07 Sep - Da Lat to Nha Trang

I haven’t written for a couple of days because basically it gets pretty hard to find the time when your days are jam packed full of cycling, travelling, end of day drinks and a meal, and of course packing up most days to move on to the next town.

The cycling has really ramped up since my last post, and every day has been the hottest days cycling I’ve done, with each day being in the high 30’s and getting up in to the low 40’s on some days.

I need to make it clear that we are not riding from Saigon to Hanoi, with a bus traipsing along behind us with our bags in it.  We are doing a ride most days, but we usually start off the day in the bus, and end the day in the bus.  When you’re riding in these sorts of temperatures, on the bikes we’re riding on, there’s a limit to how much you can do, and more importantly how much you should do.  The heat and humidity can affect people in different ways, and I don’t want to be out of riding for several days, because I overdo it on one day.  I don’t think all the group share this sentiment, but we seem to have a good crew in the bus after lunch – when the heat is at its highest, and you've got a belly full of freshly consumed food, so not a particularly good combination for cycling.

Da Lat is the flower capital of Vietnam, and the flowers they grow in Da Lat end up in the flower markets all over the world – even in the Netherlands – surely the home of flowers.  The flower production is on a truly epic scale, and as we left Da Lat, the flower gardens, which are all covered in to protect them from the wind, were visible from the windows of the bus.

Flower gardens everywhere

The day we left Da Lat has to be my best days cycling ever.  We took the bus out of town, and then got on the bikes to ride over what Cuong describes as undulating roads.  We are up high in the mountains, and the roads have all had a moderate gradient, so it’s been a matter of just grinding away until the upward undulation turns into a downward undulation. 

The scenery was very like New Zealand unbelievably – very green, beautiful mountain and valley vistas, pine trees – it really did feel very much like home, apart from the high 30’s temperatures.  I stopped periodically and took photos, rode with people some of the time, rode by myself at other times – you very much set your own pace, and it’s hard to ride at someone else’s pace.  We have a bus and a truck supporting us, the bus being at the front, and the truck being the sag wagon at the rear. 

Anyway, it was on todays ride that we had the most amazing downward undulation – 26ks of it, and it was magnificent.  I even decided that the downhill was so long that I needed to get into a tuck position or it would take all day to get down, and that was heaps of fun.  The scenery on the descent was fantastic as was some of the traffic I met on the way down.  I loved this road sign, particularly as I had met a car passing a bus on my side on the road on a blind corner - such is driving in Vietnam. 

Beware of cars passing trucks

 Here are some other sights that I stopped and took photos of on the way down.  We passed the two guys on the scooters with the big pieces of timber.  They had obviously salvaged them from somewhere in the forest and were now getting them back to town.  They looked hilarious, and it's an Asian thing that everything that can be done with a vehicle can be done with a 150cc motor scooter.  (Today, which is three days later, I even saw a man taking a clothes washing machine on the back of his scooter.  The balance the item on the back seat of the scooter, and putting a hand over their shoulder they hold onto what ever it is - a washing machine in this case - hilarious).

Evan getting the same photo

Here are some pictures of the scenery we got to look at on the way down – that is when we didn’t have our noses over the front of the handlebars and our bodies in a tight tuck on the top tube of the bike.  Because of the variability of the road surface, and the unpredictability of the local drivers, you always had to keep a bit in reserve in case the unexpected happened, but fortunately for me, it was all just one big enjoyable downhill ride.  The other guys on the tour, who had all been to Europe for the TdF, were all a gush about how great a downhill it was, and said that although close it was better than anything they’d done in Europe.

Big vistas were a feature of the day

And now the panormamic version

As we approached the valley floor, we descended through a narrow valley, that was completely protected from the wind, but completely unprotected from the sun.  As a consequence, the heat soared, and the riding was like being in an oven.  There was a few kms to go along the flat before we got to lunch, and by the time I got to the restaurant, all the cycle computers were registering over 40 degrees Celsius.  We had a very enjoyable lunch, before getting back on the bikes for what should have been just a final 20kms for the day.  I road the first 10 kms, then decided to call it quits for the day – we were riding in the heat of the day, I was finding it impossible to cool down, and had no idea of what the final 10ks would be like.  As it turned out, it was straight and flat and boring, so I didn’t feel that I missed much in missing the last ride.  We were driven to our hotel in Nga Trang, where I was very glad to get into a shower and cool down.

At dinner that night, we visited a very local restaurant, which was a local BBQ restaurant.  Only about hoalf of the group came along, as the restaurant had had some less than favourable reviews on Trip Advisor.  Those of us that did go along were in for a real "locals" treat.  We got to BBQ our own food - beef, goat, prawns and fish.  It was really fun, if not the white table cloth affair that the non attenders would have liked.  

Ian being the master of the BBQ

Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant - down to the plastic chairs

Plenty of variety on that BBQ

The next day, we had a short 25k ride out to the beach, where we spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun, swimming, talking, reading books, enjoying a few drinks, and once again enjoying some excellent Vietnamese BBQ'd food.

Throw another prawn on the Barbie

Enjoying a beer on the beach

Relaxation time