Vietnam – day 7
Wednesday, 18.12.2024
Nguyen Binh – Bao Lac
We get up really late, since we don’t have as many kilometers planned today and I really don’t feel like getting up. But if I’d known there was a beautiful blue sky outside, I’d have moved a bit faster, but again we have a window 10 cm from the wall.
We left the heater on all night, so for a change it was too warm. For breakfast we eat the melon we bought yesterday. Before heading out we go check out the market, and Jozef buys proper gloves.
Today there are also women from the Red Dao minority, wearing beautiful traditional costumes.
The market also has a top-tier barbershop section, and they sell basically every animal here in bamboo cages, even kittens.
Then we set off on the same road as yesterday, toward the national park. In the village of Tinh Tu we go straight for lunch. We sit down at a nice-looking restaurant. All we understand from the owner is that there’ll be rice, so we’re curious what we’ll get. We also see tea and a teapot, so we point at it. We get a plate of rice, some green leaves, chicken, duck and beef, tofu and some rolls. It’s quite a big meal.
Over lunch we review the trip and what we like and don’t like, sorting out a few things, hopefully things go better from here. Surprisingly the whole thing costs just 100000 dong (€4). We pass by a tin mine and start climbing into some serious hills.
We planned today’s route ourselves, just tracing a finger over the map. So we turn off the main road onto a less frequented one, which is a bit longer.
We pass through small villages full of kids who wave at us and are completely thrilled when I wave back. There are also a lot of landslides here, every few meters. Some even took out houses, you can tell since there are already 10 new little houses built a bit further along.
The road winds along the mountainside all the way to the village of Man Coc.
We continue on and the road starts getting rapidly worse until we’re on a narrow farm track. We’ve still got about 11 km to the main road. We move slowly, bouncing on the scooter the whole way, and after 6 km it starts making a strange noise. We’ve got a flat tire, we found a nail in the tire. So we continue on foot.
About 500 meters on there’s the first house, with some kids there who just point further down the road. We continue, Jozef walks faster than me.I have lot of layers today, I’ve got leggings, shorts and trousers on, and up top 2 t-shirts, a hoodie and a down jacket, so now I take it all off. Just walking, it’s genuinely pleasant here, like a lovely spring day.
The house density increases and everyone asks what happened. The mechanic who can fix it is by the main road. Luckily it’s downhill from here and we’ve got plenty of time. When we get there I’m drenched in sweat and I take off all layers.
We wait 15 minutes and get a new inner tube, pay 100000 dong and continue toward the town of Bao Lac. It’s more densely inhabited here now, and there’s a school every few kilometers. I feel like a queen from all the waving, but it’s genuinely lovely. We pass through Bao Lac, look around at hotels and go check out a viewpoint outside of town.
We stay at the second hotel, for 180000 a night. We turn on the heater and go shower. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week now, and they’re starting to smell a bit and are all dusty, but I’ll manage in those two more days. Jozef picked a restaurant on Google Maps, of course based on whether they have beer on tap. It’s on the other side of town, but at least we get to walk, given how much we sit on the scooter. They don’t have beer on tap after all, but they’ve got pre-cooked food, so we just point at what we want. We get some pork, tofu, egg and vegetables. We’re just full and it settles a nicely on the way back. We pass a surprising number of karaoke bars, this place must really come alive in season. We’re rather going to sleep.
