January 28, 2017

We got up later today because of our late night. Mr. Hau arrived to organize our breakfast and sat down to eat with us. He had prepared a “Canadian/European” breakfast for us, he also invited us to try a specialty of the area that the Vietnamese have for breakfast and is very popular in Vinh. The fried eggs with bread was nice to start and then out came the eel soup! The eel was dead and Mr. Hau was very proud to tell us that it was farmed eel not sea eel. Ralf will try anything once and has eaten eel before. I am not quite as adventurous, however, he had been so kind to us that I had to try it. It was lovely, not something I would normally eat for breakfast but I would definitely eat it for lunch or dinner with a good hearty bread. The broth was quite spicy with chilli peppers and the eel tasted like a very mild fish. Celeste, I am honestly not trying to make you gag, knowing how much you love fish.

Mr. Hau also gave us a gift of a package of food it is a sticky rice wrapped around minced pork, wrapped in a large green leaf. You can eat it cold.  Ralf had tried this for breakfast yesterday and didn\’t like it.

We headed out after fond farewells and Mr. Hau telling us that if we got into any trouble in Vietnam to call him, he has many friends and family throughout the country. He worked for the government for 20 years and still has friends in high places.

On the road by 10:00, with wet gloves and wet shoes, they quickly dried in the warm weather. We had to find the Ho Chi Minh Square for some photos. We were about to cycle closer to the “great” man, when we got stopped and told we had to leave the bikes at the entrance.

I waited with the bikes while Ralf wandered off to take photos. The square is huge a whole city block and is totally scooter and vehicle free. No bikes either. It is a large square with gardens and a small kids play area. There were motorized vehicles for the kids to play with. New Vietnamese drivers in the making.

After Ho Chi Minh Square we headed out to the A1 and the large monument depicting the war against the French in 1930. There were some nice gardens surrounding the monument.

It was easy to find our way out of the city after the tour with Mr. Hau last night.  We crossed the river.

We came to a roundabout and I saw the sign that said left to Ha Tinh, Ralf thought we needed to go straight on. He was right, I was wrong, we only went about 4 kms in the wrong direction.  There was a bit of a head wind today.  Ralf took the lead for the last half of the ride.

The A1 was very quiet today, more cars than scooters. The small towns and villages we went through were a little busier with people going from house to house visiting family and friends. It is unbelievable how many people you can get on a scooter. If we can we will try and get a photo of a family of 5 on a scooter. Dad driving, one child on his lap, two children squished between Dad and Mum who is hanging onto the children and the scooter. Sometimes you only see one child between Mum and Dad, then you spot an extra pair of little legs – there is another one squished in there.

Everybody was shouting Happy New Year to us as we cycled through the towns and villages.

We arrived in Ha Tinh with no reservation for a hotel. We had looked on Bookings.com and only found one under $25.00. We decided to risk it and stopped in a few places to ask the price and see if they had a restaurant. Most of the ones we stopped at were about $30.00 and no restaurant. We found the hotel (the White Hotel) that we had seen on Bookings, it was over $30.00 and no restaurant. The receptionist told us to try next door, it was cheaper.

The Ha Huy is a new hotel, the room is $28.00 with breakfast. The room is lovely, I could get used to this type of bicycle touring. We asked about dinner, we could have dinner and because we are the first guests of the New Year it is free. Of course, we have no idea what we ate.

Ralf headed up to the roof to get some photos of the city.

Subdivision from roof

After we had settled in to our lovely hotel room, we headed out for a short walk around the town.

We came across a new “subdivision” with a large tower block attached, Ralf had seen it from the roof.

We asked the two young security guards if we could go in and see the gardens. One of them followed us around and then indicated he would take our photo. Of course he also wanted to take a photo of us with him!

Shortly after us wandering around, an agent showed up and wished up Happy New Year. We asked about the development. The subdivision has about 160 units with a cost of 21 million per square metre which is about $1,235 per sq metre 80% of the property is sold. The second phase, which is well under way – is a 36 floor tower block. The lower five floors will be commercial and offices, the remaining 26 floors will be a hotel.

Every where we go we have seen small community gardens.  If there is a spare bit of land they plant a community garden.

When we arrived back at the hotel we asked what time we could have dinner. We suggested 6:15. As we were about to leave our room our dinner was delivered to our room. Not sure what it was, another specialty of the area – there were about eight deep fried fritter things, sticky rice with chick peas and mystery meat. It tasted good, the accompanying salad was rather spicy with some chilli peppers.

An early night is in order, although tomorrow our ride isn’t too long, then we are looking for a rest day.