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Published: December 27th 2005
Hi all, it's been a while but I am sure you have all been very busy celebrating Christmas all over the world. It's nice receiving all the Xmas greetings from all over the place, Sydney to Staphorst (NL), Bangkok to Finland. I love this global community thing we all got going here!
Well, guess what I got for Christmas this year... the most enormous case of food poisoning... and a lovely angel that worked at reception to help me recover. But lets pick up the story where I left off last time; DMZ.
On the 23rd I got back on my bike. I went from Dong Ha to Hue (70km, 3 hours riding). With my I-pod gone blanc (yes, technology breakdown, first my camera, now my I-pod) the only thing I could do was sing myself and the only song that kept coming up in my head was: ON THE ROAD AGAIN... Yes, it was nice to get going again. As expected this ride was nothing near as interesting as the rides up north have been. Highway 1 is busy, noisy (the macho thing here is to have the loudest horn, even on the smallest little truck) and the
scenery was not great either. All the towns look similar and this stretch was mainly flat. So, to make it more intesting I was not allowed to drop my speed below 20km/hour (even at busy intersections and in towns). This spiced things up a bit! Riding into Hue was nice. The town is layed out so logical and having studied the maps before I knew were I was going. Nice. Checking into a nice hotel (still cheap, you gotta love this country) and checked out the sigths in town (citadel, gates... the lot).
The next day (Chirstmas eve) I went to visit the Nguyen tombs just outside Hue, which were impressive (yes, mom you will be proud I got some culture in as well!). That nights was hell... food poisoning has never felt this bad... up all night hugging the toilet bowl, thinking I would prefer to die instead of this... You all know what it can be like, I'm sure. So Christmas day this continued but this is where the light at the end of the tunnel showed up! The lovely girl who worked at reception helped me to get some bananas and water, checked on me during
the day, gave me the biggest hug and made sure that I would be okey. She turned out out to be my Christmas miracle (cheesy phrase but true!).
Boxing day (26/12/05) The next day, with still hardly any food in me (I had only managed to keep down a piece of break and a banana), I decided to get back on my bike. Highway 1 is only flat so I should be fine. I decided however to not do the Hai Van Pass but save that for the next day. So I my ride was from Hue to Lang Co beach (65km, 3 hours). I left Hue in the rain which was unpleasant but at least it was not cold. The weather did make for amazing vistas over the rice paddies and the Perfume River that I seemed to be following to the South China Sea. Yes, the scenery was nice. The last bit was agains the wind and with hardly any energy this was not easy. But the view of Lang Co was nice, it is a stretch of land between a lagoon and the sea with an endless beach. I spend the rest of the afternoon staring over the sea, recovering a little bit and thinking things over. It was nice! I managed to eat some rice and fish in the evening and sleep lots. It was very strange by the way, because this is on the cold side of the Pass there were no tourist here... the beach all mine!
27/12/05 Lang Co - DaNang (40km, 2 hours) Continueing my leisurly pace today... well, that is after the Hai VAn Pass. A couple kilometers out of Lang Co the Pass snaked its way up the mountain for 9 km. As promised the views were spectacular and my legs loved it too (this is the last mountain I probably will climb on this trip so I told myself to enjoy it... strange person). The top was scarred by an American bunker (former French fort I think) and souvenier sellers but still, nice to get there. Once of the mountain it was urban right away (bit disappointing) and instead of continueing onto Hoi An, I decided to check into a hotel and go see the Musuem of Cham Sculpture, which was nice. So that was today, short but sweet. Now for the weather, it is warmer here, as promissed. It is also pissing down with rain at the moment... oh well, can't have it all. At least the ride today was dry and rather warm today.
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sasja
non-member comment
it´s sooo interesting. i feel a bit boring talking about beaches, sea and lots of sun ;-) hugs