Good morning SE Asia!: 04/11/13 - Ngoc Lac to Tan Ky

Getting up at 6am for a 6.30am rendezvous, we slyly thought about just heading off quietly before breakfast as we were very tired and the thought of having to engage brain so early in the morning was not appealing any more. Before we could steel ourselves to do it anyway, Mr Tang was knocking on our door - at 6.20. It turns out the kids need to be in school for 7am for the first lesson, so they were keen to get us there as early as possible. We finished packing and loaded the bikes and by 6.35 we were following Mr Tang's motorbike off to the restaurant. There were not so many kids left, maybe only 5 or 6, and some more just heading off to the school across the road. We said our hello's and sat down. The kids had chosen the place for breakfast, partly because it was opposite their school and partly I think because of what it consisted of. It was Bun Cha which is a mix of barbequed meat served with rice noodles and some veg. Not my idea of a good breakfast meal really, but when in Rome. Also, we were reliably informed by Mr Tang that this particular Bun Cha was dog meat. So this would be our first sample of canine flesh, at not yet 7 in the morning. To be fair it smelt and looked very nice. The meat was barbequed with a sweet sauce on it, and served in a broth as either little burgers, or hammered flat steak pieces. It wasn't challenging at all, very tasty actually and could have been any other spiced meat. Saying all that, we wont be making it our must-have breakfast snack either.

We swapped our email details with Mr Tang, him checking again if we could possibly stay longer and meet his family and asking hopefully when the next time we might be back. We followed him back down to the main junction with the HCMH and waved him off as we parted. Nice guy, a bit desperate for Western culture we thought.

Back on the road, the weather was great again. Sunny but not too hot yet and despite our tiredness we started to make good progress. Today would be around 145km, flat mainly but with undulations making the total climb close to 1000m, all on the HCMH. The weather was the usual, a couple of showery outbreaks of rain, but mainly sunny. When it was uphill and the sun was out it was devastatingly hot though. We stopped for lunch in a very nice roadside café and had noodle soup, one of the best yet.

We got to Phu Phong around 4pm, and started looking for a guesthouse. Luckily there was a big one right at the entrance to the town, opposite a couple of shops and a restaurant. Perfect. The room was cheap at 170,000d but looked OK. We hand-washed some of the cycling gear and hung it up and then went out for dinner at 5.30, a bit early. They were happy to cook for us though and we ordered some De (Goat) which was apparently the speciality of this region as we had been told in Hanoi. It was delicious, cooked with chilli and lemongrass. Dinner cost another 170,000d so we had a cheap day which pleases me!

Back in the room Johanna skyped her family for a while and we started watching a film before conking out for the night.