Plus a Cycle Around Town – 11.75 kms

February 20, 2017

We made it to Vung Tau, it is not the most southern most point of Vietnam, however, if we wanted to go further south by bike it is very difficult because of the Mekong Delta. We opted to go this far south and then try and get a ferry from here into Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City/Saigon.

The route today was along a very good paved road.

We took the D55 all the way into Vung Tau. We knew we had to do almost 100 kms, if we had dropped down to the coastal route we were not sure the state of the road and having to do almost 100 kms we wanted to have a reasonable road. Although, it was a nice wide road, it was still very rural in places.

One of the strange things we have noticed about Vietnam is the fact that they do not name the Town that you are entering. There is usually a large blue sign with a pictograph of buildings when you enter a town and a red stripe through the buildings to indicate you are leaving the Town, but absolutely no mention of the name of the Town.

We entered one very large town which obviously had a good economy, based on the buildings and housing, but absolutely no mention of the name. Another Town we cycled through had a lot of government buildings – again fairly well off, no name. We passed through this Town at about noon. There was either a large prison break, a large work-force going for lunch or the conscript army were on their lunch break. These young men poured out of the building in droves, wandered across the road to the street food stalls, some even got on scooters and followed us down the road to the bigger town (no name) about 5 kms down the road. They all had the same pyjama style uniform on with the name of their “company” on the back. The building they came out of looked like a military building rather than a factory building.

Throughout Vietnam there have been small road signs warning of driving too close. Today’s road signs were bigger and similar to the ones we saw in N.Z. and Australia. These are very easily understood. You drive over 100 and you will end up crippled, in a wheelchair or dead. Don’t Drink and Drive.

The last one left us a little flummoxed. It seems to indicate that if you get a scooter and a pedestrian in your sights you are good to go – more points!

We stopped for lunch at a little road-side café. These little places only sell drinks. I had made a nutella and banana bun before we left the hotel. We had our drinks and our sandwich and were good to go for another 50 kms. Shortly after lunch we pulled into a rest stop and I spotted my first wind-mill (wind turbines do not count). As most of you know Ralf and I have had an ongoing competition to spot windmills since we toured Holland in 1987. It is a silly thing, but the person who spots windmill has a drink bought them by the other person. This is not the first windmill spotted in Vietnam – Ralf spotted one in DaNang as we headed over the big bridge. Unfortunately, I forgot to write about that one and he didn’t get a photo of that one, but he did get a photo of the one I spotted.

As we entered the main road (Hwy 51) to Vung Tau, the road had beautiful plantings all the way down the middle of the highway for 20 kms. The road also gave us a divided cycle lane.

 Almost every little town has a hairdresser, this one advertises a Taylor Swift look!

When we arrived at the hotel today, we chatted to a Canadian from Vancouver who is taking the Greenline Ferry tomorrow – yeah there is a ferry running. We got all our gear up to our room and then headed out to find the ferry booking office to get our tickets for tomorrow. We missed the office on the way out and ended up cycling five kilometres past the booking office. However, we spotted this huge Madonna on the mountain.

The beach area of Vung Tau is quite nice and has a lovely park with stone statues.

There used to be three ferry companies running hydro-foils and catamarans into HCM from Vung Tau. The two hydro-foil companies have had their licenses withdrawn due to the age of the hydro-foils and lack of maintenance. For the past few days I have been trying to find out if the Greenline Ferry was still running, but couldn’t find any definitive answer. We decided to cycle here anyway. If it wasn’t running it would mean backtracking and cycling into HCM, which is reportedly to be very crazy. I am not sure what we have been cycling through up to now which hasn’t been crazy at all!!

We stopped and asked a white couple if they knew where the ferry terminal was. They had only arrived in Vietnam last night, but were much more helpful than the taxi driver we had asked! An older Australian couple, living north of Brisbane, they had just arrived and were out to explore on their own. Their daughter works here as a teacher, teaching English. Anyway, they had seen the ferry leaving the dock but couldn’t remember how far back it was. We turned around and I spotted the tiny office and we booked our tickets for 9:00 tomorrow morning. Two adults, two bikes for about $35.00 Cdn, it will take about an hour and a half. For example travelling about the same distance Vancouver to Nanaimo with bikes cost about $40.00 from Dover to Calais with two bicycles costs $63.00.

To the left of our hotel is a large Pagoda complex, Ralf went in and got some photos. 

It is always surprising when you see a Swastika.  However, it is an  ancient religious symbol originating from the Indian subcontinent, that generally takes the form of an equilateral cross with four legs each bent at 90 degrees. It is considered to be a sacred and auspicious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and dates back at least 11,000 years.  Guess what you kind find out on Google!

We went out for some street food and then an early night as we have to be at the ferry terminal by 8:30, we will leave the hotel at 8:00.