February 12, 2017

As you can see by the new town (Song Cau)  we didn’t get on the train to Saigon.

After icing the wrist last night, Ralf woke up with a less swollen arm and more movement in his fingers. I think we can carry on he says. OMG what am I going to do with him. We had decided last night that we were going to take the train and give his wrist time to heal.

We cycled to the train station, a distance of about 10 kms back along the A1 and down a back street. Fortunately, the lady at the counter spoke reasonable English and when she struggled to find the right words, she used google translate on her computer.

“Can we get to Ho Chi Minh City, with our bicycles” “Yes, but bikes go on another train – Speak to the person at the luggage office”.

Off I went to speak to the lady at the luggage office. Again she spoke reasonable English. Bikes cannot go on the same train – no baggage car. O.k. can we get to Nha Trang with the bikes on the same train. Nha Trang is a resort area about 250 kms down the coast, at least if we could get there it would be a nice place to rest for a few days. Yes we can take the TN1 at 1:30 today the bikes will go on the same train. Bring your bikes here. She was very helpful and had a kind smile.

Back to Ralf, we can get to Nha Trang today. I will just go and check there are seats available on the train. Of course there were no seats available on today\’s train! Tomorrow there are seats available, but not together, in fact two cars apart and separate floors.

I was so frustrated, it bought me to tears. Why can’t things go smoothly, just let us get on a train with the bikes and let Ralf’s wrist heal so that we can carry on. Ralf put his arms around me and said “Look I can wiggle my fingers, let’s see how far we can get today”.

So the decision was made to carry on. We headed back towards Quy Nhon and onto the QL10D, away from the A1 and onto a good paved road that was lovely.

There were a few hills for the first 25 kms or so and then quite flat along the coast. It was so nice to be away from the A1 and on a good road that had a few hills and lovely scenery.

There were some resort hotels along this road. Ralf always asks the security guards if he can take photos, the security guard said he could take photos of the coast but not the resort – oops, managed to get a few of the resort.

We came over one small hill and spotted some signs for a BackPackers hostel, restaurant and bar. We were at the 35 km mark and I needed something more to eat.

We pulled in and had a second breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread and coffee. It was a great place to rest and I considered suggesting to Ralf to stop here for the night. It was full of young people who were mostly travelling by motorbike. However, it was very windy and we decided that 35 kms was not long enough.

From this place we were on a downhill section, when Ralf spotted two touring bikes with two ladies – yes we have caught up with the Dutch ladies again. Lillian and Birgit (sorry if I have spelled that incorrectly). They told us they were only going to Song Cau today and it was about 30 more kilometres, they had seen a hotel on-line but not booked. We told them we would probably see them later and we did, we are staying at the same hotel.

We left them eating their lunch of peanut butter baguette and headed down the hill. We had a great tail wind for most of the ride. Although Ralf still struggled to change gears, he managed the hills.

As we hit the flat section and the wind picked up to push us along the way, we spotted a lone touring cyclists coming in the opposite direction. We always like to stop, some cyclists stop others don’t. We waved and slowed down and Nikitita crossed the road for a chat. A young Russian who has cycled from Russia, through China to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and is now heading home. He has been on the road for 15 months. He seemed pleased to stop and chat and said cycling on his own could be very lonely. Then the two Dutch ladies caught up with us and also stopped for a chat. He said it must be nice to cycle with a friend. He headed back into the wind and we all carried on to Song Cau.

As we came into Song Cau, we spotted this fella collecting this weed, it was drying on the side of the road.  Not sure what it was.

The Dutch ladies arrived before us, and had checked out the rooms to make sure they were clean. Yes they were clean and we could have a room with a view. We checked in and then chatted to them on our shared balcony. As we chatted about Vietnam, we discovered that Lillian, Birgit and I are in the same field (planning). Lillian works with environmental planning issues and Birgit specializes in noise. We chatted about wind turbines and their effect. It was a very interesting conversation.

After a lovely hot shower, Ralf and I headed out for a walk down town.

The downtown is spread out over about two kilometres.  Ralf wanted to stop at this \”Doctors\” office to see if they could give him something for his cough.  Very traditional Asian medicine.

As we walked down we saw what we thought were chickens roasting on a spit, Swiss Chalet chicken anyone?

We carried on and spotted a few other small eating places and on the corner of one street there were three or four Pho Bo carts serving dinner for the locals.

We stopped in at the bike shop, we need some air in the tires tomorrow.  Check out this Vietnamese beauty.  Look at how many spokes are in the wheel.  Also there is a little rubber step near the back wheel, this is so you can carry your school friend to school and she has somewhere to put her feet !

We decided to go for the Swiss Chalet rotisserie chicken. When we got back to the little restaurant, we realized it wasn’t chicken but duck. In for a penny in for a pound, we were guided to a clean table and waited. Four beers arrived, followed by some cucumber and greens, with cabbage (coleslaw), then a bowl of really good soup. Finally, the duck arrived, one whole duck chopped into pieces, it was really good, the rub on the skin was very tasty. 

We drank a beer each and managed to polish off most of the duck and all of the soup and vegetables. Cost for this lovely meal was $14.70.

The Hotel Laura is located on the left hand side when you make the left turn into Song Cau of the A1.  The rooms are clean and some have a view of the beach.  However the beds are really hard, but that is typical of Vietnamese beds.