Here Be Elephants

Well, cycling in Vietnam isn’t getting any more fun so far. Of course, this is partly because we are cycling down Highway One, the main road between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Unlike Yunan and Laos, Vietnam is a pretty urbanised country, and does actually have a fairly decent network of proper roads. If we wanted, we could get off Highway One and navigate our way more slowly south on smaller roads. Two factors prevent us from doing this. Firstly, this part of Vietnam is not very pretty or interesting, and we want to get through it as fast as we can. Secondly, we were on a smaller road, the 8, crossing Vietnam west-east from Laos, and although traffic was slightly lighter, it was just as fast and noisy but without a dedicated bike lane. So all in all Highway One seems like our best option for the moment.

The last two days have been fairly unremarkable, apart from a distressing incident with a backed up drain in our hotel bathroom this morning. But that is now 90 km behind us, thankfully. The route is mostly flat, just straight roads and rice fields. Today we saw the ocean a few times, which was another first for the trip, and pretty exciting. Cycling has become something of a head-down, eyes-screwed-up drudge at the moment. But Vietnam so far is not all bad. Some good points I keep reminding myself of:

Every hotel so far has had a hot shower

Everything is cheaper here, especially food (though we are incapable of ordering much due to language difficulties)

Wi-fi internet seems to come as standard in the hotels

Cups of fresh Vietnam drip coffee can be had even at the smallest roadside vendor

Tunnels are well-lit and have a bike lane

There are a lot of cows and water buffalo.

We continue to head south, and hope to cross the former DMZ and arrive in Hue in two days time. Hue will be our first real tourist destination in Vietnam, and I’m excited both to see it and to have a rest day.

AW