A TOUR OF SOUTH VIETNAM - Day 2 (Riding Into The Wind)

28th February 2011 - DAT DO TO KE GA

To an average Vietnamese, The THUY DONG RESORT where we spent the night is quite upmarket. At VND 700,000 per room (RM105), it was reasonably priced for us. It was a pity though our itinerary would not allow us to spend more time here.

A tennis court and a swimming pool complement the hotel. It would have been nice to soothe the tired muscles in the pool. The beach lies across the road. Apart from Hj Khailani who took several shots of the beach, nobody else I believed explored it. Anyway, there would be plenty of beaches we would be seeing for the next several days. Just hope it would not be an overdose.

Our rooms were on the ground floor, located a distance from the main Hotel building. There were very ample room to park our bikes along the corridors. By 6 am, breakfast was ready and everyone was ready to roll out after breakfast.

Today, the familiar red and white Gedebe jerseys gave way to personal preference. I usually only carry 2 pairs of cycling attire - simple strategy of "wear one pair, wash one pair". So a final pose and after the doa recital by Jawa Muar (Pak Kamad), we rolled out to today's destination Ke Ga. My POLAR indicated 6:58 as our start time. It would be a 107kms ride and today's ride could be correctly titled RIDING INTO THE WINDS.

The cool breeze on our faces in the early morning was an indication of the wind that we would be facing. The sandbags placed on the roofs of the houses could only mean one thing - roofs get blown away in the winds!

Sand bags placed on roofs 

In my tours, this would be the first time that the wind need to be factored into the equation. I have heard about strong winds in travel blogs before. When you experienced it yourself, you understand.

Notwithstanding the strong wind, the ride progressed well. It would also be the first time that most of us were introduced to the unique boat of the fishermen of Vietnam. Called Thung Chai, these are round basket boats made of weaved bamboo. For floatation, the baskets are coated with bitumen making the basket water-proof. It tells a lot about the industriousness of the Viets. They used easily available bamboo and make them into boats.

One can call this round basket boat an oversized basin. It boobs up and down in the waves and does not sink. Just wondering why no entrepreneur saw it fit to introduce it to our fishermen.

As we continued on, it was obvious that resort development is on the upswing along the vast stretches of the coast. We saw several advertising boards displaying proposed projects and we noted several projects, some appeared in progress and quite a number seemed abandoned. There would always be over-enthusiastic businessmen anywhere in the world.

So here we had our ever smiling Pak Wan posing in front of one of the resorts, the Ho Tram Beach resort. Who knows, Pak Wan may have quietly jotted down this address for his next wedding anniversary do. After all, he is a Vietnamese veteran!

Time for another rehydration break, we stopped at a roadside Cafe stall. Under the shady trees and with the winds blowing, and hammocks in the hut I could easily doze off and overstay here. If coffee was on the menu, rest assured our Kamad would still ask for the "impatient coffee"!

Several school children cycled past. Pillion riding are common with the pillion delivering additional pedal power. It would be like an extra engine.

As the sun heated up the road, and the headwinds constantly slowing down our speed, we had another rehydration stop. By this time, Ms Siti Linh bought us bananas for instant energy.

If ever anyone wished for the most accurate milestone, one could never find another one so accurate as the one we discovered on this stretch of the road. Lagi 19 km tiba lah ke destinasi! That was what the milestone was telling us.

So, you kayuh a bit more, lagi 12 km. So when it was LAGI 1 km, it was time for lunch

LAGI is actually the name of a town, spelled as LAGI but pronounced as LA ZI and that was our destination for lunch. Referring back to my POLAR altitude printout, we had a 11 km gradual climb at 52km to the 63km mark and then rewarded with a downhill of 3 kms into La Zi. 

The greatest reward of the climb was this fantastic sea-food (what else) lunch in this restaurant

As usual, Vietnamese Tea was free flowing and the seafood was great. It did not take long (as usual) to wipe the plates clean. 

We moved on after a good rest, often stopping as usual either for short breaks or when subjects caught our sight for photography.

Dragon fruit, which I believed originates from Vietnam were in abundance. We noted several farms along the road to our destination.

Another local industry that caught everyone's attention was the salt harvested from the sea. Salt water got pumped in into man-made catchment fields and left to dry. Once dried, it was a matter of collecting the salt crystals. I noted the wheel-barrows were of stainless steel to withstand the corrosiveness of salt water.

We continued our cycling into the winds and arrived at  the day's destination, at another resort by the sea, the Bau Mai resort. 

Hj Khailani posing at the entrance

Hamdan and Hj Khailani within the resort complex

Dinner was again sea-food, this time, by the sea. 

If you are a member of PGM (Persatuan Gout Malaysia), you better watch what you eat. For us cyclists who burned all the toxins away, these plates of prawns and squids are the rewards we earned. 

Thus, another successful ride day. We covered a distance of 107 kms. My POLAR recorded a total ride time of  6 hrs 37 mins. Except for the climbs into LAGI, the terrain was generally flat. The challenge was the wind

A TOUR OF SOUTH VIETNAM - DAY 1

27th FEBRUARY 2011 - BIEN HOA TO DAT DO

Vietnam is 1 hour earlier, hence dawn breaks early. So wake up call was at 5 a.m. and ride-off time scheduled at 6 a.m. Day 1 would certainly be a day to look forward for. We came so far to see a fraction of Vietnam on our bicycles. For the next 5 days, we would be kids enjoying what adults sometimes referred to us as "unconscious old men", aka "orang tua tak sedar diri". 

This day's ride from BIEN HOA would see us heading south towards the coast. We would pass a town BA RIA along the way and end it somewhere along a beachfront. On subsequent days ahead, it would be a coastal ride for most of the way.

Original planning indicated a distance of 76 kms but we actually covered 92 kms, additional kms to burn additional calories.

Here is the GEDEBE team, proudly displaying themselves in red jerseys. Ride in style I suppose is their motto, and why not. I pray that none of them would bump into any angry buffalo that would immediately raised the heart-beats and cadence of these "unconscious old men" in red!  Ha...ha....

What about the non-GEDEBEs? Well, the three of us were a motley of non-uniformed cyclists but we sure blend very well with this fun-loving GEDEBES.

Minus 1 Gedebe who was busy searching for his Heart Rate Monitor

We had Hj Khailani to recite the doa for our safe journey today

and soon we headed out into the cool early morning joining the traffic that was already building up rather quickly.

The moment we hit the road, we had to make very quick adjustments. For a start, the Viets drive in the opposite direction. We got to get used to riding on the right side of the road. So, right is right and left is wrong! Confused??

Next, Viets love to horn - loud and musical. For no apparent reason, the horn would blare, often long and wavy sound that continuously rattles the ear drums. It was certainly not music to our ears. As if that was not enough, we had to deal with the dusts. Parts of the road were under construction. So it was a combo of dust & sound.

And soon, most of us became masked

Olmo with mask brought from home

Ride Leader Pak Wan also all masked up

Next, I termed this ride as the dash of the brave. Motorcycles would appear in all directions. They came from the front, they came from the left and they came from the right. Extra caution was the order. But in all fairness, I did not come across any accidents and there were no Mat Rempits. 

Anyway, this is what cycle-touring is all about. One gets to experience the reality of the moment, sharing with the locals, though just for fleeting seconds, their daily routines and their laughter and smiles. These are experiences that money cannot buy.

Breakfast was not part of the package for the night stay. Ms "Siti" Linh, our guide, ever so efficient was already scouting for a good place for breakfast and at 7:21 am, we had our first stop for breakfast.

The colonization of Vietnam by the French made the Vietnamese loaf-loving people. Vietnamese love baguettes and everywhere you find them selling baguettes. That was no surprise. But what surprised us was the small serving of coffee.

One miserly serving of coffee

And there was also what one of the cyclists, Kamat termed as "patient coffee". It was brewed coffee, served in a special container where you wait for the concentrated coffee to drip down to into the cup. The wait, at least to Kamat, was agonizing. Hence Kamat always ordered the "impatient coffee".

Noise, as I said earlier is something the Viets had grown accustomed to. At this breakfast stop, there was a mobile Karaoke, and a gentleman was crooning away and moved within the crowds for donations - one simple Viet earning an honest living.

And unfortunately there was no Jeffry Din's minus one in his collection. Otherwise I would gladly volunteer and bring some rain to wet off the dust from the road!

Mobile Karaoke

We moved on and as the sun hots up, it was time for another break. No karaoke this time but coconuts to quench our thirst.

Another surprise awaited us. We discovered that hammocks are standard fittings in way-side stalls, big or small. Viets love to relax in hammocks.

Well....actually Malaysians loved it too

Oh...what a feeling

When we clocked 60 kms, we were already in the town of BA RIA and ready for lunch. BA RIA is quite a big town, clean and well maintained.

Entrance to the town of Ba Ria

Again Siti Linh did not disappoint us. She brought us to a seafood restaurant situated besides a river. With an outdoor setting plus the cool breeze coming from the river, the seafood galore we were about to have would be a near climax of the day.

Though it was seafood, Viets love vegetables. I have never seen nor ate so much veges in a week. I am generally not a vege guy. However, with the varieties of sambals and pastes that came with the assortments of veges, I actually enjoyed the veges.

Veges, Veges everywhere.
Vietnamese Tea as standard menu, free flowing

The seafood was lovely and fresh. Vietnamese iced tea is standard on the menu, free-flow. The ambience was right, so was the company and the stomachs were ready. So everything got wiped-clean very fast. Cost was VND 800,000, roughly RM120.00 for 9 pax (RM13 per head). What a bargain.

When the stomach is full, every other part of the anatomy became equally heavy. The eye-lids became heavy. The neck sagged down and the bum just refused to get up. But up we must. It was time to hit the road again. We would have another 20 - 30 odd kilometres of pedalling to do.

Meanwhile Siti Linh went first to look for a suitable place to stay for the night. Pak Wan's instruction to Siti was to book a hotel near the beach, about US$30 a room max, twin-sharing. Were we heading for the right direction? Dat Do was our destination and it showed only 9 kms.

That would be easy meat, even on full stomach. As we kept cycling in the direction of the signboard, it was getting obvious that we were not anywhere near our destination. By this time, the wind was noticeably strong, much stronger than what we were accustomed to back home.

A call from Siti Linh confirmed the hotel for the night. It would be THUY DUONG RESORT. Keying in the hotel name in his Blackberry Google Map, Hamdan got the direction corrected and we were soon taking a short cut through the padifields towards the hotel.

Zul, the tourer with an eye for good subjects captured this lady carbo-loading; She was probably amused at 8 unconscious old man in over-dressed attire, in the blistering sun. Well Pak Wan, we have our motto "NO HELMET NO RIDE". This lady too has hers - "NO TUDUNG SAJI, NO RIDE". But she was one ahead - CHICKEN FEET, STILL RIDE!!

"My helmet offers better protection from the sun and who needs shoes "

The wind got stronger and stronger. Cycling became harder and harder. We were obviously heading towards the coast but the coast was still nowhere in sight. Another break for a drink and we continued on. Soon we came to Phuoc Hai town  and the welcoming coastline on our left. Our final destination would have been some where in sight but we saw no resort. Language was a major barrier and we soon got a lady talking to our Ms Siti Linh on the phone, telling Ms Siti our location.

Within 10 mins the van came and we were soon cycling to the resort, about 3 kms down the road. What a resort !

At night we would have another sea-food dinner before retiring early for the ride on the following day.


SUMMARY

This day's ride was generally flat. The challenges were at the start of the ride from Bien Hoa where the road was under construction. The vehicles thinned out as we rode further and further away from Ho Chi Minh. Wind was a factor we need to take into consideration for the days ahead.

Max temperature recorded was 36 degree C and my average speed was 17.6 kph. Total Ride time was 5 hours on a distance of 92 kms.

A TOUR OF SOUTH VIETNAM - DAY 0 (Flight to Ho Chi Minh)

26th Feb 2011

AirAsia have 2 daily flights to Ho Chi Minh. What does that tells you? Now that "everyone can fly", Vietnam is fast becoming a popular destination for Malaysians. Cycling tourism though is very much at its infancy stage.

Having travelled several times with a bike as a primary luggage, I have experienced several pricing policies which had baffled me. We had 6 bike boxes/bags to check in and we were told that the surcharge is RM70 per box up to 20kg in weight. It used to be RM50 with 15kg limit and an  additional RM20 per kg after the first 15kg. 

The new rate though seems to work in my favor, as my bike usually weighs in at 17kg. That would have cost me RM90 under the old rate

The very first time I flew with my bike to Padang in 2009, I think it was RM40 and NO weight limit. Well, at least that was what the check-in staff told me. So, upon my return a week later, I had stuffed most of my heavy items inside my bike bag. Smart thinking. At the ticketing counter in Padang airport, the ticketing clerk weighed my bike bag and I had to pay in excess of RM200 for additional weight beyond 15kg! I saw no sense in arguing with them. 

Our flight was scheduled at 1830 hrs. Time was on our side as we settled in at the waiting lounge. Wan Sabri (known as Pak Wan to his Gedebe team) was decked in the familiar Burberry checkered shirt. 

So, was it a coincidence Pak Wan? Well, you are after all a Vietnamese veteran. Ha...ha...

Trust Pak Wan to handle the flight booking and we would be assured of meals on board the flight. Pre-booked, our Nasi Lemak were delivered well before other passengers could place their meal orders. That would be our early dinner as the plane touched down in the early hours of the night.

Hamdan and Suhami arrived several hours earlier on the first flight. They would have a long wait for our arrival. Pre-arranged, Pak Wan's former staff was on hand to receive us and have arranged for transport to take us and our luggage to Bien Hoa, a town outside Ho Chi Minh. Bien Hoa is 30kms outside and we would start our tour from there. It was a wise decision. 

The first thing to do upon checking-in at the hotel was to re-assemble the bike, ready for an early ride the following day. Like experienced tourers, every one knew what to do with their respective bikes. With tools at the ready, the bikes were ready within about an hour.

This 5-day ride would be a supported trip. Pak Wan has arranged for a 16-seater van and a lovely tour guide to add some "flowers" to an otherwise male-dominated trip. The guide introduced herself as Ms Linh, but not before long, she became "Siti". 

The van carried the luggage and the supplies. The van also acts as the transport to ferry our bikes back to Ho Chi Minh at the end of the trip. Our 5-day ride would end in a famous coastal city of Nha Trang. From there we would fly back to HCM. 

So, with all arrangements done, thanks to Pak Wan, the next thing to do was to catch some sleep, ready for the start of the ride tomorrow. 

YAWNNNN !!!