Good morning SE Asia!: 08/11/13 - Son Trach to Dong Hoi

We got up late due to the previous night but no worries as we did not have far to go. It was a flat ride of only 50Km to the coast and our first taste of the ocean air since Cat Ba, a month ago. We would be leaving our safe haven of the Ho Chi Min Highway after more than 600km on it and venturing out onto bigger and badder roads near the end of the journey.

The main topic of conversation however, was the impending Typhoon that was due to hit the coast of Vietnam in one or two days time. As Typhoon Haiyan had already made landfall in the west of the Philippines and caused massive damage overnight we had considered staying in Son Trach for longer as it is inland, away from the coastline which may have provided some extra security. We chose to cycle towards the storm instead as after consulting many online weather reporting sites and long range forecasts, it was sensible to assume that it would only be a category 2 hurricane when it made landfall, about 150km further south than Dong Hoi. The second reason was that even though we would be nearer the sea, the hotel that we had chosen was a brand new 4-star building in a brand new development outside of town. This meant that they probably were better prepared in the case of emergencies than Son Trach would have been. Better power supply, better electrics and most likely a nice new diesel generator in a concrete shed in case of power cuts - which would be most likely in the storm, along with some minor flooding and possibly dirty water backing up in the clean supply.

The cycle was straightforward and fast. We dodged heavy purple clouds and trailing curtains of rain all the way without getting too wet.

When we got to the hotel, we saw to our horror that there were guys up on the apartment roofs retiling and several others were covered only with tarpaulins! Not a good time for roof work surely!?! In fact it turned out to be a bit of prep for the storm and a repair from the previous one only two weeks ago (no mention on the news of that storm outside of Vietnam - it was already the 14th this year - but caused widespread damage).

The hotel was spotless and new and totally empty. Nobody else was there other than us and about 20 staff... Weird feeling.

We were worried about the storm getting to us before we had prepped for it, so after a quick lunch we hired a motorbike and headed back into the town to buy some groceries in case we got stuck in the hotel for a couple of days. The weather was really hot by then, no rain, no wind at all. We bought a load of snacks, drinks and fruit (best ever Clementines and these Lychee things that are very good). We spent the afternoon swimming in the pool and having a look at the beach, and keeping ourselves updated with the storm progress online. It looked to be changing into a category 3 by the time it would hit Vietnam, and was due to hit the Philippines as a category 5. Not good. Also the prediction had the eye of the storm swinging more North than first predicted, meaning it was going to pass directly over us. We would be in the eye of the Typhoon.... We had dinner in the empty restaurant and spoke with the manager of the hotel for a while about the storm. He was not too worried, but was getting the staff to check a few things anyway.

We kept our fingers crossed that it had not hit the main cities in the Philippines too hard, but in reality we knew it would have. It must have already caused massive damage over the last few hours, they just couldn't survive it due to their standard of living as very poor people - basically living in shacks without any option of protection or medical support. Felt bad for them. There were not many clear news reports as we went to bed, just the same mobile phone clip someone took from their balcony of high winds being repeated and repeated. We knew it had hit the main towns by now.

The news also said that up to 100,000 people were being evacuated along the coast in Vietnam - we assumed these would be poor people living in similar conditions, and they were being moved to higher ground, maybe into a school or hall, until the storm passes.