Good morning SE Asia!: 03/11/13

Leaving Hanoi after breakfast - 8.00am on a Sunday we headed south for the Ho Chi Min Highway, the road that runs from North to South Vietnam and roughly follows the famous Ho Chi Min trail used by the National Front For the Liberation of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War (or Viet Cong as they have come to be known in the West).

The HCMH is inland from the main QL1A truck infested highway so we hoped to avoid the worst of the traffic plus see some more of the smaller towns and villages en route, plus the coastline in this section has nothing of worthy note according to all sources. We have become used to the quieter lifestyle in the smaller towns after our 1300km Jaunt up North (described in the Lonely Planet guidebook as the "Extreme North Loop"). Nonetheless, we wanted to make progress quickly to get down to our next planned excursion point of Phong Nha National Park which has the worlds largest cave. It was 570km to the town of Son Trach where we would stay whilst visiting Phong Nha. We plotted a route down the HCMH, stopping at random towns on the way, and this left us with the first day being very close to 160km. This would be the first time we would attempt the century - 100 imperial miles that is.

I used the GoPro video camera to make a video to attempt to capture the crazy Hanoi traffic, but for some reason the traffic was quieter and the roads better than any we had previously cycled in Hanoi - typical! Still, we produced a video clip which is above this post - just click on it to watch.

It was a hot and sunny day. Before we reached the HCMH, we were passing through small townships on the outskirts of Hanoi (once off the main roads) with concrete pathways, lots of smiling locals and lots of loose livestock. We decided to stop for a quick lunch just as we merged with the HCMH at a Bahn Mi roadside cafe. Bahn Mi is basically a baguette (left by the colonial French) which can be filled with lots of different things, but always includes chilli sauce and shredded radish as long as we have had it. Sometimes comes with pork, or sausage or pate, and is always delicious. This time we had Bahn Mi Opla - baguette and fried eggs.

The HCMH was all it promised to be. Great tarmac, not much heavy duty traffic and wide enough in most places to have a generous hard shoulder albeit one normally occupied by various drying produces like sweet potato, corn and rice instead! It was also almost completely flat so we looked good to make our 100 mile marathon. We got through an awful lot of water on this cycle.

Arriving in our destination town of Ngoc Lac, we cruised the main street casing all the Nha Nghi possibilities. The other reason for doing this extra couple of km's was that we had not yet quite reached the magic 160km and we didn't want to stop just before the red ribbon! A bit pointless but we had to do it! When the GPS read 162km we called it a day and checked in to one guesthouse round the back of a mini-market totally exhausted. When I uploaded the route the online version reported only 159.9km - DOH! Oh well, good enough!

We got showered and changed and went out for dinner, found a good restaurant and demolished some fried pork ribs (absolutely delicious - think they were the Pot-Bellied pig ones), rice and the usual morning glory veg along with a couple of beers. So around 7.30pm we were our way back to the guesthouse, tired and satisfied from the full day. We stopped in at a shop to get some drinks and snacks for the room. Whilst we were shopping, some kids started chatting in English - asking the usual "where you from" type of questions. As we were politely obliging them a guy came up to us and started chatting also in very good English. He said "Would you like to come and help me teach one English class?". We declined saying we were only here for one night and would leave in the morning, but he said "It's OK, we can teach them now, the school is very close to here". We couldn't say no really, it would have been rude, plus you have to enjoy these sort of experiences that just land in your lap. We said OK, and introduced ourselves. His name was Mr Tang.

Mr Tang asked us to follow him and we walked about 200m around to the school. We were greeted with a two storey u-shaped building, courtyard dimly lit by the fluorescent light leaking from a couple of classroom windows that still had activity within.

We were ushered into the classroom and onto two chairs in front of the blackboard as the kids came pouring in behind us. Talk about being put on the spot! The format seemed to be questions and answers, Mr Tang started by directing specific pupils to ask us a question. They began with the usual "where are you from?", "what is your name?" etc, but after a while we ended up just kind of chatting to the most confident kids, the ones with the best English. A few times we tried to ask other kids who were not chatting as much a question, but most found it pretty tough, and would break down into giggles as the rest of the class found their efforts hilarious.

The English level was generally good. After a while longer we found that Mr Tang was more keen to have a chat with us himself telling us about his own family and life whereupon the kids started to get bored in the background. One girl asked to be excused and disappeared for a few minutes, coming back with a gift bag and presenting it to Johanna much to the interest of the class. She had gone out and bought her a coffee mug and spoon combo in a box from the shop!

She was very pleased as were all the other girls that Johanna appreciated it. Then she asked if she could take a photo of herself with us which we obliged, but of course all the other kids jumped up and eventually it was a group photo, taken on many many different camera phones! After the noise of all that had subsided, Mr Tang said that the kids wanted to invite us for some "special food" with them at a restaurant around the corner. We advised that we were already full but he insisted that it would not be a huge meal, just some local snacks. When we agreed the kids went mad again and streamed out of the classroom delighted, each wanting to be the first to get to the restaurant.

We sat down with them in segregation - all the girls around Johanna, and all the boys around me. The boys mainly wanted me to talk about English Premiership football, about which I have very little knowledge or interest. My only saving grace was that they were not completely expert, and I could at least discuss all the big name players and teams that they wanted to hear about. I tried to keep them on topic and avoid undisguising my weak knowledge of football by asking about their favorite subjects and what they knew about maths and other stuff. When I asked what they wanted to do after school I was very surprised that the majority told me with straight faces that they wanted to become rappers. I din't know how to answer that to be honest!

We ate some chilli and salt spiced apple/pear thing, then some garlic fried freshwater snails with tooth pics, then some banana fritters (the plate got pulled all over the table as the kids clamoured for a piece). The boys were funny as the ones who spoke really good English were maybe only three or four out of ten in total. One other less well versed lad would nod enthusiastically and repeat whatever I had just said every time he understood something. Even if it was just a Vietnamese town or a footballer's name much to the amusement of his peers. I couldn’t help but join in a couple of times as his mates laughed.

Johanna had a different experience with the girls, she was proudly presented many phone pictures of family members - especially babies and was mainly told how beautiful they thought she was! She also received more gifts (a necklace, a key ring teddy, and a post card).

After the snacks and chatting we were truly knackered and decided to slope off to bed, before the other guys decided to leave. Around 9.30pm we were saying our goodbye's when Mr Tang asked that we meet for breakfast in the morning with them! We again couldn't say no so agreed to meet them at 6.30 outside our guesthouse.