Leaving Hoi An. Back on the bike. 15-17 March.

Wednesday 15th of March. 127km, Hoi An to Houng Thuy. 
Left Hoi An. My favourite place in Vietnam! Relaxed, friendly, pretty and somewhere I have now made many friends. 
If you ever go to Vietnam you must visit. You’ll be missing out if you don’t. Look my mate Long up and get a Kayak tour booked with him. You won’t regret it!  I have had some of my best times on the river there. 
Great weather today burnt my nose and due to my new haircut also the top of my head a little bit.   My good bud Long rode with me to the top of the Hai Van Pass where we said our goodbyes, a little bit emotional as expected for somebody I’ve spent a year with.  We have both been through a lot together in that time and had a hell of a lot of fun.  God knows how many litres of rice wine we consumed.  A great friend.  He will be sorely missed.  

I saw the 90 year old man once again just to say farewell, there were no logs to saw but it was good to see him. 

Thursday the 16th Houng Thuy to A.Luoi 76 km 4100 feet of climbing.  Left a little late today, felt a bit tired after yesterday had Pho for breakfast, obviously.  The road towards Hue was very busy lots of big trucks,  I saw three accidents.  Lorries were taking over into oncoming traffic round blind corners and worse.  It was a bit scary. Once I turned left off the main road and onto the mountain road towards A.Luoi the traffic died down.  I rode through local villages and started climbing.  The road was rough in places, not a place for a road bike. The weather changed and it got slightly cloudy and a little cooler. The temperature dropped from 33° to 25° by the top.  I have ridden this section before but didn’t remember any of it,  well maybe a couple of sections, I think that was quite a good thing because the climb went on for quite a while.  Booked into a hotel that was 140,000 dong about 5 pound went to bed early slept well. Not a bad day ahead tomorrow now I have a lot of climbing behind me today. 


Friday 17 March. A.Luoi to Keh Sanh. 105k. Woke early and set off about 8 o’clock my kit hadn’t dried from washing the day before so had to put wet clothes on.  Cloud made it cool but was not good for the views. They would’ve been good as I was very high from the climb yesterday.  Greener and Cooler up here.  This section is one of the most beautiful I have ever ridden, easily the best hundred kilometres to ride in Vietnam. Slightly downhill following the stream through a tropical forest. Just awesome.  Ridden this section 3 times now. Once when I left Hoi An in late May 2016 and headed up to North Vietnam, the second time was with the charity newborns Vietnam and the third time was today. Really please this is one of the last sections I will ride in Vietnam before crossing the border into Lao. It completes my bike touring in Vietnam perfectly.  The last 8k is up. Really up to Khe Sanh so remember that if you ride this section. Save something!   Booked into a lower than average hotel, Khe Sanh is okay to stay, it’s a reasonable sized town and where a lot of the toughest fighting in the Vietnam war took place. 


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