5/5/13 -- Country Cookin and Lost in the Countryside

The Countryside between the Coast Highway
and the Ho Chi Minh Road

This morning we rode out of Cua Lo, through the city of Vinh, and back to the AH1 coast
highway. Staying true to yesterday's promise to ourselves, Josh and I spent as little time as possible on the main highway before cutting off through a series of country roads towards the great, inland Ho Chi Minh Highway. Almost the entire day of riding was PURE PLEASURE! Making our way inland from the coast took us through low rice fields, held in place by a series of dikes which the road follows. I was thrilled to see the road use change entirely almost immediately after entering the countryside. The trucks were replaced by hand-built carts, piled high with freshly harvested rice greens, hay, and corn husks. The farmers use any means at their disposal to harvest and transport their goods. One man pulled a trailer the size of a pickup truck filled with hay - with his bicycle! The road carries so little traffic that the locals use the hot asphalt to dry their freshly harvested produce. Using a dual-pronged pitch fork, women patiently turn dying hay on the heated surface of the road. They kindly only cover one lane with their produce, so as to allow what little traffic that comes through use of the road. With a backdrop of rice paddies and immense, rainforest covered mountains, it makes for a peaceful scene. I feel myself bask in the beauty of it all as I let the bike wander down the road.

Country Cookin!

Lunch today was country cookin, and I loved it! I've had two meals like this since arriving in Vietnam, and both were in very rural areas where folks are calm, kind, and good to each other. The woman who cooked our meal had her own shop and kitchen, and took 20-25 minutes to prepare us a not a lunch, but a feast! Fried pork cooked in a brine sauce was served over rice with a side of salted-steamed sweet potato greens. I was dying for some extra protein, so she whipped us up a sort of omelet/pancake thing. It was savory, and makes my mouth water even now hours later. Two freshly fried fish were cooked whole, and presented intact. We picked them apart with chopsticks and dipped the bits in a savory fish sauce mixed with sugar, lime, and peppers. I love country cooking! All this and two big bottles of water, and we waddled out only $5 poorer. WOW! 

The Exceptional
Ho Chi Minh Road

As we made our way further east into the hills heading towards HCM Road, the bike started to struggle a bit more with the grades. The tiny 110cc motor pulls steadily, but slowly with two riders and our gear. I have every faith the bike will get us where we're going, it just might take a while! About 15km from the intersection with HCM, the road quality diminished drastically! Road construction in Vietnam is pretty wild - they don't remove-and-replace immediately like we do in the states. Instead they remove LARGE lengths of road first, and come back to grade, compact and pave at a later time. This results in 15km stretches of road that are simply….. not there. Luckily today was Sunday so there were no equipment or workers to contend with, but the road was CRAZY. Crews had begun leveling some sections of the new road surface, but these stretches end abruptly in steep, slippery drop-offs to the next section. It had rained heavily last night, and the mud was 6-8inches deep in most places. On the plus side you can ride through pretty easily, as the muck is really the consistency of thick pea soup. It gets a bit dicy when larger trucks and cars come by and splatter the bike with a downpour of muck. The riding is not too difficult, just slippery and slow. The biggest challenge is simply keeping the bike upright!

After two hours of battling through the construction we made it to the grand Ho Chi Minh Road, which is nothing less than phenomenal in every way! The road surface is smooth, wide, well marked, and free of traffic. The scenery is immense, and I can't believe we didn't go this way to begin with! We hit the road, and cruised at a steady 70kph all the way to Phong Nha National Park, where we're staying tonight. The park promised to have the largest underground cave and river system in the world! I'm looking forward to a boat tour tomorrow, but need some rest and relaxation for now. Good night friends!