Before our kids have a melt down I should say that the bikes came with riders – Long and Hue. Our bike riding experience is as follows: I once went on the back of a bike and was terrified; Mr L owned a Yamaha 50 and a Honda 90, 30 yrs ago. Neither of which qualifies us to actually ride bikes. Long, a 25yr old entrepreneur who organises such trips, had saved for 3yrs to buy his Suzuki 125 & I’m not sure he was too pleased to have me on the back but he was incredibly patient. Hue, an older man & good friend of Long, seemed very content to have Mr L as his passenger.
We had hired bikes/riders because we wanted to ride along the Hai Van pass, a road that cuts through the mountain region and was a key control point for both the French occupation of Vietnam and the Americans during the war. Also because the views promised to be spectacular and best savoured from a motor bike. Round trip our journey covered 160km over 10hrs and, despite my constant fear that I was going to fall off the back, was exhilarating and brilliant!
Our first stop was Marble Mountain near Da Nang which looks very like Halong Bay but inland with monuments and temples inside caves. Worth a visit. Next stop was a roadside café for a drink and get some circulation back in the bum. I never realised how hard bike riding is on the bottom! In the field opposite were some Water buffalo and as I went to photograph them they all came up out of the field and strolled off down the road! You see a lot of animals just strolling by the side of the road in Vietnam – cows, goats,chickens etc. All very normal. You just learn to move around them.
Then we headed to the pass. The traffic these days is mainly tourists but the hairpin bends and steep climbs, along with road signs showing cars falling off the side, remind you it's not for the novice rider – in fact we passed a bike that had crashed off the road into a gully –thankfully he was fine. I held onto Long so tightly at times I must have left him with bruises. The views across the mountains and below across the bays were incredible particularly in the bright sunlight with clear blue skies. We stopped at the top and Long told us about the French occupation and the look out towers that still remain & about how the Vietnamese moved into the mountains to evade the Americans. Back on the bikes we headed down the other side of the pass where the switch backs were even tighter, as was my grip. At the end of the pass we turned off the main road to a large lake. We rode alongside it until we came to a ramshackle looking restaurant astride a wooden jetty that served the most delicious fresh seafood and provided idyllic views across the lake.
After lunch we rode further off the main track to a secluded waterfall and water pool where Mr L and I were left alone to swim and have our own time. It wasn't quite like the film (‘The Beach’) but it was pretty cool.
On the bikes again, we went back up and over the pass, along the coast road and back to Hoi An. A fabulous day and a great experience even though my bum was really sore.
Our last two days in Hoi An were spent on the beach in the sun, a gentle 50min bicycle ride away from the homestay and a chance for us to kick back. Then it was time to say our goodbyes and move on.
Sounds fab a bit of sun, we've had our first lot of snow this week and its cold and miserable here. Where are you off to next we wonder, keep up the posts we are really enjoying reading about your adventures. Love J and B xx
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