After a quick Vietnamese Coffee next door to our hotel, we left Cao Bang at around 7am. We knew this was going to be a tough day, 60km straight up to reach 1300m altitude. After we left all the dusty bits (the outskirts of Cao Bang) the road was perfectly tarmarcked (unlike on previous days) all the way up to the top. The views were amazing!
We reached the top fairly early and were looking forward to long, fast downhill to Ba Be, but then after 10 fast kms (faster for Greg!) the road surface got pretty bad again and slowed us down once again. We also met to an Australian couple who passed us on scooters and stopped us for a chat. Rich and Rachel live in Hanoi and were touring the North on the motorbikes. Might meet up again when we are back in Hanoi.
We had about 15k left to Ba Be and it started to get dark. Another 10k later and it was dark. The fact that it actually turned out to be less flat/downhill than we thought it would be, didn't help either.
Eventually, we also passed the accommodation accidentally (in the dark) and added
another painful hill descent and climb that we didn’t need, right at the
end.
This was without any shadow of doubt the toughest cycle we have done so far, in any trip. 12hours 30mins on the bikes, arrived in the dark, 133km with 2200m total climbing!
Absolutely beautiful cycling though.
Route Link
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| The roads are dusty outside Cao Bang! |
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| And up we go! |
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| Perfect road for cycling |
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| Only a few dusty patches, no potholes |
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| We are really starting to see mountains now |
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| Stunning views over rice fields at 1000m |
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| We came all that way! |
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| Greg's clearly enjoying the long downhill. |
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| Road was once again a bit hit and miss |
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| Unmade roads are so dusty that everything turns white. |
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| 15km left to Ba Be and it is getting dark |
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| HUGE spider just before it got killed. Sorry! |
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