February 19, 2017

Although I wanted to be on the road early today, so that we are not cycling when it is really hot, we didn’t get moving until 8:15. We headed out of our hotel at 7:00 a.m. to find some breakfast. Most of the restaurants were closed, but we did find one little guesthouse that was open for breakfast for non-residents. The owner tried to sell us a full breakfast of juice, coffee, eggs and fruit for $100,000 VND but we didn’t want to spend over $11.00 on breakfast. We opted for the eggs and coffee for $6.76 for two.

We went back to our hotel, loaded the bikes and were on the very quiet road out of Ham Tien and heading towards Phan Thiet. We negotiated Phan Thiet like two Vietnamese pros. Weaving and bobbing among the crazy traffic and out the other side. Ralf was behind me shouting directions and I headed through. I couldn’t help laughing to myself, the traffic doesn’t phase me at all.

The weather today was a little overcast and slightly cooler. We followed the coastal road all the way into LaGi. The first 30 kms or so was on a good paved road, there were some minor hills to go up and down, but nothing too strenuous. There was one rough section of road for about 15 kms, which is always hard on the hands and bum. The last 15 kms was a mix of good paved road and little rough sections.

The first section we passed numerous abandoned resort hotels. However, new resorts were being built next door to the decaying resorts. I am not sure what the thinking is behind this. Maybe the old ones have ran their course and its time to build new, or maybe they were hit by a typhoon and its not worth rebuilding, we just don’t know.

I had to laugh at the Feng Shui Resort – obviously not working very well as half the resort was in ruins.

All the garbage is getting us down, everywhere you look there is garbage. Ralf took this photo of these beautiful carved, wooden gates and told me that behind the gates all you could see was mounds of garbage. It is really depressing.

We passed acres of dragon fruit orchards. We saw the trunk of the plant, the flower and the ripe fruit ready to pick. There were a lot of road side stalls along this road. We bought some Dragon Fruit from a stall holder, the first person wanted 10,000 for a kilo. The fruit I picked was about 500 grams, she still wanted 10,000. We said no and carried on. We found another stall, the lady wanted the same amount but she offered to cut it for us. She cut into the first one and it was rotten about 1/3 of the way down, she threw it away and picked another one, same thing, third time lucky she sliced it into quarters for us and because it weighed less than a kilo she found a small dragon fruit and insisted we take it with us.

Sometimes we feel as if we are being taken advantage of and other times you meet some really nice people, who are kind and generous.

Apart from the dragon fruit orchards there was not much to see today. A few glimpses of the ocean and a salt pond.

As we go further south the people appear to be less friendly, very few cheery hello’s today. We heard the music first, Vietnam always plays their music very loud, whether it be Karaoke or the bicycle street seller with an amplifier on his bike. Then we saw the colourful wedding venue, we got some inquisitive looks from the guests and a few waves. I am not sure how the bride and groom could hear each other say their vows the music was so loud.

We arrived in LaGie and found our hotel. We are spending more money on our hotel rooms about $20.00 per night but worth it. At least there are no large roaches in these hotels. As we cycled into Town, I noticed signs for a supermarket. After we had showered, we headed out to get some groceries. We had a quick lunch of burger and fries in the food court and then picked up some supplies. I noticed familiar Arches on the advertising! The food outlet was called Wantamela, they turned the arches upside down to make it a W. Is that trademark infringement?

Tomorrow we will be in Vung Tau and keeping our fingers crossed that one of the ferries will be running. If not we have to cycle into Ho Chi Min from Vung Tau. Ralf thinks it is an easier route to get to our hotel from the south than trying to negotiate through Ho Chi Min from the east. We have already booked our hotel in Ho Chi Min and will stay there for three days.