February 12 – 13, 2013

We had another sleepless night due to Chandler’s cough and another early morning as we had to pick up our bikes. The hotel called us a cab and explained the situation. Once we got to the bus depot, the cabbie called the bus driver, found the right bus, dropped us off and left.

After a few minutes of standing around, not knowing what to do, someone came to help us. We explained that our bikes were on the bus but nobody to get them out. The man who came to help said everyone was sleeping on the bus and to just knock on the door and wake them up. I ended up opening the door and shouting for somebody to get up and get our bikes. We got the bikes, but nobody looked very happy to have been disturbed.

When they packed our bikes into the underbelly of the bus, they took Chandler’s seat off. We didn’t bring any tools with us, but the hotel was only a couple miles away. He was able to get the seat on, but when he tried straightening the seatpost, the bolt holding the seat on snapped in half. We spent most of the day trying to find a bolt for the seatpost. A number of hardware stores had their doors open, but were full of family socializing during Tet. In no uncertain terms they told us to buzz off when Chan showed them his broken bolt and seat. We finally found a moto repair shop that enthusiastically “fixed” the problem by cross threading the seatpost clamp with slightly too large a bolt, a scrap of sheet metal as a shim and the healthy use of a big (F’ing) hammer. It is hard to explain how it happens, but once a Vietnamese person starts to “fix” something of yours it is impossible to intervene.

Checking out the situation

Chandler looks concerned

We spent the rest of the day biking around town seeing the sights.

Bridges

Ice cream of questionable flavors

Tet crowd

The next day was for relaxing. We spent the morning on the beach reading until it started raining.

Coffee on the beach

Looks like rain clouds

We spent the afternoon doing some much needed bike maintenance.

Tighten the cassette

Might be time for a cleaning

We had dinner at very small restaurant which was also a surf shop near the beach. They had the best noodles and tofu. We got sucked into staying an additional two hours because of the owner. She was a teenager during the war and had some amazing stories from her life. She was very pro-American, which was kind of surprising to us. We went to bed and got some rest. The next day is a short ride south to the touristy town of Hoi An.

February 11, 2013

The purity of our cycling trip has been broken again. We cycled from Rayong, Thailand to Saigon, Vietnam, then took a bus to Dalat. After riding down to Nha Trang we looked at the map and realized again, that Vietnam is pretty big. Our visas expire on the 24th of February and there is still a lot of country to see. Chandler has been feeling pretty bad, and dragging while cycling in the heat. He really needs to rest if he is going to get better. We read a number of accounts online from people riding down highway 1, raving about the very strong tailwind headed south. (Good for them!) After a brief amount of consideration we decided to fast forward to Danang, a port city in central Vietnam.

Our hotel called around and found that it was impossible for us to travel with our bikes north because of Tet. They could book us on a train, and send our bikes as cargo on a bus a few days later. We were pretty much out of options at this point and decided to go ahead with the somewhat sketchy plan. We gave the lady at the hotel about $60 and hoped for the best. Later that evening she gave us two train tickets.

At 5am the next day, the a taxi picked us up at the hotel and delivered us at the train station without our bikes. The hotel was going to handle sending them north for us, which, needless to say was a bit stressful for us!

Finding our train and car at the station was straightforward, but finding our seats was another issue. The doors were only open on the end of the car furthest from our seats . We had to get our 8 panniers and 2 handle bar bag “purses” through an obstacle course of people and things. There were about 4 people laying on the ground sleeping and a huge pile of vegetables, all in the middle of the aisle.

Crowded aisle

I managed to step on only one person and we got settled quickly. The train pulled away from the station and we had only one person sharing our seating area. At the first stop, he left and a family took his place. The patriarch and model father of this family unit had absolutely zero concept of a personal bubble. He would extend his legs out physically forcing Chandler’s into the aisle then refuse to move when food vendors wheeled their carts by, forcing Chan to hover until they passed. He put his feet up across the space between us, resting his nasty socked feet on our seat against Chan’s hip. He also had a little routine he was quite proud of, where he would drink an entire 12oz bottle of water in one gulp then triumphantly toss the bottle out the window.

Bored on the train

The trash is something that has really bothered us about Vietnam. The landscape is generally gorgeous, but the sides of the roads are strewn with garbage. At home, in the US, there is a lot of trash of the side of the road too, but here there is such a flippancy associated with littering, it drives our western minds a little bonkers. Water bottles out the train window, no big deal. Finished with a soda? Toss that can in the bushes! Driving down the road in your Lexus? Styrofoam takeaway container out the window!

The guy even tried convincing me to throw our yogurt containers out the window since they were cluttering up the little table in our area and he seemed a little shocked when Chan got up and tossed them in a trashcan less than 20ft away. (Who knows where the trashcan waste goes after that, but at least we’re trying) What makes this place truly bizarre is that people are borderline fanatical about keeping their personal areas clean, constantly sweeping in front of their homes and businesses, even the sweeping the street in front of where they live, but there is no problem absolutely trashing communal or “public” spaces. Unbelievable.

Just enough space to throw your trash out

The toilet on the train was a hole in the floor, with everything emptying directly onto the tracks. Each car also had a freshening up room with just a sink. We saw a number of people take their children into these rooms to pee on the floor. With no drain, the pee would drain out into the aisle as the train shifted. No five second rule here.

The other aspect of the train we despised was the cigarette smoke. For some reason, people would smoke between the two cars were there were no windows. The smoke would then go to the closest window to escape which was ours. Gross.

When the litterbug family left, Chandler and I had the two benches to ourselves for the remaining 6 hours. It was nice to be able to stretch out a bit, but the seats were extremely uncomfortable. Basically, we sat on wooden park benches for 11 hours.

Our comfy seat

As much as I’ve just complained, the train ride wasn’t all bad. We read the entire time. We both started and finished an entire book. The scenery was beautiful. Lots of mountains and rice fields. It is incredible how Vietnam is so green. We were also reminded exactly why we like riding our bikes so much.

Rice fields

Reading

We hailed a taxi when we finally got to Da Nang and got a hotel near the beach. It was a ways out of town, but worth it because it was so quiet. Once settled, Chandler received an email from our hotel in Nha Trang that our bikes were on a bus and we could get them at 6am the next morning from the bus depot! Awesome!

February 8, 2013

We got up at 630 so we could have breakfast and be ready to get my shoes early. The girl who was bringing them, Cana, was supposed to arrive at 730. I called her at 730 and she said she would meet me at the bus station that had her shoes. She didn’t sound very happy about the situation and I was a little nervous about meeting her. We said goodbye to Leonie, promising to email when we get to Amsterdam and headed out.

When we got to the station there were a lot of people vying for the single attendant’s attention. Somehow, I manage to stand out and got helped pretty quickly. The guy called the hotel and figured out the situation and told me to come back in 15 minutes. After 40 minutes, still no shoes and no Cana. We were beginning to feel that we might end up spending another night in Dalat. Then suddenly, I was given her shoes, she showed up on her motorbike and we made the swap. Success!

She gave us directions to a couple stores where we could pick up packaged goods as we were planning on camping that night. After making a few purchases, she showed up at the store and invited us to lunch. At this point, it had been a while since we had breakfast, so we decided it would be a good idea to refuel. Cana ended up being totally cool and we had a pleasant meal with her.

Despite such a late start, we decided to see how far we could bike. The biking out of town was a bit painful, hot and hilly with lots of traffic but we found ourselves on a newly paved quite road pretty quickly. The day turned out to be very nice. There was a constant breeze which was cool, I never had a chance to overheat. We were feeling strong and had no problem with the hills we encountered.

Cemetery hill

Coffee beans to be roasted

House

A pretty big pass that topped out at 1600m was coming up, but at 330pm we decided to set up camp and conquer the pass the next day. We turned onto a dirt road and found a cleared area in the woods. It was a perfect camping spot with big trees for Chan’s hammock and far enough from the road that it was very quiet. We set up the tent, I blew up the sleeping mats and we settled in to read.

Campsite #1

About an hour later, I heard a noise that was familiar enough that I got a little alarmed.

“Chandler, what’s that sound?”
“Uhh, sounds like a fire”
“Doesn’t it seem a little loud?”

So, we walked down the hill looking into the valley where the noise we coming from. Sure enough, we saw a huge billow of smoke and the noise got even louder. We discussed our options for about two minutes before realizing the wind was blowing towards us. In that short period the whole valley had filled with smoke. Time to pack up.

Bikes looking good

At this point, it was 500pm and the sun would be setting soon. We went around a few more bends in the road and found a hill with road on three sides. We figured this would be a good buffer against any fire danger. We hustled to set up camp as the sun was starting to set. We now had a good view of the fire we had just left behind and the fire on the other of the valley ahead of us.

Fire behind us

Fire in front of us

Chandler set up his hammock again and I blew up the sleeping pads again. We both laid down to read when we heard a new noise. A motorbike coming up the hill towards us. Two boys had come to enjoy a bottle of something.

We hoped they would drink their something and leave. No such luck. They came over and asked for a lighter, then decided to bring the party over to us. They lit a fire with the dry grass on the ground and insisted Chandler take sips of their drink, which turned out to be rice liquor. We figured we would be friendly and just let the fire go out and they would leave. Nope. They started it back up. One of the boys was entertaining and very nice, we learned some Vietnamese and taught him some English. The other boy was stupid and had too much to drink. He would wander off to pee or puke and end up falling into the brush. At one point, he grabbed some flaming grass and began running around with it near our tent. Our tent is made of nylon and would melt in an instant if he caught it on fire. I ended up following him around stomping out sparks.

Chandler kept asking them where they were going and when, trying to get them to leave but they didn’t get the hint.

After they finished their booze, they finally left with the drunker of the two driving. While we were happy to see them go, we hoped they made it home safely and also didn’t come back. We put out the fire and got into the tent to read. We kept imagining that any noise we heard was the boys coming back to “hang out” again.

Eventually, we fell asleep. What a wonderfully, cold night it was too. We had to get out our down jackets.