Good morning SE Asia!: 25/11/2013 - Tuy Hoa to Nha Trang

Leaving our luxury hotel we chatted to the doormen who had been helpful whilst we stayed there. One asked how heavy my bike was as he had been carrying my bags the day before. I got him to check by asking him to lift up the rear of the bike which he did with a smile but couldn’t get it off the ground at all much to the amusement of his colleagues.

The first 25km of cycling was pan flat and the weather was great. We noticed that we were cruising along at 35kph without any heartrate at all, still less than 100bpm. It was the wind. What a great feeling to be pushed along for free. We totally deserved it after the Europe tour which saw us battling headwinds most days. We pitied people who might be coming up from the south by bike.

The landscape was quite strange, the road was passing over a kind of dam between the sea or flooded fields. The area was littered with small hills comprised of huge granite boulders that looked like an eruption of huge marbles. We saw many places that were being quarried, the huge boulders being split by dynamite, and then split again and again by compressed air jackhammers, the guys standing on top of the rocks leaning their weight onto the right spot to split it. Tough job.

Then we climbed up a 150m serpentine road that was the first real hill for a while. The trucks were crawling up in a very low gear and were close to our speed so we ended up 'racing' one truck to the top. It was close but we got there first and the guy was waving us on at the top. I had to stop to wring out my t-shirt! On the way down the other side the views were superb over the bays and islets. We passed a truck that had gone over the side at one bit and rolled over. The driver and his mates were sitting there on the other side of the road and looked fine, and made the take a picture gesture. Just as I was taking a picture of them one young guy who had just arrived started shouting 'NO!' about taking the picture, probably to protect their identity or something. Then one guy asked for money for the picture. I smiled and we buggered off.

Still on the downhill we met our first other cyclists on the whole trip! An older Belgian couple who were cycling North from Bangkok and headed for China. They were quite cool and did not seem to be doing too many km's per day, just taking it easy. Very expensive bikes though. We chatted cycling stories for 20 mins or so and wished them well into the headwind.

A bit further on down the road we came across another cyclist - 3 in one day! This guy was from China and had come down through Laos and Vietnam, crossing the border back and forth 3 times on his way down, and was now heading back home, he was pretty heavily loaded and riding a mountain bike. He was already complaining about the wind. When we stopped with him we were pedalling along at more than 40kph! The road was flat but dusty but the strong wind meant we were covering the distance quickly and easily. We finished the whole route in 6h20m for 125km which was one of our fastest, considering the hill.

We rolled into Nha Trang not really knowing what to expect, other than that we already knew it was one, if not the, biggest tourist town in Vietnam. So many hotels lined the beachfront, big hotels like Sheraton and Marriot. Big wide streets with shops and restaurants galore. This was the other side of the Vietnam coastline, a world away from even Hue or Hoi An. The craziest thing was that every sign, hotel name and menu was now also written in Russian. Our hotel was mainly Russians as well, despite not being on of the large ones. It was a smaller hotel, but had a rooftop pool on the 10th floor, included breakfast and had great reviews. The room was small but good (we chose some last minute deal) all for £18 a night.

We had a couple of days off planned - hoping the weather would stay sunny as it had been, but of course the ironic humour of whoever chooses it decided rain would be better on the forecast. Lets see.