Day 236
Getting out of Dien Bien Phu is a bit of a chore, there’s some major road building going on and a lot of the smaller roads have been dug up, the changes are not yet on the maps. After that I ignore Komoot’s route suggestion of two climbs to 1,500 m and stick to the main road which is not too busy. The second one is unavoidable and a long slow slog to the top. There’s a homestay near the pass, but as the next bit is downhill I think I’ll have enough left in the tank to get to the first big town, Thuan Chau, where there’s a choice of guest houses and the chance of some proper food. I finish the day having climbed 2,200 m in 125 km.
Day 237
Another day of multiple climbs, none as high as yesterday so I make good progress. The landscape is made up of very steep rocky hills, covered in thick forest, which the road winds its way between. Gradients are regularly 8–10% and the totally overladen lorries struggle, often going up as slowly as I do.
Near the end of the day the overnight options look uninviting so I decide to push on to the tourist town at Moc Chau, which should be the last climb before descending to the flat lowlands around Hanoi.
Day 238
I have around 200 km to Hanoi on the main road, maybe too much for one day but two quite short days if it’s flat. I’ve seen some comments that the back roads are nice with some good panoramic views, so I decide to take the slightly more meandering route out of Moc Chau. However it turns out the roads are narrow with poor surfaces and no barriers, making it quite hairy when there’s a lorry. Also the panoramic view is non-existent on account of the very thick fog. After the route takes me on several mud tracks I revert back to the main road.
I was very wrong about having done all the climbing before Hanoi, there’s the White Stone Pass to cross and it’s quite a climb. After that I look for somewhere to stay and end up on a “Science Park”, basically a mini nature reserve with cabins. I’m the only person staying between Christmas and New Year, but it’s comfortable and well equipped for £3.80 a night.
Day 239
The final leg to Hanoi is definitely flat, and with more options for roads the back route this time is lovely, through many small villages and past the rice fields. Hanoi traffic is absolutely crazy and my digs are in the centre, where I arrive a little shell-shocked but unharmed.
Day 242
The New Year fireworks in Hanoi are a bit underwhelming and again I feel I’ve stayed longer than necessary. Leaving the hotel in the morning the receptionist asks where I’m going. “Ho Chi Minh City, that’s nice”, she says, then thinks for a moment. “But what are you going to do with your bike?”
Like any major city, getting out of Hanoi is a bit of a pain, though navigation is easy just following the train line south and I’m not constantly steered towards a motorway. In fact I follow the train line most of the day, so the ride is almost completely flat, the mountains are visible to the right, the sea is on the left but I don’t get close enough to see it.
The forecast has been for rain most of the day, luckily it’s mostly spits and spots apart from a short downpour where I shelter with a dozen motorcyclists who seem to have come out with no rain gear. Other than a puncture the day is uneventful. There are quite a few utility cyclists here where it is flat, and I’m getting fewer waves and shouts than in the mountains.
Day 243
The rest of the week was supposed to be dry but that’s changed and I get drizzle for hours which is quite miserable. When I stop for refreshments a guy wants to show how impressed he is with my cycling he insists on squeezing my knees, repeatedly.
Most times I’ve stopped for a coffee or street food, they insist on giving me something extra as a gift, usually fruit. Today I was briefly chatting with a man on an electric scooter, then I passed him when he stopped in the town. He then caught me up again, holding out a bag of sweet dumplings that he’d bought for me, in case I was hungry. Quite bizarre but very nice.
I stop early on account of the rain and stay at the four-star Grand Hotel & Spa (£30, breakfast included), it’s seen better days and is a bit spooky as there are a small handful of people staying here, far fewer than the number of staff.
Day 244
It’s raining when I wake up and I consider staying put, but it stops and brightens up so I set off, continuing south on the QL1. However it’s not long before I’m once again sheltering from a sudden downpour. When my boots fill with water I decide to cut the day short and stop at Hah Tinh and wash the mud off everything.
Spencer messages to say he’s not left Hanoi yet. Probably a wise move.
Day 245
It’s raining yet again early on, but this time it clears up properly so it’s just a late start. A long blast down the main road, through some tunnels and on to the coast. Near the end of the day I cut off the main road into the dunes only to find that the bridge across the river is still under construction. This turns out to be quite a good thing as the detour through the villages and over the decrepit pontoon bridge is much more interesting. The bridge toll man asks for 5,000 Dong which I very quickly see is the white-man-price, everyone else is paying 1,000. He’s welcome to my 15p.
Vietnam is slightly bonkers, everything is a little surreal, and most people here seem to just be enjoying life. They’re very chatty and will fall into fits of giggles over the slightest thing. The exchange rate makes things stupidly cheap, but unusually that doesn’t equate to the local people being very poor: everyone has new stuff, shiny cars, big houses, the shops are full, and construction is going on everywhere.
Day 246
Leaving Dong Hoi, another late start because of the rain, I stay near the coast for a bit, there are a lot of new roads and bridges being built and I get lost a few times. This isn’t helped by the poor state of the mapping in the whole country. There are major roads marked as residential streets and tracks marked as primary routes. Some dual carriageways have different classifications each side. Added to that the cities and major towns are incorrectly tagged so the map doesn’t match what’s on the road signs and switching between maps (OSM, Google, Booking, etc) is virtually impossible because all the names that show at each scale are different.
My target is to get to Hue, with all the wrong turns and late start I don’t arrive until dark, but from what I can see it looks like a nice place. In the evening I log on to Open Street Map to correct some of the things I’ve made notes on during the day and it’s much worse than expected. The whole map is littered with thousands of random point objects and line objects without any tags. Edits are few and far between, and there doesn’t seem to be any control, for example many points of interest are not labelled with the name but with a short review (like “nice food, slow service”). This sort of thing would be picked up by a moderator in Europe, but there doesn’t seem to be one here.
Day 250
After three days of solid rain it’s finally let up enough to get back on the road. The CL1 again, and I meet a few other cyclists who have decided to switch from the Ho Chi Minh Highway on account of the weather. It’s mostly flat but at the first tunnel I’m stopped by the guard. There are no signs, but I’m not allowed through. I’m a little irritated as I’m faster and better lit than a lot of the scooters allowed through, I have to backtrack to pick up the old road over the top. This and the next one are not too taxing, the third one is definitely closed to everything other than lorries and cars, and it’s a very long way over the top. This road is a favourite with touring motorcyclists, at the pass there are some pill boxes and other fortifications. It takes over two hours to cross, the tunnel would have been about 15 minutes, but I finish the day on a respectable 150 km.
Day 251
Another long day along the CL1, getting gradually closer to Shanghai. Driving standards in this country are appalling. No-one looks before pulling out, they just rely on hearing horns, and everyone beeps their horn constantly. A lot of the CL1 is three lanes in each direction, the left one for normal driving, the right one more of a narrow hard shoulder and used by bikes, and the middle one for overtaking, for either of the others. So a lorry overtaking a car will be hurtling down the middle lane, hand on horn while the bikes pull hard right or risk getting run down. Right of way is to whoever has the loudest horn. There’s a barrier down the centre, so U-turns are normal for anyone joining and wanting to go left, causing swerving and beeping lorries. Any junction, including roundabouts, is a free-for-all, just go if you can, and beep if you can’t, with the predictable snarl-up as everyone just drives on any bit of tarmac that’s empty.
At tea-time I come off the main road towards the coast to find my guest house. There’s no-one here, and eventually after asking around I get let in, but the advertised dinner is not available.
Day 252
I’ve arranged breakfast. Earliest is 8 o’clock, which is very late by Vietnamese standards. In the hotels they start at six, and as late as seven most of the food is gone and the coffee cold. However, there’s no-one here apart from an old man who offers me tea made from yesterday’s leaves at the bottom of the pot. I decline and set off late and hungry.
Back to the main road is through the rice fields. They’re very green here, harvest is next month followed by “burning season”, a time to be avoided. Though Sunday appears to be “burning day” here, rubbish is being set fire to at the side of the road all over the place, much of it plastic with choking fumes. There are two climbs, one unavoidable as the alternative is the tunnel, the second self-inflicted as the choice was 28 km on the main road with the lorries or 18 km in a straight line with a profile that didn’t look too bad. The straight line included a long section of 12% and steeper gradients, a lot of walking.
I’ve booked in to a cheap place on the coast, it didn’t look like much in the pictures, but I get a beautiful clean apartment with my own personal beach and palm trees straight outside. I’m the only person here, there are loads of staff, a decent restaurant, I’m staying.
Day 255
I stayed for a couple of days, partly as I wasn’t feeling 100%. Changed the rear tyre which had done nearly 8,000 km, lots of rubber left but also lots of gashes.
Today’s ride is close to the coast which is quite stunning in parts. I also meet my first Vietnamese touring cyclist, riding to Ho Chi Minh over five days (550 km) with just a little backpack.
Day 256
I’m now about level with the part of the Cambodian border that I’m aiming to cross and I need to decide whether to head inland or carry on down the coast. The inland road goes to the national parks, but also there’s nothing until the first town at 150 km. Checking the route in OSM gives 5,000 m of climbing. This is clearly an over-estimate, so I try Komoot: 4,000 m climbing to finish at an altitude of 1,650 m, and more to the point it tells me “most cyclists ride this route in 4-5 days”. I manage to talk myself out of it: after all it is the middle of winter, I have no idea of the conditions up there.
So another day of riding south, through the paddy fields and palm trees. Looking over to the west the mountains look quite ominous, and the tops are covered with thick cloud.
Day 257
A pleasant but uninspiring ride further down the CL1, it’s getting hot but not stifling, though the humidity is also quite high. The locals are not sure how I’m coping.
At one refreshment stop there’s some consternation and pointing at my bags, only Vietnamese spoken. I do my usual smile and shrug, they get more animated so I pull out Google translate which gives “There’s a man stripping off on the highway, where are your clothes?” I say I didn’t see him. Eventually I work out that some scooter has lost its load, they’ve been picking up clothes and they’re concerned they came out of my panniers.
At Phien Thiet the main road goes inland and I turn off to follow the coast. It’s Resort Central here, the main town is like a poor imitation of Blackpool then there are numerous little resort hotels all along the coast. There are some nice-looking ones but most are either in a state of disrepair or currently being built, a lot of the latter. I’m not sure what all the investment is going to bring, there are some local tourists and it’s also quite popular with Russian package tours (more Russian is spoken than English), but there are nowhere near enough people to support what there is now, let alone the enormous new developments. Surely this is high season, it’s dry and warm this time of year. The coast itself is windy and the sea’s a bit fierce, only a tiny number of people are on the beaches.
Day 258
I start the day finding my bike has disappeared. There’s an attitude here that bikes are treated the same as motorbikes, so they’ve moved it to the motorbike parking area. I’ve been shouted by security guards at for not parking my bike on the road, they don’t believe I can’t just stand it up, and hotels insist I leave it outside, because surely no-one will steal it without the key to start it.
When I find it, I also find it has a slow puncture, so I leave both late and in a bad mood. I do get a lot of willing hands to help with the puncture, but obviously not much actual help as their motorbike tools and pump are no use at all.
My plan now is to follow the smaller roads close to the coast rather than tracking inland to the main road. This is nice, through the dunes then the woodlands, but nothing particularly stunning. I finish some 30 km short of Shanghai/Ho Chi Minh City, which should get me to just before the border tomorrow.
There are a lot of Christian churches and cemeteries here in the south, but like the pizzas the interpretation is somewhat different to the European version.
Day 259
Despite being the iconic city, there’s no real reason to go into the centre of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), so I skirt around the edges but it’s not a particularly pleasant ride. Eventually, some way out, it gets more rural and more fun. I stop at a farm stay 10km from the Cambodian border.
