tunnel that bores straight through them. I choose the hilly option this time, partly because I know today is only a short cycle and I’m therefore more relaxed about spending time on a detour.

As soon as I’m off the main road it falls strangely silent. I’ve been so used to a constant stream of traffic passing me, normally accompanied by a symphony of blaring horns. The silence is almost eerie at first, but I soon start to appreciate the peace and quiet. There’s a great view from up here too, over rice fields below and out to a turquoise blue lagoon beyond. From above I also get a chance to see the QL1A road from a totally different perspective. It looks a horribly busy road from up here, with a fast, steady flow of traffic that contains an inordinate amount of buses and lorries. Seeing it from the outside makes me wonder why I’ve stuck to this road quite so rigidly since leaving Hanoi. I think I’ve become too used to just putting my head down and getting on with it, but now I’ve bought myself enough time to get off the big roads and explore the quieter areas.

Lunchtime at a roadside Plastic Chair Cafe brings some amusing language-barrier confusion at first. I do my usual fingers to my mouth gesture to enquire if I’m able to get food. The young guy who speaks to me appears to understand and asks ‘Meal?’ I nod, smile, give a Thumbs Up and sit down to wait for my meal. A couple of minutes later he brings out a cup of cold coffee, and I assume my meal will be with me shortly. More time passes and I begin to realise that my cold coffee is not going to be accompanied by anything else. I speak to the guy again and it turns out he thought I wanted ‘Milk’ rather than ‘Meal’. Once we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding, he says I can have Banh Canh for food. To save any further confusion I just go along with this, although I’ve got no real idea what particular foodstuff I’ve now agreed to. When the Banh Canh arrives I find that it’s a bowl of thick noodle soup containing prawns and a poached egg. It seems an odd mixture, but is actually surprisingly rich and tasty. It would seem that I’ve come up trumps on the Food Lucky Dip this lunchtime.

I’m off the main road again for the final few kilometres to take me to my village accommodation on Chan May Bay. Again, this road is bliss without the hustle of traffic. There’s still plenty of scooters, obviously, but almost no buses or lorries. I really don’t know why I didn’t make the effort to get off the main highway sooner than I have. I trundle slowly towards the village, passing water buffalo with their masters, labourers working in rice fields and people walking along the quiet road. My room tonight is at the Binh An Guest House, a two storey affair on a residential street. It looks nice from the outside, although once I go inside my room looks a bit old and grubby. I leave my bike downstairs, propped up against a wall in the family kitchen.

I have a shower and then walk to the beach on Chan May Bay. A further benefit to my short cycle today is that I have plenty of time to explore during daylight hours after arriving at my destination. The beach is sandy and wide, a long arc of coffee brown sand following the curve of the bay. A port and some ugly-looking industrial buildings blight the East side of the bay, while the West side looks uninhabited, with a group of hazy, smoky mountains dominating that end of the beach. I would go as far as to term this place ‘beautiful’ if it weren’t for the few stray bits of plastic and trash on the beach. Admittedly, the beach isn’t over-run with litter, but it does still manage to spoil the settting slightly. I’m not sure why local residents or beachside businesses don’t take more pride in their surroundings and organise a clean up. I’ve found that it seems almost culturally acceptable in Vietnam to drop litter on the beach or to leave it behind after having a picnic, which is such a shame.

Despite the litter presence, I go for a long walk along the beach towards the mountains at it’s far end. There’s a few locals on the sand at the start and a couple of Plastic Chair Cafes are blasting out what sounds like a mixture of Asian Techno and karaoke. I alternate between walking in the water and on the land, until I find I’m halfway along the beach and sharing the sand with a small herd of skinny cows. A little further on and I’m being passed by children cycling across the compacted, damp sand on their way home from school. Almost every single one of them waves or smiles at me, and the braver ones even offer a giggling ‘Hello’ in English to show off to their friends.

I keep walking until I’m almost at the end of the beach before turning back, with the sun setting over the mountains behind me. Spending time at the beach is just so good for the soul, and today has been one of my favourite cycling days so far. The 58km wasn’t taxing, and getting away from the busy highway to this tranquil location is just bliss. I know it seems obvious that this would be the case, yet I’m somehow still shocked by how chilled out and relaxed it has left me feeling. The last couple of weeks of ploughing down the main QL1A road haven’t been in vain though – I’ve now left myself in the position where I can take my time and use quieter roads without compromising the amount of days left on my Vietnamese visa. I’m glad that tomorrow’s cycle to Da Nang will continue this trend, even though it’s a steep, hilly climb over the Hai Van Pass that I’ll be looking forward to.

 

9th FEBRUARY 2019

I wake feeling much closer to my normal self after a good night’s sleep under air-conditioning. A sure sign of this recovery is that my thoughts turn immediately to food consumption as soon as my brain starts functioning. I have to traipse back up to the fifth floor again, although I soon realise it’s worth the effort when I discover the joys of breakfast at the Charming Riverside Hotel. A young Vietnamese guy greets me and I take a seat by the window to look over their menu. Because I ate nothing but mini bananas last night, I opt to fill myself up with a fried rice, egg and garlic meal. I’m munching my way through this when the waiter guy brings over a plate of freshly chopped fruit, similar to yesterday’s welcome dish. Wow, this is good ! Then, once I’ve finished both plates, he pops back to ask if I’d like anything else. I look at him doubtfully, thinking he might have overlooked the fact that I’ve eaten two breakfasts already. It seems that he’s quite aware of this, but he says ‘You will need energy if you want to visit the Imperial City today.’ He suggests banana pancakes with chocolate sauce, and I’m happy to go with that recommendation to round off a truly magnificent breakfast.

I sit for a while after finishing my food and watch the comings and goings on the languid Perfume River below. From my vantage point I can see that the riverside buildings are a mixture of posh looking hotels and colourful, ramshackle old houses, some with rusty tin roofs. The river’s flow at Huế is so slow and leisurely because the river level here is much the same as sea level, meaning the water is only moving very gradually downhill at this point. The name Perfume River arises because in the autumn flowers from orchards upstream fall into the water, giving off a floral, perfumed scent as they float downstream. Now, in early springtime, there’s no perfume aroma, but the river still looks pleasingly serene and tranquil from my breakfast table.

With my hunger fully sated, I take a walk over the river to have a look round the Imperial City, Huế’s biggest tourist attraction. This ancient city was part of a larger citadel, walled and surrounded by moats, and was a former capital of Vietnam until the French took power in 1880. Situated on flat land beside the river, it was easy to channel water into the city and to form protective moats around it. I’m amazed to learn that the outermost square moat is a whopping 10km in total length. Predictably, the Imperial City itself is very touristy, but it covers such a large area that I’m able to find quiet spots away from the masses. I spend a good two hours exploring and still feel like I must have missed parts. There are temples, gardens, pavilions, ornate gates, dragon sculptures and ponds full of coy carp. I keep catching snippets from Vietnamese tour guides who are conducting tours in French, German, Chinese and English. It’s a fascinating place, although I do find that two hours of tolerating tourists is just about my limit.

Once I’m outside the complex I stop at a little cafe for some shrimp buns and a blueberry smoothie. From previous smoothies, I remember that the Vietnamese word for blueberry is ‘Viet Quat’, which slightly surprises the girl who serves me. On the way back to the hotel I try to stay in the shade as much as I can, a little paranoid about being in the sun after my experience of the previous two days. I crash out for a while in the afternoon, still not one hundred percent better, but definitely getting there.

Breakfast the following morning mirrors the first, with another hearty feast and the same lovely view. I take a wander round the city today, exploring and trying to get my hands on a decent pair of replacement sunglasses. It turns out buying £4 shades from amazon before I departed wasn’t such a good idea after all. I’m in luck though, as I find a decent pair of sunglasses in a shopping centre that are twice as good, but still just as cheap as my amazon ones. For lunch I stop at a place called Brick Coffee for seafood fried rice and a yoghurt shake. The cafe is on a T-junction, so I sit outside at a pavement table watching the locals and the inevitable traffic chaos that comes with Vietnamese road junctions.

At night Nga recommends a place for dinner, but it’s called ‘Risotto’ and sounds like it could be an Italian restaurant full of Westerners. I don’t know why locals always think that Westerners want to go to Western restaurants. Sure enough, when I get there it is indeed an Italian-style place full of Westerners ! My decision to keep walking takes about two seconds. Instead I find a simple Plastic Chair Cafe just across the street, where I settle down to pork curry and rice. It’s basic and down to earth, with the owner’s three cute little kids running about and shyly approaching me to try and talk. I much prefer this type of cafe, rather than sitting in an exclusively Western restaurant listening to the inane chatter of tourists and backpackers.

After eating I head back towards my hotel along the same road I took to the cafe. There’s been quite a transformation since nightfall, the street now brightened by red hanging lanterns and bustling food stalls. It’s also become remarkably busy, with dozens of people sitting down for food on tiny plastic chairs on the pavement. These little chairs are fine for Vietnamese as they tend to be generally smaller people, however any time I’ve parked my bum on them I feel like I’m sitting on a child’s nursery chair.

Back at the hotel I have a lazy, chilled night. I arrived in Huế two days ago feeling awful, but a weekend of rest, good food, and sun avoidance has me feeling like I’m ready to continue South tomorrow.

7th FEBRUARY 2019

My room in the Sealand Homestay was a corner room on the first floor. If I opened the balcony doors and also a window on the adjacent wall, then a cooling breeze would blow nicely through the room. During my three days at the Homestay I began to notice a pattern with the changing wind directions during the day. In the early mornings there would be no breeze to speak of, but in the late morning a wind would start to blow from the North. Then, by mid afternoon it would turn round completely with a strong South-Easterly blowing in off the sea. This all affects my cycling. Early morning no wind. Late morning tailwind. Mid afternoon headwind. And it would just be my luck that the strongest of these winds is the headwind, which will make late afternoons a battle when I’m already tired after a day’s cycling.

I have my final Homestay breakfast of banana pancakes with chocolate sauce while sitting on the outside decking. I say Goodbye to Tung and Candy, who have been absolutely brilliant during my stay. I’ll always remember my Vietnamese New Year and the kindness they showed in taking me round all their friends and relatives to see how it’s celebrated. I leave them under an almost foggy sky, cross the Nhật Lệ river one final time and start heading South out of town. Despite the fog and clouds, it’s an oppresively hot and sticky morning. Within half an hour I have rivulets of sweat running down my forehead, along my eyebrows and into the corners of my eyes. The cloud clears quickly though, meaning my first 100km day of this trip will be ridden in blazing sunshine.

The first 60km are fairly easy, although the heat becomes more stifling as the day wears on. I stop for lunch at a large Plastic Chair Cafe where I slump onto a seat and order a rice meal. It’s a family run business where the adults are happy to let their twelve year old son deal with me as he can speak a little bit of English. Like kids the world over he is wearing a football top and he’s keen to show off his English speaking skills to his family, walking past my table every few minutes to speak with me. I ask for chicken with my rice but, apparently, the birds haven’t been delivered yet and I have to make do with fish. I’m expecting some tempura-style chunks of fried fish, so am a little taken aback when a whole fried fish arrives at my table, with head and tail still attached. It’s a lovely golden colour, with a large triangular head and a rather sad looking mouth. I concentrate on the centre of the fish, trying to remove as much flesh as I can from the middle without going too near the head or tail. It’s delicious too, despite appearances, and I get all the usual sides of rice, soup, salad and steamed bok choy. Instead of dipping my food into the small saucers of soy and fish sauce, I simply pour the sauces over my rice to give it some flavour. Drink comes in the form of tea, which is served in a plastic jug and poured into a smaller glass containing ice. I can see green leaves circling the bottom of the jug as I pour, but also a couple of tiny insects floating on the surface. Still, it’s so refreshing poured over ice that I ignore the insects and drink most of it.

Today, without realising it at the time, I pass a significant place in Vietnam’s history when I cross the Bến Hải river. This was the dividing line between the warring factions of North and South Vietnam during the First Indochina War, and later the Vietnam War. The country was essentially cut in half, with this river acting as the border between North and South Vietnam. For 5km on either side of the river there was a demilitarised zone, or ‘D.M.Zee’ as the Americans would call it, although the surrounding area is still considered dangerous nowadays due to the threat of unexploded mines.  I wish I had been aware of all this beforehand, but instead I just cycled on over the river completely unaware. For me, the day hots up even further after this landmark, through a humid, flat landscape of farms and rice fields.

It’s getting towards late afternoon by this point too, so I’m now fighting a strong headwind in addition to the energy sapping heat. As the sun moves lower towards the West, my right hand side starts to heat up uncomfortably. I’m plastered in sunscreen, but my face, neck, ear and bicep are still burning and hot to touch. Towns and roadside trees do afford some shade, although the next 20km are tough going on the flat road into a headwind. In one town I stop, lean my bike against a flagpole and just sit on a pavement in the shade for half an hour trying to cool down. All the while I’m sitting there, a Vietnamese flag atop the pole above me is flapping furiously, showing me the strength of wind I’m cycling into. A small climb signals the end of this stretch, and I pause at the top, sweating, for a big chilled bottle of water. I can always tell when I’m dehydrated as simple things like plain water start to taste magnificent. The restorative powers of drinking cool water on a boiling day are miraculous and I feel refreshed within seconds.

When I reach Đông Hà it’s after 5.00pm, just as myself and the daylight are both beginning to fade. I turn off the main road and follow the town’s river upstream for about 3km to reach my Homestay for tonight. By this point my cycling top is sticking to me with the amount of sweat it’s absorbed today and it has to be literally peeled off over my head. The shower is bliss, but as I’m unpacking I realise that I’ve left my toothbrush and toothpaste back in Đông Hới this morning, much to my annoyance. I head out for food, however the ongoing Tết Holiday means I can only find one Plastic Chair Cafe open, its chairs sitting outside and taking up most of the pavement. Pointing and Thumbs-Up gestures gains me a big bowl of chicken noodle soup with several bony chunks of meat in its midst. Pleasantries are out tonight, so I just pick the chicken chunks up in my hands and chew the meat off, caveman style. I can’t tell if the owners are surprised to see a Westerner in their cafe, or just surprised to see a Westerner with such appalling table manners. Either way, my soup hits the spot beautifully. Back at the Homestay I have to make use of an overnight fan for the first time on this trip, partly to keep me cool and partly to stop mosquitos from landing on me.

The Homestay had told me they weren’t doing breakfasts because of the Tết Holiday, so I’m a bit gutted the following morning to see the whole family tucking into noodle soup as I leave. In lieu of breakfast I do get them to sell me about fifteen mini bananas for 35p, which should keep me going today. Once I’m out on the road it feels just as hot and sticky as yesterday, but without the same morning cloud cover to diminish the sun’s rays. Normally a 75km day would be fairly straightforward, but my energy levels are so low after toiling for 100km yesterday in a humid, thirty-three degree heat. 

By midday I’m drenched with sweat and crimson coloured when I stop at a Plastic Chair Cafe for lunch. The woman owner sits me on a chair, plugs in a pedestal fan and points it straight at me to help cool me down. I must look as hot and knackered as I feel. The rest of her family take turns to come out from their adjoining house for an excuse to look at the sweltering foreigner sitting in their cafe. I have hot beef noodle soup and am offered a can of energy drink to go with it, presumably because I look so wrecked. It’s a real effort to drag myself away from the fan afterwards, and I procrastinate for ages before I get back on the road. I carry on in the sultry, baking heat, with the sun only hitting the right side of my face and body once again.

About 15km from Huế (Whay) I’m able to leave the big, noisy QL1A route and get onto a quieter minor road. I’m stopping with increasing regularity now, limping my way slowly towards my destination. I’ve been cycling through flat rice fields and under a relentless sun most of the day, but I start to receive more shade from buildings as I near Huế. Despite this let-up from the sun I’m beginning to feel a bit woozy. Every time I stop to drink water or check google maps I feel dizzy. I cross a bridge over the wonderfully named Perfume River and into the city. I’ve only 3km to cycle now but I feel rotten, as if I’m about to throw up.

In my favour, Huế is a green, tree-lined city along its river banks, which offers some welcome, cooling relief as I flounder my way towards my accommodation. One final causeway-type bridge has me at the Charming Riverside Hotel, where a young lady called Nga greets me. She tells me to sit and wait in reception while she goes off to get me some juice and freshly cut fruit as a welcome. It’s an absolute godsend ! Cold fresh orange juice, as well as a plate of chopped mango, banana, watermelon and dragon fruit. Every guest receives this welcome, but I bet none appreciate it as much as me. I leave my bike chained to a banister downstairs and then have to trudge, in super slow-motion, all the way up to the third floor with my bags as the lift is out of order.

Nga had told me that breakfast is served on the fifth floor every morning, which apparently offers diners great views of the river. I ask if it’s alright to go up and take a look now, but then I sneak up one extra level to a storage floor above the breakfast room. The view is brilliant from up here, with a hazy sun about to set over mountains in the distance and reflecting yellows and oranges onto the languid Perfume River below. I spend about half an hour up there just taking in the view and snapping a few pictures. My hands feel a little shaky on the camera, so I’m still not quite right despite the fruit and drink welcome.

I feel so drained that I don’t move from my room all night. Luckily, this hotel has air-conditioning, so I laze around in the cool airflow eating what remains of my mini bananas. The high temperatures and humidity have really got to me in the last couple of days, possibly even afflicting me with a touch of heat-stroke. I’ve cycled 175km in those two days, which is a decent distance for me at the best of times, but especially so with the hot, tough conditions that I’ve faced. I keep telling myself that I need to be doing shorter, more manageable days when the weather hots up like this. I’ve got a month left on my visa extension and I’m almost halfway down the country, so there’s really no need to be pushing big distances on these hot days. I put this thinking into play immediately by opting to take it easy and remain in Huế for the next couple of days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5th FEBRUARY 2019

The noise of New Year fireworks would ordinarily have kept me awake last night, but my poor, tired brain was so addled with alcohol that I slept like a contented baby. I wander downstairs to find the old Canadians asking Tung if he’ll cook some breakfast for them. He’s reluctant, partly because it’s New Year’s Day, but mainly because it’s Candy who normally does the cooking and she’s gone out. In the end he compromises and offers to rustle up some pancakes or omelettes. I’m listening to all this and figure that if he’s already making pancakes then I might as well put in an order too. Shortly afterwards four rolled-up banana pancakes arrive, drizzled with chocolate sauce and delivered on the same scorching, iron hot plates that the omelettes are served on. They are filling and sweet and just the sort of comfort food I need in my delicate state. It turns out that Tung is a decent cook after all.

After her New Year disappearing act, Moon the dog is lying asleep on the kitchen floor without a care in the world. Tung couldn’t find her last night amidst the din and commotion of fireworks, so resumed his search first thing this morning. He located her down by the river, tired but unharmed, and brought her back home on his motorbike. I leave them all to their day and go for a walk into town, across the bridge which acted as a launching pad for last night’s fireworks. With it being New Year’s Day there’s hardly anywhere open, so I wander round haphazardly for a while trying to find somewhere for food or even just a coffee. I eventually walk a huge, aimless circle, but end up back on the riverside eating spring rolls about 100 metres from where I first started. 

When I get back to the Homestay I tell Candy where I’ve been for lunch, which leads to her recommending one of her friend’s restaurants for dinner tonight. I take her advice and traipse back across the river after dark to find a pizza / pasta restaurant, whose tables are occupied exclusively by Westerners. I’m sure Candy’s intention was to make me feel at home, but these surroundings feel a little odd after weeks of dining in Plastic Chair Cafes and eating local food. In addition, this place is operating on a strictly limited menu tonight due to a lack of available ingredients over the Tết Holiday. My first few meal requests are knocked back and I’m restricted to settling for a bland, insipid spaghetti Bolognese.

As well as the underwhelming food, I begin to realise that I’m not enjoying being in a solely Western environment again. To me it seems pointless coming all the way to South-East Asia, only to eat Western food in a Western style restaurant surrounded by other Westerners. I’m sitting here because of Candy’s recommendation, but I’d much rather be eating cheap local food in a little Plastic Chair Cafe. It’s my first Western meal since arriving in Vietnam, and it’s not something I’ll be doing again in a hurry.

When Candy asks my opinion of her friend’s restaurant, I decide just to be honest and tell her I thought the food was pretty average. She looks really sorry because it was her recommendation, and this in turn makes me feel bad. However, I cheer her up immediately by telling her that the restaurant food wasn’t as good as her cooking. Then, as if trying to verify my claim, she says that there’s still some grilled squid left over from their family meal and would I like to try some. Again, not a difficult decision. My God, they are delicious ! Tender, with a slightly sweet taste and served with hot dipping sauce. Tung and Candy have made me feel right at home staying here, and it’s round about this point I decide I’m going to extend my time in Đồng Hới by one extra day.

The Homestay is strangely quiet when I go downstairs for breakfast the following morning. The Canadians have all left and the trio of French teachers are off somewhere on motorbikes hired from Tung and Candy’s vast fleet. The only folk left are myself and a young Chinese woman who doesn’t say much. I go for a morning walk over the river again, returning around lunchtime to find Tung and Candy asleep on a thin mattress on the kitchen floor. This is where they sleep most of the time, with all the Homestay rooms given over to paying guests. I’ve also noticed that it’s a typically Vietnamese trait to have a siesta in the early afternoon. This is hardly surprising, given that most of the country seems to be up with the sun and running around at 6.00am.

In the afternoon I walk right along the beach to the end of the narrow spit of land where the river meets the sea. It feels so good to be walking barefoot on the sand and I’m surprised by how pleasantly warm the sea feels when I amble along the water’s edge, bearing in mind that it is still winter. On the shore I find a brilliantly white spiral shell, about ten centimetres long, which goes to Tung and Candy’s daughter when I return to the Homestay. The little kid looks genuinely excited by her present. I can tell just how chuffed she is because the shell is still in her hand two hours later.

In the kitchen, Candy is hand-feeding Moon’s five puppies with milk from a bottle. She tells me ‘We make them all big and then we put them on the barbecue !’ I look at her, half smiling, to see if she’s serious or not, but she remains expressionless and gives nothing away. She carries on with her feeding, poker faced, until she finally bursts out laughing and says that she’s joking. I’m quite relieved as she had me worried there for a moment. Then I ask the dreaded question – ‘So, Umm, DO you eat dog ?’ She tells me she doesn’t and that it’s more a throwback to the Vietnam War, when people had to eat anything they could get their hands on just to survive. Apparently some older Vietnamese will still eat dog, but it doesn’t happen much now with the younger generation. Personally, I like to try weird new foods as much as I can when I travel, but I don’t think I’d feel comfortable eating dog. Everyone has a line they won’t cross when it comes to food, and I’m realising that my line would be the consumption of pets.

I spend a couple of hours chatting to Candy, with me finding out about Vietnamese life while she asks questions about the UK. The conversation moves towards cemeteries, as there’s one located just behind the Homestay on what is no more than a patch of sandy wasteground. She tells me that around seven to ten years after a burial in Vietnam, the coffin is dug up and the bones are compacted into a smaller sized package. In a country of almost 100 million people this is probably a sensible space-saving policy, but it does still feel a bit wrong to be exhuming the dead and compacting them. Candy, on the other hand, is amazed there are cemeteries in the UK where some of the older graves have lain untouched for centuries.

Later that evening I’m asked to come downstairs and help a staggeringly drunk guy into his house next door. He’s barely able to stand, let alone walk, but somehow he’s managed to drive a motorbike home. Myself and Candy walk him towards his front door, while all the time his wife stands in the doorway laughing at him. We keep his motorbike helmet on his head all the way up the path, just so that he won’t smack his head too hard if he does fall. Although I can’t deny there’s a comedy aspect to the whole episode, it’s also a reminder for me to be wary of drink-drivers while cycling during the remaining days of Tết Holiday. 

Tomorrow I’ve booked accommodation in a place called Đông Hà, which will mean my first 100km ride of this trip. My plan was to actively avoid doing 100km days in Vietnam, but the limited accommodation choices during Tết Holiday has left me with little option. The upside is that my two days off in Đông Hới should see me fresh and ready to go.

 

 

 

 

 

4th FEBRUARY 2019

I wake up rested on New Year’s Eve and drift downstairs for a breakfast which is served on the Homestay’s small outdoors balcony. I’m the only diner this morning, so I have the full attention of the household cats and kittens as I eat, with all of them meowing round my ankles persistently and hoping to be fed. Candy makes me a lovely omelette with tomato, red pepper and onion through it, served up on a sizzling iron hot-plate to keep it warm. My hosts are putting on a New Year meal this evening for all the Homestay guests before we join the midnight crowds on the riverside to watch Đồng Hới’s fireworks display. Their remaining guests are all due to arrive later this afternoon. For now though, being the only patron seems to work in my favour, as Tung asks if I would like to join them at his mother’s house to celebrate New Year along with his family. Bloody Right I do ! I didn’t think I’d be invited into a Vietnamese household for New Year, so that’s an unexpected bonus and I do feel very priveleged to have been asked.

We all pile into Tung’s car and drive about ten minutes to his parent’s home, where I conform to the usual ‘Shoes Off at the Door’ requirement. The house is buzzing with family and neighbours who all welcome me with a polite ‘Hello’ and a warm handshake. I’m also introduced to Tung and Candy’s children, and I can’t help thinking that my hosts look far too young to be the parents of a ten and a seven year old. The ten year old boy is into football, and tells me he supports Spurs because Son Heung Min from South Korea plays for them. The girl is very smiley and cute, laughing infectiously each time I do a fist pump with her. I’m invited into the kitchen to ‘help’ unpack blocks of sticky rice from their banana leaf packaging, but I’m painfully slow and really not very good at it. Tung must notice this and saves me by saying I should go to his cousin’s house so I can meet all of them too.

Tung’s father drives me through a maze of narrow streets on the back of his motorbike, and we arrive just as all the cousins are about to begin their meal. More introductions, more smiles and more difficult to pronounce names for me to remember. A large square mat is laid in the middle of the lounge room, and we all sit on the floor around it so we can eat from bowls in the middle. There’s about eight of us tucking into chicken portions, whole fish, rice, noodles, beef, spring rolls, soups, vegetables, curry, salads, pickles. There are also a number of little dipping plates containing fish sauce, plum sauce, hot chilli sauce as well as salts, chillies, garlic and halved limes. I’m really not sure where to begin, especially with chopsticks and with all eyes in the room watching me. I needn’t have worried though as Tung’s father helps by picking pieces of food up and depositing them on my plate for me.

So far all the men have been drinking beer, until the head of the house gets out his home made rice wine and starts pouring shots. However, this concoction tastes more like a weak whisky, bearing no similarity whatsoever to wine. Or rice for that matter. I’m not a whisky fan, but I still chuck the shots back anyway as I don’t want to appear impolite or let the side down. This wiry, mid-forties bloke with a thin moustache keeps pouring shots for himself, Tung’s father and me in what feels like two minute intervals. I have a feeling he’s trying to pit himself against the Westerner and get me drunk. I keep downing the shots nonetheless, but also stuffing myself with food to try and soak up the alcohol. We’re onto our third bottle of rice wine when Tung’s father decides to take a back seat, which is just as well because he’ll be driving me back on his motorbike later. It’s about mid-day by this point and I’m already half pissed.

I manage to keep pace with the boss man, who by now is becoming increasingly animated and using his daughter as translator between us. When he asks how many bottles of rice wine I think I could drink, Tung’s father decides it’s time to make our excuses and depart. We return to their house and immediately head over the lane to their opposite neighbours, where the whole process starts again, only this time outdoors. More introductions, more sitting round a mat, more gorgeous food and yet more alcohol. Mercifully, the only beveridge on offer this time is beer. One of Tung’s mates keeps downing his small glass of beer in one go and urges me to do the same. We chink glasses and he shouts ‘One Hundred Percent !’ each time we drain the glass. I’m going to end up wrecked if I carry on like this, so I make sure to take on plenty of food as well as alcohol. In between beer, this drunk, bespectacled bloke gives me a fifteen minute tutorial on how to use chopsticks properly, which is a bit galling as I thought my technique had been improving lately.

The host lady at this house is continually offering me spring rolls as she thinks that’s the only Vietnamese food that Westerners like. As soon as the bowl of spring rolls is empty, she disappears inside and returns with more to offer me. It becomes a bit of a standing joke as the afternoon wears on, and she seems genuinely surprised that I’ll eat pretty much everything else that’s on offer. It’s been a real eye-opener for me to be invited into these homes to see how Vietnamese celebrate New Year. They’ve all been really welcoming, sharing their food and making a huge effort to communicate with me despite the language barriers. I’m also a bit surprised by just how much alcohol is being consumed. I somehow didn’t expect people to be quite so reckless with their drinking here, even if it is New Year.

After our whirlwind tour of friends and relatives we head back to the Homestay about 3.00pm. I go upstairs with the intention of napping before our evening meal, but I don’t get much rest as my head is spinning so much. By 6.00pm I’m back downstairs eating, drinking and having a chat with the new guests – three French guys who are teaching in Hanoi and a trio of older Canadians. This is a far more civilised gathering than this afternoon’s shenanigans, with Candy putting on a delicious spread of food and, thankfully, a lot less alcohol.

About 11.00pm myself and two of the Canadians walk down to the riverfront to nab a spot for watching the fireworks. After a while I become aware of a raging thirst, no doubt a result of my earlier alcohol consumption. I wander off to try and find a bottle of water, but my search looks to be in vain as everywhere appears to be closed now. A lap of the little settlement leads me to a shop that is just about to close it’s doors at 11.45pm. I buy a large, chilled bottle of water, drink about a third of it without pausing and then marvel at the fact that I’ll be their final customer of the year. By the time I walk back to the river, I find that Tung and Candy have brought all the remaining Homestay guests along with them for the festivities.

At midnight fireworks start shooting up from the main bridge over the river, with greens, reds and yellows being reflected in the dark waters and over traditional wooden fishing boats. At one point during the display I hear a deafening screech behind us, before a piercingly loud rocket screams past our heads and bounces on the river in front. Bloody Hell, that was close ! We all step back from the river and move across the street so we are safely covered by buildings for the rest of the display. Twenty minutes later the official fireworks are over, but the city’s residents are keen to carry on celebrating. There are bangs, flashes and explosions all around us, including a bunch of firecrackers thrown from a first floor balcony into the lane we are walking along. The place sounds like a war zone.

It’s only when we all return that Candy realises that their dog, Moon, hasn’t come back with us. The poor thing must have been traumatised by all the noise and has gone to lie low for a while. Tung gets his motorbike and goes out around 1.30am to look for her. I go upstairs to a soundtrack of popping fireworks and with the beginnings of a banging headache. It’s been a brilliant day though. I’ve loved taking part and being able to see how normal Vietnamese celebrate their Lunar New Year. Tomorrow is the first day of the Year of the Pig, which I’m taking to be a good omen for the rest of my trip as that is also the same year I was born under.

2nd FEBRUARY 2019

After complaining that all my noodle soup breakfasts were lacking in variety, I’m quite looking forward to seeing what I’ll get at this big hotel in Ha Tinh. I choose my seat and am waiting with a sense of eager anticipation, only for the waitress to bring me nothing more than a standard bowl of beef noodle soup. It’s a disappointing start to my day, but at least my bike is still chained to the luggage trolley in the hotel lobby. There’s always a slight worry in the back of my mind that I’ll come downstairs to find the bike missing from the place I left it the previous evening.

Because breakfast didn’t really hit the spot, I look for somewhere that serves big rice meals for lunch. This is not a difficult task as nearly every roadside restaurant has colourful signs outside to display the types of food they sell. I’ve already worked out that the Vietnamese word for rice is Co’m, so all I have to do is wait until I pass a Plastic Chair Cafe that has a sign outside saying Co’m. It also strikes me that I’m fortunate the Vietnamese language uses the same letters as English. If I was dealing with a language that used symbols or a different Asian script then everything would become a lot more challenging.

It only takes a few kilometres of cycling before I’m able to stop at a cafe that does rice meals. Large servings of rice, chicken bits, soup and veggies are soon disappearing down my greedy throat. I’ve noticed that a lot of Vietnamese meals seem to follow a ‘Carbs, Protein, Vegetables’ pattern. The carbs come in the form of noodles or rice. Protein is usually chicken, beef or fish and you nearly always get a serving of fresh veggies as a side. As a result, this trip is seeing me eat a fresher, more healthy diet than I have done for months – no biscuits, no chocolate, no sandwiches. I’ve hardly had any alcohol either, although I do imagine that is going to change with the upcoming New Year.

As a Westerner cycling through Vietnamese towns and cities, I get my fair share of kids shouting ‘Hello’ and also scooter riders talking to me as we ride along. Today a twenty-something guy on a scooter keeps pace with me for a couple of kilometres, asking questions and practicing his English. He insists his name is Tiger, which I think must have started out as a nickname and then just stuck. In the course of our conversation I learn that he’s an engineer from Ky Ann who studied in Hanoi and wants to marry his childhood sweetheart one day. We continue to chat away and he tootles along beside me for a while until we reach the turn off for his village. He tells me his house is only two minutes away and asks if I’d like to come for tea and meet his family. Now, had this invitation occurred in the UK I would almost certainly have declined, thinking it was a bit weird or even potentially dangerous. However, I’ve found Vietnam to be an extraordinarily safe country so far, even amongst the eight million population of Hanoi. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that Tiger won’t try to spike my tea or lead me off the main road to be mugged.

We cut off the big QL1A road and within a minute he turns into the driveway of a plush looking, modern two-storey home. His father and grandmother are at the house already and I’m given a cup of Vietnamese tea whilst sitting on the front doorstep. The father takes my photo a few times and is very eager to show off the family’s peach blossom tree, which has been moved into a prominent position in his front yard for the upcoming Tết celebrations. Tiger continues to practice his English on me, but I’m not really able to communicate much with the rest of the family. After about five minutes his phone rings and he says he has to go and meet a friend, bringing this bizarre little episode to an end not long after it started. I thank the family for tea, before heading back up the concrete track to the main road.

Fifteen minutes later I’ve cycled through Ky Ann and have reached my accommodation on the other side of town. It’s a thin, four storey hotel up a dusty side street that looks posh but is really incredibly cheap. The receptionist is a friendly girl in her twenties who doesn’t quite know what to make of my post cycling appearance. Its difficult to tell if she’s shocked, amused or fascinated. I think I’ll settle for ‘fascinated’ as she reaches out to touch my arm when she sees it glistening wet through a combination of sunscreen and sweat. The temperatures have been creeping up since I’ve left Hanoi, but it’s barely registered until now as the change has been so gradual. It’s hard to believe I was wearing a fleece top and cargo pants a week ago.

A piping hot shower returns my arms to their normal self, and I open the two windows on either side of my corner room to create a cooling airflow. When I go back downstairs the receptionist asks if I would like to order breakfast for the following morning. Needless to say, I don’t spend much time debating this question. I’m told I can order two choices if I want, so opt for a baguette and an omelette. She says they will be ready at 8.00am tomorrow morning.

8.00am arrives and so does a knock at my door. It’s the receptionist who tells me ‘Sorry, we not doing breakfast today because of Tết Holiday’. This is not the alarm call I was hoping for, and I’m actually quite gutted by the news. There are a couple of Pot Noodle type containers in my room, so I boil up my remaining water and have to settle for those instead. I say Goodbye to the receptionist, who walks with me to the hotel entrance and watches while I upend my bike to pump a little air into the tyres. Then she takes me completely by surprise and asks if I would like her to pump the tyres up for me. Perhaps she sensed my disappointment over the lack of breakfast and is trying to make amends. I decline her offer, but have to give her credit on her customer service.

I turn inland this morning and up towards some hills that bring me to my first tunnel of the trip. I’m faced with a smaller road that goes up and over the hills, or the main road tunnel that bores straight through them. I decide to go for the tunnel option as it’s only 500 metres long, although a guy on a motorbike seems to be telling me that my panniers will make me too wide to get through safely. There’s a raised walkway that runs the length of the tunnel, but it’s full of cracks and potholes, so I just plough through on the road. Only one car overtakes me on my way, which is a bit of a blessing as the tunnel is very dark and narrow.

Today is another warm cycle, past farmland, rice fields and over the 700 metre long bridge that spans the mighty Gianh River. An 80km ride gets me to Đồng Hới a bit early for check in, so to kill time I cycle along the city’s river and out towards the coast. I’m now heading in the opposite direction to my Homestay, but it’s a picturesque ride so I don’t mind trundling slowly along. Dozens of blue-coloured fishing boats dominate the river, tied up and set to remain idle for the duration of the Tết Holiday. I carry on down the river, then head North until I reach the blue sea and the white sands of Nhat Le Beach. It’s a gorgeous location to stop, and I’m more than content just sitting there for a while to pass the time.

To get to my accommodation I first have to retrace my tracks back towards the city, then over a long bridge that takes me to the coast on the opposite side of the river. Now I’m on a narrow spit of land that is bordered by the sea on one side and the river on the other. I ride through a little collection of local shops and houses, before I find the Sealand Homestay up a short, dusty track. My hosts are a friendly and chatty couple in their thirties, Candy and Tung. I’m soon to discover that they also have two cats and two kittens, as well as a lovely old dog named Moon who has just given birth to five puppies. Tung must think I look hot and exhausted after my cycle as he sits me down at their outside breakfast bar and brings me a large, refreshing iced tea.

In the late afternoon I go for a walk past the enormous concrete skeleton of an unfinished beachfront hotel and down to the shore itself. The beach is wide and sandy but, disappointingly, has a bit of a litter problem. I’ve already seen that there’s a huge issue with roadside litter in Vietnam – it appears that people don’t think twice about just dumping their trash here. On the beaches it’s usually from family gatherings and picnics where folk simply leave their beer cans, bottles and plastic bags lying around when they depart. I’m not really sure why Vietnamese behave this way, but it’s sad and infuriating. The problem is only going to escalate too, with this relatively small country having to cope with a population of almost 100 million people and one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

I don’t move much from my room once I get back to the Homestay. I’ve just cycled six days out of the last eight and covered around 500km, which is a fairly decent effort to begin a cycle trip with. I crash out early in order to catch up on sleep and to make sure I’m prepared for the big Tết celebrations tomorrow. I’m quite excited as I’m about to experience my second New Year in the space of six weeks !

 

 

30th JANUARY 2019

Every accommodation provider in Vietnam is required by law to register foreign guests with the local police. To do this they will always demand to see your passport on check in before they’ll hand over any room keys. Usually they will just use their mobile phone and take a picture of your passport’s personal details page and maybe the visa page, before handing it back to you. Sometimes though, the accommodation will insist on keeping your passport until you check out. This never sits quite right with me as I’d rather keep my passport with me at all times. I can only imagine how much of a hassle it would be if I lost my passport on a cycle trip.

My hotel in Diên Hông is one of those that insists on keeping passports, and I face a bit of an uphill battle getting it back from the receptionist when I check out. I’m standing at the desk waiting to have my passport returned, while she is getting more and more animated, pointing to the door and saying ‘You go outside !’ Not until I get my bloody passport back ! I grab my room keys again and tell her that I’m going back upstairs to check, but a thorough search reveals that it’s definitely not in my room. While I’m up there I type ‘You have my passport’ into Google Translate so that there’s no doubt about what I’m trying to tell her. By now I’ve decided that I’m going to wait at reception and cause a fuss for as long as it takes to get my passport back. Then, when I do go back downstairs, she calmly hands me back my passport as if nothing had happened. How strange.

Today I’ve left myself a short cycle of only 47km before I reach the city of Vinh and it’s half million inhabitants. I’m still on the flat, busy QL1A road, but this afternoon I get to turn inland and ride through some hills, which provides a welcome change. I also get rained on briefly for the first time on this trip, although it’s more refreshing than soaking. In Vinh I’m staying in the fabulously named Tokyo Hotel 2, which has a ground floor car park for scooters next to reception. I ask about my bike and am given the standard line that it will be safe in their car park. There’s nothing solid to chain it to though, so I just feed my lock through the frame and rear wheel. Now it can’t be ridden, but someone could still steal it just by lifting the bike and walking away. This fact plays on my mind for the next hour, so I return to the car park and move the bike upstairs to my room, much to the bewilderment of the reception woman.

I go for a stroll and find a nice walking path round the almost rectangular Lake Goong. As I’m wandering along the urban lakeside, a guy in his twenties stops me, introduces himself and asks if he can speak English with me so that he can practice. In some places this might be seen as a prelude to a scam, but I’ve found that in Vietnam it’s a fairly common request and is totally genuine. His English is patchy, but if there’s anything he can’t understand he gets me to write it down in a little notebook that he seems to carry around for just that purpose. It appears that he can read English to a decent standard, but can’t understand spoken English so well. He tags along with me until I reach the street that my accommodation is on, shakes my hand and then departs, looking quite pleased with his afternoon’s work.

At night I go for food, ordering a big rice meal from the first Plastic Chair Cafe that I find. Through a pantomime of pointing and Thumbs Up gestures, I manage to choose beef patties as the main meal. Once again, I’ve got no real clue what is going to accompany this, so I’m pleasantly surprised when they just keep bringing me little plates of food. I get a beef and broccoli mix, steamed rice, bok choy, soup and some sort of unidentified pickled veg. They offer me a can of coke to drink, but I get the feeling that’s only because they think all Westerners drink coke. I’m also given a small empty bowl, as you’re meant to take ingredients from all the larger bowls and transfer them, bit by bit, into this smaller bowl to eat them. I only know this because the lady owner shows me how it’s meant to be done. Nevertheless, they are very friendly and patient with this curious Westerner who can barely use his chopsticks. I’m happy too, especially as the whole meal comes to a grand total of £2.50.

The following morning I decide to have a Rest Day in Vinh, before what I think will be four days of cycling to take me up to New Year and the Tết Holiday. I try to contact a couple of Vinh locals on Couchsurfing, but in the end it’s an Algerian teacher named Amine who gets back to me. He tells me he’s a vegan, so we arrange to meet up at a vegetarian cafe about ten minutes walk from where I’m staying.

When I get there it turns out he’s not a vegan at all. He’s not even vegetarian. He’s a Muslim. He tells me he only pretends he’s vegan because he finds it too difficult explaining to Vietnamese that he can’t eat pork or that he needs Halal meat. He’s not fanatically religious though, and says as a teenager he stopped going to mosque for about ten years because he always questioned why he had to behave in a certain way. He wouldn’t just settle for the fact that the Koran told him not to eat pork, he always wanted to know WHY. This search for reasons led to many conflicts with a frustrated Imam, and to Amine becoming disillusioned with his religion. In the end he drifted back into it of his own accord in his early twenties. Nowadays he says that most things in the Koran do actually have a reason behind them, so consequently he’s happy to follow them. Fair Enough. I can respect that a lot more than someone who just blindly follows what they’re told to believe.

We have a rice meal, with all the side dishes coming in the form of veggies or tofu, which is a pleasant change for me after all my recent meat consumption. Amine is here in Vietnam teaching English, and his big ambition is to open his own language school once he returns to Algeria. For New Year he’s hoping to hitch-hike his way down to the big coastal city of Da Nang, which should be easy enough for him. It will also be much quicker and a lot more comfortable than cycling

I leave Vinh the next day on a long straight-ish road out of town, cross over a river and stop for breakfast within twenty minutes of setting off. A Plastic Chair Cafe under a highway overpass provides the setting for my usual Bún (noodle soup) breakfast. On this occasion it’s beef noodle soup, which is a simple and filling meal, although starting to become a trifle monotonous.

Today I manage to get off the main QL1A road for a while and through a hilly, forested area. Outside one village there are a handful of water buffalo grazing next to a track that leads from the highway. I pull onto the track to take some pictures of the beasts, but I’m still a bit wary of them and don’t venture too close. They look like they’re tied to a fence, but I can’t be too sure. Part of me thinks they might have much the same characteristics as Highland Cows – horned and potentially fearsome, but just docile old stoners in reality. Some on-line research has told me that domesticated and wild water buffalo are actually a separate species. Nonetheless, If I’m ever in a position to tell the difference, then that will probably be too close.

Once I descend from these small hills, I’m back to cycling through acres of flat, green rice paddies. The fields are divided into rectangles and are in different stages of the growing process. Some are still only muddy fields, some have rows of small, green seedlings poking through and some are covered in taller, lush stalks. I sometimes see the rice workers riding old, clapped-out bicycles and then leaving them at the roadside while they jump off and tend to their field. It’s quite comforting to know they can just abandon their bike on the road verge and be sure it will still be there when they return. It must be tedious, back-breaking work though, spending hours bent over, ankle deep in water and replanting each seedling one by one. Most of the workers are wearing large round hats that taper into a shallow cone shape at the top to shade them from the sun. Seeing a group of rice workers in the fields, labouring under these pale-coloured conical hats is such an iconic postcard image of rural Vietnam.

I reach the busy city of Hà Tĩnh and check in to a large, plain looking hotel that has the feeling of an old communist style government building. My bike is left in the hotel lobby, chained to a luggage trolley, with the receptionist promising that she’ll keep an eye on it. In the evening I turn my attention to the issue of where I’m going to spend New Year. This is far from straightforward as virtually all businesses close for a few days over the Tết Holiday. Even finding places open for food while I’m cycling might be as big a problem as finding accommodation. In the end I manage to find a Homestay in the coastal city of Đồng Hới and book in there for two nights. This gives me two days to cover the remaining 150km, which hopefully shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The alternative to reaching Đồng Hới is that I’ll be stranded with nowhere else open at New Year if I don’t. So there’s my motivation.

28th JANUARY 2019

Lunar New Year (Tết) is fast approaching in Vietnam. On the road I’ve seen markets and streets lined colourfully with people selling kumquat trees and peach blossom. Having these trees in your home during Tết is a symbol of good luck and prosperity for the New Year, although their transportation often leads to them being precariously and comically balanced on the rear of motorbikes. A couple of people had advised me against cycling in the run up to Tết as Vietnamese roads get so busy and dangerous during that week. I’m not sure if I’d notice any difference.

When I’m about to check out of my Homestay, Hương asks if I’d like to take part in a Tết tradition. She tells me that one week before New Year it is customary for Vietnamese families to release three goldfish into open fresh water, whether it be lakes, rivers or wetlands. Apparently today is the day that the Kitchen God returns to heaven on a carp to report on the deeds of the household over the past year. It’s traditionally believed that releasing fish will help him on his way. Hương’s family bought their goldfish a few days previously and now I’m ferrying them down to the water on the back of her scooter.

We make a short trip to the wetlands of the nature reserve, park her scooter and walk down to a low concrete jetty. I open the bag and ceremoniously tip the goldfish out for their short drop into the water. The fish swim down towards the lake bed and are soon out of sight. There’s plenty of reeds and water plants further out for them to take refuge in, but I know there’s also plenty of hungry wading birds that will welcome their arrival. I’m not sure if I’ve released the fish or simply sacrificed them. At least they stand a chance in here as the water is clean – the goldfish being released today at West Lake in Hanoi won’t last very long in that polluted water. Once I get past my animal welfare concerns, I start to feel quite priveleged that my host family asked me to release their fish. This is normally a family tradition, so I’m grateful to have been given the honour.

Then, boosted by my eight-pancake breakfast, I rejoin the main road South again for a 77km ride to the city of Thanh Hóa. The road is busy and noisy once more, but that is going to be the case until I can meander off onto quieter routes. My accommodation tonight is in the oddly named Ngoc Ly 8 Hotel, a tall, thin yellow building that’s shaped like an irregular pentagon. There’s an old bloke sitting at a wooden table outside who looks like he could be some sort of retired security guard. He tells me just to leave my bike unlocked on the ground floor alongside a handful of parked scooters. So far I’ve found that most Vietnamese view their local area as completely safe and it’s unthinkable for them that my bike might be stolen. In truth, I would feel a lot happier leaving my bike unlocked here than in the UK, but then I would spend all night worrying about it if I did. The result is that I push the bike in behind a pair of scooters and chain it to some piping just to be sure.

At night I wander out for some food, down a street with a brilliant hanging lantern display, bright and multi-coloured in preparation for the Tết holiday. I stop at a Lau restaurant for a Hot Pot meal, thinking that I’m an expert now after trying it only once before. However, I’m confused at first as my broth doesn’t seem to be reaching boiling point and, therefore, won’t get hot enough to cook my food. It turns out the tiny gas canister on my burner is almost empty. We rectify that, but a series of communication problems mean that I end up with extra tofu and mushrooms that I didn’t really want. This hikes up the price of the meal, but at least now I’m so stuffed that I probably won’t need any food tomorrow.

As predicted, I don’t even consider breakfast the following morning after the excess of my consumption last night. I continue South towards the coast, with the terrain flat as a snooker table and the temperature gradually creeping up by a few degrees. I’ve only cycled 200km so far, but I can already sense that I’m leaving the cool, grey skies of a Hanoi winter behind. A further 94km pass under my wheels today as I reach the town of Diên Hông, the final 20km at a snail’s pace. I check into a hotel just off the main street and ask the receptionist to recommend somewhere for tonight’s dinner.

I follow her instructions, turning left onto the main street, although it’s dark now and looks like nothing is open. The street seems unusually quiet, but I do manage to find a narrow opening that leads from the pavement and straight into someone’s front room. The only sign that I might be able to eat there is a row of three tables in the passageway surrounded by tiny plastic chairs. Imaginatively, I have started to call these places ‘Plastic Chair Cafes’. There are no customers and no signs of life inside, so I’m not altogether hopeful when I venture inside and shout ‘Hello ?’

A woman in her thirties appears and I motion ‘Food ?’ She nods. From then on things become a bit more difficult as she speaks virtually no English and I speak no Vietnamese. I can just about ask for basic rice dishes, noodles or soup, but I fancy something a bit different tonight. In the end she uses her phone to show me pictures of various dishes and I point to one that looks quite appetising, but that I’ve never encountered before. The woman goes off to cook my food, while her ten year old son keeps running up and laughing at the strange Westerner sitting outside his home. I try to say Hello, but he just goes all shy and runs away.

When my food arrives I’m not quite sure what to make of it ! I’m given a bowl of what looks like a light brown curry sauce topped with chillies, peanuts and coriander. It’s the ‘protein’ part of the meal that is a worry. In amongst the sauce there are about twenty small, oval-shaped morsels, mostly an off-white, yellowy colour, but with darker circles in their midst. Jesus, are they eyeballs ? Or could they even be testicles ? They are certainly the correct size and shape ! I prod them around a bit and have a closer look before finally working out what they are. I’m pretty sure they look similar to the fertilised duck egg I tried in Hanoi, only on a smaller scale. They have to be fertilised quail’s eggs. Don’t they ?

I’m still slightly apprehensive before biting into one, and I am somewhat relieved when it tastes of nothing more than egg. It has more substance to it than a normal egg and is disturbingly chewy, but it is, thankfully, just an egg. Despite the knowledge of what I’m eating, they taste really good, especially with the sauce. This is all washed down with a Viet Quat smoothie, which looked like a chocolate smoothie on the menu, but turns out to be blueberry.

Then, unbeknownst to me, it appears that I have ordered a second course. At the start, when my host was showing me food pictures on her phone I must have sounded enthusiastic about this next meal too. Showing such an interest was probably a mistake as this has been lost in translation as me wanting to place an order. It arrives as a more straightforward dish of noodles, salad, sausage, tiny meatballs and what looks like chorizo slices. This is a decent meal too, but it’s almost a little bland after the surprise contents of my first bowl. The two course meal and drink comes to a ridiculously cheap £2.70, which is a small price to pay for the experience I’ve just had. Awkwardly, I had no real idea what I was ordering until it arrived at my table, and somehow even managed to get the smoothie flavour wrong. I’m starting to realise that with my language barrier, I had better get used to this choosing meals by Lucky Dip, because it’s destined to become a theme on this trip.

 

 

26th JANUARY 2019

I’m finally going to be cycling out of Hanoi today. This moment has been a long time coming, and almost two weeks of anticipation has me up at 7.00am in readiness. The wonderful Bich makes my last breakfast at the Homestay and takes my photo before I depart. When I say Goodbye she tells me to wait a moment, before she pops back inside and returns with a packed lunch of mini bananas, watermelon, sweets and coke for me. It’s a really nice touch and should keep me going most of the day.

Then I leave the quiet little oasis of the Hanoi Sweet Family Homestay and join a throng of market day Saturday traffic. It’s not even 9.00am yet and the streets are choc-a-bloc with vehicles of every description – cars, buses, lorries, bikes, scooters. Hundreds of scooters. Luckily, the route I take out of the city is actually pretty straightforward. After only a couple of turns I’m able to join the QL1A, which is the main road that runs the length of the country all the way to Ho Chi Minh City. By sticking to this road today it means I won’t have to worry about taking wrong turns or getting lost.

The downside is that this road is almost gridlocked as we crawl along between junctions and traffic lights. Scooters and motorbikes jump onto the pavement in an effort to get past, often through queues of waiting bus passengers. Buses themselves will overtake every vehicle in the slow lane, only to slam on their brakes and pull in to a bus stop right in front of us. Horns are continually blaring and most drivers just carry straight on through red lights. It becomes a difficult thing to police if everyone is doing it. I notice that many scooter and motorbike riders have masks over the lower half of their faces to protect them from breathing in vehicle fumes. The road is completely chaotic, yet we all seem to be slowly moving in the direction we want. I stay close to the right hand side of the street, trying to keep out of everyone’s way as much as I can.

The traffic does abate slightly as I get further from Hanoi, although it’s still noisy and busy by normal standards. Sections of this road has toll booths, which certainly helps to thin out the traffic, though there are always small open gates at the side so scooters and bikes can nip through without paying. Since I left Hanoi there have been buildings lining the road all the way South, making it difficult to tell where one town stops and the next one begins. The only time there is a break in the buildings is when the railway line appears and follows the road for a while. The road is astonishingly flat too. I’ve been concentrating so much on the busy traffic that I’ve barely noticed the flatness.

Tonight I’m staying at another Homestay, a few kilometres off the main road at the Van Long Nature Reserve. I’m not far from the turn-off when I start to feel a little drained, worn down today by the traffic and humidity. I’ve finished all of Bich’s packed lunch by this point and most of my water. The last 10km are ridden in slow motion, but I’m OK with that as it’s my first big cycle for over a month.

I turn off the main road, reach the small village of Mai Trung and find the Van Long Family Homestay hidden down a narrow, unsurfaced street. An elderly Vietnamese couple greet me warmly in the courtyard, even though we can barely understand each other. They defer to their twenty-something son, Hiep, who has a much better grasp of English. The Homestay’s set up comprises two newish buildings behind the family home, in what was once a large rear garden. My room is right at the back, surrounded by lush, tropical garden and looks to be far more luxurious than its £9 per night price tag.

Hiep pours me a Vietnamese tea at their outdoor dining area and we sit down for a chat. He seems impressed that I’ve managed to cycle all the way from Hanoi, given that its not even 3.00pm yet. I try to be modest, but I’m also quietly impressed by how well today’s cycling has gone. He then asks if I’d like to go on a short bike ride so he can show me round the area. As I’ve just spent all day on a bicycle, this doesn’t strike me as the greatest idea, but I take him up on his offer anyway.

We cycle along dirt tracks, past small, family-owned fish lakes and rice fields that are being irrigated and prepared for planting. The walkways and tracks that we’re now cycling on are just thin ribbons of raised ground amidst a myriad of muddy fields. We stop to chat with a woman who is a relative of Hiep’s and working knee deep in the muddy water, readying the ground for rice. Behind her are two massive, bulky water buffalo, tethered to the flimsiest looking stakes I’ve ever seen. The beasts appear peaceful, but I find their sheer size intimidating. Hiep takes me through the tiny village where he lives, before we emerge at the edge of the nature reserve itself. I’m almost awe-struck at the sight of a large wetland area backed by tall, limestone mountains. It looks a bit like an inland Ha Long Bay. We ride along this spectacular waterside for a short distance and then loop back towards the Homestay. Hiep has gone above and beyond taking the time to show me round, and I’m so glad that I got back on my bike.

Dinner that evening is amazing, all freshly prepared by Hiep’s sister, Hương. I have four home-made spring rolls, probably the largest and tastiest I’ve ever eaten, along with some delicious battered fish. This is accompanied by pineapple salad, steamed bok choy and rice. There’s a spicy dipping sauce, a soy sauce. a fish sauce, chillies and lime. I really like the fish sauce, which is just as well as it seems to be the sauce of choice in Vietnam. I retire to my room happy and stuffed, and reflect on the contrast in my surroundings over the last twelve hours or so. This morning I was getting stressed out by a hectic and noisy ride out of Hanoi, whereas now I’m in a quiet rural village listening to the sound of frogs croaking outside my room. I couldn’t be further from the madding crowd.

As it’s such a lovely spot I’ve stumbled upon, I ask Hiep if I can spend an extra day at the Homestay. I’m their only paying guest so he’s happy to oblige. At this rate it’s going to take me an awful long time to cycle right down the country. Breakfast is pancakes. Lots of them. Served with sugar and honey and home cooked by Hương. In the late morning I walk much the same route that I cycled with Hiep yesterday, but this time venture a bit further into the nature reserve. In the afternoon I go for a spin towards Hoa Lư which was once the capital of Vietnam, albeit one thousand years ago. I briefly join the big main road again, before a minor road takes me into farming land alongside a flat, grey river. Cycling past crops, rice fields and grazing water buffalo takes me to a riverside village that lies in the shadow of tall, imposing limestone cliffs. When I cycle through the village and reach Hoa Lư, it appears that a wide, stone entrance gate with a pagoda-style roof is all that remains of the old capital. I’m not sure this was worth a 30km round trip, but there’s also a couple of Buddhist temples nearby that pique my interest instead.

Back at the Homestay Hương has cooked up a batch of fresh chicken noodles, which are tasty but can’t compare to the grand scale of yesterday’s feast. For some reason tonight’s shower is cold, and this results in a comedy of swearing and hyperventilating each time I dive under the freezing water flow. To make up for this, my bed might well be the comfiest I’ve ever slept in. It would be all too easy to spend another day in these comfortable surroundings. However, if I want to ride the length of this country, I need to get my cycle head on again pretty quickly.