Day 2. June 26.
I wake up and eat at a vegan restaurant (com chay) down the street from our hotel. This one was pretty mediocre after the meal with Hoa in Saigon, but it does the trick. Also, a cursory search suggests that we'll be able to find vegetarian food almost anywhere we go in Vietnam. Most towns have at least one chay kitchen, so be on the lookout if that's your bag! Food in Vietnam is rather inexpensive. You shouldn't be paying more than 20-30,000 dong per meal. That's around 1 dollar. There will be times when a restaurant will try to pull a fast one on you and charge some exorbitant rate for mediocre food, but you can even haggle on that. Don't let them take advantage of you if possible, but don't let it eat you up either. Funny enough, some of the best chay food we've had so far has been the least expensive.
Leaving Ba Ria in the morning isn't so bad. My burn took off a clean layer of skin and it doesn't really hurt much. Yet. Nicole is feeling a bit more comfortable on the bike and we start to dial in our daily rhythm. Fortunately for today I find a nifty coastal route (thanks to a travel blog) that takes us through some gorgeous rural towns with green rice fields for days. And getting away from the noisy/dusty highways is a treat as well.
Swarms of dragonflies buzz by our helmets as we move towards the beach and find some nice white-sand beaches overlooking the South China Sea. We're no strangers to oceans and beaches, but somehow the Vietnamese coastline seems a bit more exotic. Perhaps our glasses have a tint of rose to them. But even something trivial like seeing a cow on a beach is wildly novel and exciting. That's just not how we're used to seeing, and as we move we are looking all around to gather as much as possible.
After a nice break on the sand, we work our way to the notorious coastal truck route QL55. This road is indeed chaotically busy and in serious disrepair. I can't really tell if the construction equipment is there to make things better or worse. In 'Nam, anything with four or more wheels moves way faster than the scuttling motorbike traffic, and as little fish we're expected to give way to the big ones. Nicole comes face to face (almost chassis to chassis) with this hierarchy as a bus moves into the motorbike lane (due to construction) and she is forced into a gravelly roadside which has her swerving to dodge immense potholes. I see part of this happen in my mirror and I can't help but clench up in terror myself. Damn, a close call already? Is this what we signed up for? Why can't we always have pretty rural backroads? And what's the deal with trucks and buses anyway? Surely there is a less efficient and more expensive alternative to delivering large amounts of people and goods that I don't need to deal with. My path should be unobstructed, face free of dirt, and safety bubble intact/inviolable. Sigh.
After about 7 hours of riding we arrive in Ham Tien which is right on the coastline. As it turns out, this spot is a huge vacation getaway geared towards Russians. Fortunately when translating the menus they didn't neglect English (when is English ever neglected, amirite?) and we chow down on some delicious and spicy Indian food after checking into a nice hotel ($10) and taking much needed showers. Our bodies are tired but our brains won't shut up. I eagerly plan the next day and rattle off road trip scenarios in my head that will never come to be.
But these scenarios are way too optimistic; I continually expect things will go off without a hitch. Only after a week or so of this do I realize--it takes a bit of effort to understand that things going wrong is why I'm doing this. This is what we signed up for.
Let's see what my birthday has in store, shall we?
Journey stats:
Ba Ria to Mui Ne/Ham Tien.
153 km in 7 hours.
Route notes:
Deviate from QL51/55 by taking 44B to Loc An. You'll be forced to join back with QL55 eventually but the detour doesn't add much distance, and you get to avoid the calamitous traffic.
I attempted another detour in La Gi by taking DT712 to DT719, but I couldn't find the latter. This spit us out on dusty QL1A sooner than needed. I'm still a bit bummed I missed that turn which would've taken us around a nice mountain/coastal road. The lament of one GPS-lacking boy.
Pro-tip: don't die.
I wake up and eat at a vegan restaurant (com chay) down the street from our hotel. This one was pretty mediocre after the meal with Hoa in Saigon, but it does the trick. Also, a cursory search suggests that we'll be able to find vegetarian food almost anywhere we go in Vietnam. Most towns have at least one chay kitchen, so be on the lookout if that's your bag! Food in Vietnam is rather inexpensive. You shouldn't be paying more than 20-30,000 dong per meal. That's around 1 dollar. There will be times when a restaurant will try to pull a fast one on you and charge some exorbitant rate for mediocre food, but you can even haggle on that. Don't let them take advantage of you if possible, but don't let it eat you up either. Funny enough, some of the best chay food we've had so far has been the least expensive.
Leaving Ba Ria in the morning isn't so bad. My burn took off a clean layer of skin and it doesn't really hurt much. Yet. Nicole is feeling a bit more comfortable on the bike and we start to dial in our daily rhythm. Fortunately for today I find a nifty coastal route (thanks to a travel blog) that takes us through some gorgeous rural towns with green rice fields for days. And getting away from the noisy/dusty highways is a treat as well.
Swarms of dragonflies buzz by our helmets as we move towards the beach and find some nice white-sand beaches overlooking the South China Sea. We're no strangers to oceans and beaches, but somehow the Vietnamese coastline seems a bit more exotic. Perhaps our glasses have a tint of rose to them. But even something trivial like seeing a cow on a beach is wildly novel and exciting. That's just not how we're used to seeing, and as we move we are looking all around to gather as much as possible.
 |
| Happy cows roam the beach... and eat trash? |
After about 7 hours of riding we arrive in Ham Tien which is right on the coastline. As it turns out, this spot is a huge vacation getaway geared towards Russians. Fortunately when translating the menus they didn't neglect English (when is English ever neglected, amirite?) and we chow down on some delicious and spicy Indian food after checking into a nice hotel ($10) and taking much needed showers. Our bodies are tired but our brains won't shut up. I eagerly plan the next day and rattle off road trip scenarios in my head that will never come to be.
 |
| Waiting impatiently for my coffee to brew. |
 |
| Double fisting in Mui Ne. |
 |
| I shall call it Turtle Island. |
Let's see what my birthday has in store, shall we?
Journey stats:
Ba Ria to Mui Ne/Ham Tien.
153 km in 7 hours.
Route notes:
Deviate from QL51/55 by taking 44B to Loc An. You'll be forced to join back with QL55 eventually but the detour doesn't add much distance, and you get to avoid the calamitous traffic.
I attempted another detour in La Gi by taking DT712 to DT719, but I couldn't find the latter. This spit us out on dusty QL1A sooner than needed. I'm still a bit bummed I missed that turn which would've taken us around a nice mountain/coastal road. The lament of one GPS-lacking boy.
Pro-tip: don't die.
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