Wednesday, 18 March 2026

Some progress and a bit of an upside down moment

 We called the grab guy to deliver breakfast to our hotel and eventually left before 11am, only 100 km to do today so that should be easy we thought, a stop for petrol then a stop to put the waterproofs on as it started raining again very heavily which also meant Fiona's phone had to go back in her pocket so we were reliant on my Garmin GPS which I can barely read ( screen is tiny ) and then we were lost, Google back on and ended up more lost, at one point riding along a farm track which was dodgy and then on a wet muddy downhill section I ended up falling off. The Chinese tyres were no good in deep mud, who'd have thought! The bike trapped my leg but eventually I kicked it off me ( thank god for a light bike) footrest bent and mirror hanging off but apart from my pride I wasn't hurt. A local appeared from a pineapple field and told us to turn back, the road were wrecked, pity we hadn't seen him earlier.

We wobbled the 2 miles back to the tarmac and I set about fixing stuff when another local stopped and seeing I was covered in mud, asked if I was ok. Then Fiona and him discussed the best way to get back on the main road, which we did. Eventually into Tam Coc.



before rain
Lost
Very lost
Lost it after we were Lost
Hurrah for gopro
Fixing the mirror
The local telling us this road was impassable, go back the way we came

We decided to stay another day in Tam Coc for no reason other we were knackered , the town itself is busy, backpacker hell to be honest. We couldn't get another night's digs at our posh place but 200 yards away we stopped in a backpacker Hostel for food to assess our plans and the likable owner offered us a room the next day for a quarter of what we paid in our posh place. 

We decided to go for it, so a flit 200 yards on the Monday, the bed wasn't as comfy but it was ok as was the room.

We walked with the great unwashed for a while and we bumped into Cammila our we Tally pal from Phong Nha, a wee blether with her and got sim cards because ours only last a month and we're about to run out. After we stopped for lunch we realised the sims we got were only Data sims, no use really, the whole point is to use a phone to phone and what's app doesn't count. Back to the shop and the guy said it was data only. I was raging and after being pushed out of the way by ignorant person and his wife I decided to leave before I ended up in a Vietnamese Jail. That's life, it's not worth going too mental when you can't speak the language.
Good crack at the hostel later, the guy and his family were very nice.





Hills
The toon
Paddy fields on Paddys day 
The toon
Tasty
A bit brighter
brilliant
Boat ladies
Tourists
They actually row with their feet until they come into berth then use their hands

Tuesday and another 3 1/2 hour ride, no point in moaning but it was as expected to Haiphong, must be getting used to the asylum as we seem to just expect insane things happen on the road. Into our posh hotel for a bit of R&R


Nice area
No rubbish, a first
Our digs, not too shabby

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