To Long Thanh. Wind strong and on our nose all day, groan.
Lovely rainbow, oops, its raining. 6.15am.
Sun rays. 6.45am.
My oh my, a jolly hard day. Getting wiser and grab cheap buffet breakfast from the nearest smart hotel as our guest house doesn’t offer anything, not even a bottle of water in the room. Surreptitiously sneak a couple of bread rolls and some ham for morning snacks into our pockets.
Onto the highway at 7:00am and into the full face-on strong wind. It doesn’t relent for the next 132 km heading north. It saps our energy, completely. The route is interesting, trying to stay off the noisy main road and taking the coastal route through the small fishing villages. This area is all sand, beautiful fine, white sand. We pass by colourful tombstones and shrines dotted in amongst the sand dunes and mile after mile of fish farms and shrimp hatcheries. We feel buffeted and wind burnt. Fortunately, as we are heading north it has become much cooler.
11:30 am is lunch stop. All the kids are cycling out of school and a bunch of chaps appear on their mopeds and head for one of the street side eateries. We follow them, reassured that the food must be ok. Another pantomime of pointing and gesticulating and we are served some more pho bo (beef noodle soup), with the accompanying chillies and limes. The table of chaps are served something far more interesting looking and drink lots and lots of cans of beer. A tough day at the office.
Refuelled, we top up with water supplies and carry on. Some of our route takes us on narrow sandy paths through the pine forest. Eventually, we find an undulating tarmac road again, and head down we battle on against the wind. We have a brief respite on some steep uphills before rounding a bend and getting a full blast that even going downhill almost blows us backwards.
The hours do slip by as we stop for frequent breaks for a piece of fruit and a chance to stretch our legs. After 9 hours of replying to every yelled “hello”, we are becoming less cheerful and more irritated by all the loud horns and the loudspeakers in the towns broadcasting a cacophony of bird noises. We still haven’t figured out quite why the Vietnamese do this. It’s hardly as though there is a population of birds trying to roost on their buildings.
Linda is sickened by the continuous stream of trucks transporting live pigs that are hideously crammed in together with legs and snouts poking out through the sides. See a couple of trucks pull over and the pigs hosed down or being given a drink Couldn’t quite tell, only the lucky few on the sides were able to get any benefit.
Roll into the Sa Huynh Resort at 5:30pm, very thankful to be finding our bed for the night before dark, absolutely shattered.
Paul and Linda Cycle 