Friday 12 November 2010

Another day closer to Hue

Abigail tearing up the asphalt.
I'm so big in Vietnam they've decided to put my name all over the country!
Uncle Ho statue in Huong Khe.

Day 11 and about 85 kilometers lies between us and Hue. We’ve now conquered about 760 kilometers, or 470 miles. That’s just over a third of our total distance. Everyone is doing really well but the group is salivating like a dog over a steak (or in our case the salivating is not limited to steak but extends to cheeseburgers, pizza and all other Western food) for a rest day in Hue.Besides creaky bikes, nightmares of vigilante bandits and aching legs, flooding is another concern. Since we left Saigon, it’s been raining basically non-stop. All our friends back in HCMC sound pretty damn miserable. Rumors of a typhoon hitting south of Hue in two to three days time are circulating. The weather forecast for Hue is ominous the next several days…I’m confident our drivers are looking out for us and they told us they watch the news every night for weather updates about where we’ll be traveling. They did warn us today about staying away from areas where both sides of the road are steep to avoid flash flooding.In the positive news department our bikes are holding up (for the most part) as well as our bodies. We’re currently in Cam Lo, which isn’t really much of a town at all, just a few buildings where two highways meet. For the second consecutive year, we’re staying at the Blue Hotel, where a group of people have been singing karaoke non-stop since our arrival. Amazingly, Cam Lo has Internet about a kilometer away (I just have to deal with this guy sitting right next to me looking at everything I do online.). Kinda creepy, but I know, I know, he’s just curious at what the big, funny-looking clown man is doing.The last two days have both been about 100 km. Today we spent mostly on the Ho Chi Minh Highway after leaving the coast. Last night we stayed in Dong Hoi, a booming coastal town trying to turn itself into another Nha Trang. We lucked out on accommodation at the Moonlight Hotel, our best yet. It was especially a nice treat after the moldy rooms of Dong Le (Supposedly they’d had major flooding there just a week earlier.).As always, the school kids have been cute as hell, the rolling verdant hills endless, and the “hellos” incessant. Here we come Hue!
-Chet


Sunrise over Pho Chau.










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