January 27, 2017

What a day we had today. We left the hotel at 9:15 and had decided that we could get of the A1 today. When we left the hotel, Ralf was given a red envelope with “lucky Money” in it for New Year. It contained 10,000 vnd about .59 cents. It is very symbolic. Although the traffic was greatly reduced and a lot of the shops were already closed for the holiday celebrations.  There were still a few selling gifts.

We were leaving Hoang Mai and came across three other touring cyclists chatting at the side of the road. Of course, we stopped and joined the conversation. Two Dutch ladies traveling together and one Irish man. The Irish man talked to Ralf while I chatted to the Dutch ladies. The Dutch ladies are heading south as well, but only have four weeks. They are heading towards Hoi Ann and then will decide which way to go from there.   The Irish man arrived in Bangkok in December and is travelling south-east Asia until April 1, 2017. It is always nice to chat to other cyclists.

The weather to day started nice and warm, but then turned showery and a little cooler.

At the 36 km mark we started the adventure! We headed towards the coast and followed a raised paved road for about 10 kms. All of the shops and cafes in the beach area are closed for the season, it is too cold in the north to enjoy the beach at this time of the year. A fella on a motor bike invited us for tea at his farm, but we had just started on the detour and new we had some kilometers to go without knowing what the terrain was going to be like. We politely declined his invitation.

There are a lot of catholic churches in this area.

Then things started to go pear shaped. The road disintegrated to a rough road and then to a rough partially paved track. It was hard going, it reminded us of Cuba.

It was an interesting route, we went through some large villages where everyone welcomed us with Hello, hello. When we responded the children giggled and would shout hello again. We seem to be an anomaly in these smaller towns. They don’t see a lot of tourists and certainly not many touring cyclists. It was nice to be off the A1, very quiet we could hear birds and the air was clearer. However, the roads were really rough.

However, we got to one area where the road went to a red dirt track and our bikes, bags and the two of us were covered in red clay mud.

We eventually found a route away from the dirt track and back onto a paved road. There were some nice beach areas and one fancy resort.

There were some little hills.

A scooter rider came along side and was chatting to us about where we were from, where we were going and we should stop for something to eat. We were cold and dirty and just wanted to get to the hotel. He told us which road to take to go to Vinh and said it was 15 kms. It was so nice to be back on paved road with a wide shoulder. Then to top the day of it started to rain.

We arrived at the hotel at about 3:15, dirty, wet and cold. The owner of the hotel welcomed us to his hotel, I think he had been waiting for us to arrive. We had pre-booked on Bookings.com and said we would be arriving at about 2:00.

We said to the owner “we are very dirty and asked if they had a hose that we could rinse the bikes”. We were surrounded by four workers and the security guard who proceeded to help us remove the panniers from the bikes and then the security guard rinsed my shoes to get the red clay dirt of them, fortunately the Keens are “waterproof”. He then sprayed my legs and started to rub my legs clean, like some old horse, I couldn’t stop laughing. He then did the same to Ralf making sure that we were clean before going into the hotel. They proceeded to spray the bikes with water and then scrubbed the tires with soap. I took over cleaning my bike, drying it off and oiling the chain and pedals. The disc brakes were rubbing so I made sure they were clear of grit as well. Then I dried Ralf’s chain and oiled it and the pedals.

I think we gave all the staff a good laugh and entertained them for half an hour. They were surprised that I was the mechanic.

Ralf asked if the restaurant in the hotel was open for dinner. Mr Hau, the owner, asked what time we would like dinner. We decided on 6:30 to give us plenty of time to wash, change and relax a little. Then we asked what time his staff would be going to their families, we don’t want to keep them away from their families as New Year’s in Vietnam is a family occasion. He said that the family celebrations start at 11:30 and he would like us to attend his family’s celebrations.

He showed us to our room and then asked us again if we would like to join him for New Year’s celebration. We accepted and he is going to pick us up to take us to his house.

Before we left for the evening at Mr. Hau’s house the waiter and receptionist came to our room, with more lucky money envelopes (5000 vnd about 03 cents) and asked for our photo. Ralf now has two more facebook friends. The receptionist gave us some wafer biscuits.

By about 10:30, I was fading and wished I hadn’t accepted the invitation, but I managed to stay awake. At promptly 11:00 p.m. we went downstairs and Mr. Hau was waiting for us. The Vietnamese are very prompt people. Mr. Hau drove us around Vinh and showed us the sights.

Vinh has wide avenues with trees down the centre and on the side walk. It is a nice City of 500,000 people. Mr. Hau showed us the Ho Chi Minh Square and a monument that commemorated the war against the French in 1930 – the war was unsuccessful. He also drove us to a large market area, a rabbit warren of stalls on the outside selling fruits and vegetables and local products, the larger interior hall sold goods from China.

Ho Chi Minh came from this area, about 14 kms north-east of the City.

We arrived at Mr. Hau’s house and met his father and mother who live with them. Up until three years ago there were four generations living in the house. His father was 84 and had the most awesome face. We didn’t take our cameras, as we thought that might be rude. However, we had our photos taken regularly. When Ralf got chatting to the nephew of Mr. Hau, he asked him to take a photo of his grandfather and send it to him – another facebook friend.

The evenings celebration was a very simple affair. All the family get together and toast the New Year with brandy and have some small snacks and desserts. Mr. Hau’s English was good although he was out of practice. His sister’s sons spoke very good English and we chatted to them about bicycles, scooters and travelling.

It was a really nice evening. At promptly 1:00 we were taken back to our hotel. We had asked for breakfast at 8:00 a.m., but changed it to 9:00 a.m.

Once again we are in awe of the kindness of strangers.