28/02: Attack of the Pukes & first puncture @ the 4000km mark (+38; 4008km)

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After a very long ride yesterday we could use a good night rest. Well.... we didn't get it. Ardan became sick and had to throw up a couple of times during the night. As I don't sleep when Ardan is sick, I didn't sleep very much either. In the morning it was a bit better. We don't really know what it was from, but as I wasn't all that well either, we think it was something we ate yesterday. Not to upset our stomach in the morning we had a very nutricious breakfast (see prove in the picture ;) ).

Luckely we only had 30 km to bike today to get to Savannaketh. There are several guesthouses here, but most of them rank in the categorie of "very basic". Finally we found a good one: Leena's Guesthouse. For anybody looking for a place in Savannakhet this has to be the best value in town. For the rest of the day we didn't do much except some sightseeing and catching up some sleep in the afternoon.

27/02: Sepon to Xeno marathon, crunching k's & burning rubber! (+166km; 3970km)

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Yesterday evening we already figured it had been better to add an extra 30km to the 65km ride to spend the night in Muangphin or even add 40km & spend the night in Xethamouak. From Khe san it is basically downhill all the time until Xethamouak so it would have been an easy 90 or 100km ride...especially making the ride(s) until Savannakhet a bit more balanced. Hell, you can't get everything right, can you?

So today the initial plan was a lazy 30km to Phin or 40km to Xethamouak. All downhill so once there we quickly decided to keep going and hoping to find a guesthouse when we had about 80km orso. Road levels out, but keeps a really little decline almost all the time making it real easy to keep good speed. Take care, this probably slows you down seriously when ridden from Savannakhet to Vietnam! At around 85, 95 & 100 we passed some new looking guesthouses but since we felt strong and had the road in our benefit decided to keep going since we knew there was a guesthouse in Dongkilo (125km). Once there the room & GH restaurant was "expensive" (70.000kip & 30.000kip) so back on the bike...we'll find something in the next town (Donghe(n))...we do, but it's not really nice...keep on biking...:-)...passed maybe 1 or 2 other GH but all in the middle of nowhere & now we have a mission!

Time to shatter the previous day-record of 133km! We target Seno. (thinking it is at 150km based on our map & some roadside sign) Counter then hits 150...no Seno...mmmm, couple km's later we get a new roadside marker...it's gonna be 166km! This certainly shatters the 133 mark ;-). Bottomline, WE ROCK!

Tired & satisfied we check into a GH. Shower, moisturize (a sizzling hot sun all day long) & a bit of rest before getting food. Today was a hard, but do-able, ride. I would not try this in the opposite direction, you'll be battling a constant 0,5-1% incline :-)

Tomorrow leaves us with an easy 30km stroll into Savannakhet (hitting the 4000km mark) where we set up camp for probably 2 days.

26/02: Laos or did we bike into some fairy wonderland? (+65; 3804km)

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We woke up, had two good egg sandwiches each on the road and started to descent to Lao Bao and the border with Laos. We still had to find LAK (Laos Kip) somewhere. Even the bank in Lao Bao didn't want to give us USD or LAK for our VND. "On the border crossing" was their answer. When we arrived there, immediatly we were surrounded by 6 ladies who wanted to change our Dong into Kip. Offcourse at a killer exchange rate ;) They started off with half of what we normally would get for our Dong. After some negotiating we had a better exchange rate, but still it costed us 10 USD. Yeah well, there was no other option, since we needed LAK. Or that's what we thought and these ladies told us. Because at the border crossing, next to the 'visa on arrival - box' you have an ATM and an exchange office. Still not the official rate, but already a lot better than what you get from these kind ladies ;)
So other travellers, if you read this: do NOT change your money with this ladies (unless you want to give them a lot of extra money), do this at the border crossing. Another thing: lonely planet says it will cost you 20USD for a visa on arrival at the Lao Bao crossing. This is nog the case (anymore?). Only Vietnamese get their visa on arrival for 20 USD. All other nationalities have to pay 35 USD or 300.000 LAK. So make sure you have enough money with you. No extra money to get your stamp though, this bordercrossing doesn't look dodgy like some other Laos Borders apparently.

Crossing into Laos we felt very welcome! Like in Cambodia, maybe even a bit more, children come running to the streets screaming their lungs out: "sabaidee, hello, bye", waving like mad and giving you a toothpaste smile! To make it more like a fairy wonderland... It's really hot here, almost no traffic, thousands of butterflies, ladies who are trying to teach you some Lao and a road that almost only goes down (so other way around is a lot up!). We like Laos so far!

Arrived in Sepon (the first real village from the border btw) where you have a lot of choice for guesthouse, probably more than 5. Settled in a room for 50kkip (around 6usd) took a stroll along the market, buy some fruit, some rice take-way for dinner & a couple of Lao Beer. More Lao tomorrow!

25/02: Bike (& Run) to the hills (+63; 3739km)

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First of all maybe correct the feeling described yesterday that Dong Ha is still a bordertown dump...when heading more west actually there was a bit of town that looked fairly nice & enjoyable. As usual the bit closer to the Hw1 doesn't do the town a lot of justice.

So today we biked into the hills. Our last good day of riding in Vietnam, heading west of Hw9 (of which parts used to be in the original Ho Chi Min trail) to Laos. The scenery quickly turns into green fields amongst the upcoming mountains. First bit of the route is ups&downs but nothing to seriously. After about 50km the mountains really kick in & the road goes up & up for the remaining 15km, slowly meandering upwards, deeper into the jungle towards Laos. It's hard work with the blistering hot sun & long 6-8% climbs, but you get rewarding views if you stop from time-to-time (which you need to anyway ;-))

Suddenly Line also had to run to the hills next to the road & camp there for about 20min due to a sudden rush of serious crapper activity. First we tried asking a couple locals if they had a toilet...without succes cause they just laughed and waved at something, somewhere...or if you ask us nothing & nowhere...?? Saved from problems until now, our last vietnamese morning noodle soup certainly won't be a kill-joy? Luckily after feeling pretty bad for 30min Line felt better again & we could continue our climb to Khe San.

Khe San checks all the boxes of a crappy bordertown, although Lao Bao is the real last bordertown that we will pass tomorrow & will probably also score a 100% on the bordertown examination. 1) It has a dodgy market where they don't want to give you back money when you buy something (if you do not have exact change) but they just keep wanting to give you shit you don't need instead so you can spend it all...?? 2) Everybody starts by charging 2x the already inflated white guy price. 3) No bank wants to exchange dongs to usd or Lao kip (other way around is not a problem though). Their pitch is to go to the market and exchange dongs to usd at a rate about 50% down the official rate...pure theft. So it is spending, keeping or burning the money ;-)

Bit of a problem cause we have to get some usd or lao kip to make it west through Laos to the first big city where we can get a visa cash advance...we hoped to exchange our remaining dongs...but that seems to be out of the window...our usd supply is low & some left over thai bahts are maybe only usefull once we get more west, closer to the thai border...mmm, hoping for some white guys leaving Laos with kips at the border so we can change dongs with them...otherwise we'll have to be winging it 'till Savannaket...fingers crossed!

Khe San is a former US base town, famous due to a big assault on it from the VC...although it was only a diversion attack to draw away attention to preperation of the Tet offensive. For this they where smugling big loads of goods down the Hcmn trail running through this area. I can only imagine how challenging the old jungle trail had to have been looking into the surroundings from the road. Anyway, Line now feels really happy we followed the coast instead of the Hcmn highway, all this up & down is just too hard biking :-) So we spend the afternoon napping, tucked away into the shade of our room.

Anyway, we think Laos will be underconnected to the web vs the other countries we've been too (but we hope to be proven mistaken) so maybe news will be bit more slow for the month to come.

24/02: Into the DMZ! (+71; 3676km)

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Following the Hw1 from Hue to Dong Ha is unremarkable, totally unremarkable. On my map this strech of road is even nicknamed "route sans joie", probably cause it leads into the DMZ (demilitarised zone) that seperated North- & South vietnam prior to the war and was very heavily bommed. Since the end of the war it looks like not much "joie" has made it back. No pleasant towns, no nice scenery...totally unremarkable. Luckily 1 little doggi (yet another one) spiced up a coffee pitstop. Line loves the doggi.

Arriving in Dong Ha it is easy to understand why this "city" still has a bordertown feel to it, although it isn't a bordertown for several decades. Some buildings alongside the dusty highway. Most of it looks a bit rundown & edgy, bordertown written all over it, but no border ;-)

We found ourselves a guide + extra moto to ride into the DMZ & visit the Vin Moc tunnels (about 2km of tunnels spread out from 12-23m depth) where at some point a village of 600 was living underground to survive the relentless carpet bombing on this border area. Everything but demilitarised! (Thanks for this months gift guys!) Anyway, our guide 'Bin' actually is a South Viet veteran. He didn't elaborate too much on the matter, but did answer any question we asked him. Not wanting to interrogate him we asked a couple but then let it be. For him it was very clear that the Vietcong won the war...I think for everyone in Vietnam who opposed the VC this is an everyday (painfull?) apparant fact. He told us that still today in the south schools teach english whereas in the north they get chinese & russian. Commi stick to commi, kapi stick to kapi? For him vietnam today was a bit alike china...commi-kapi-1-party government...mmmm

23/02: Hue country side tombs & ruines (+20; 3605km)

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We took our bikes and did a tour around Hue to see some Pagodas with the sun shining on our faces again. Yup, today the sun was back so we could leave the jackets home. It even got a bit hot at some times ;-) So while pedalling through some back roads around Hue country side we got to see an old Elephant/Tiger arena, some important guys tombs ( & the tombs of there wifes), farmland & animals. We stopped to pet some local 'street'cows that at a certain moment licked Line in the armpit. So it seems cows have a really rough & reeeeeeaaaally wet tongue :-)



After that we strolled the main Hue market where everybody tries to sell you...well anything actually. The most popular call-outs are probably "You, You, hey You!" or "LookieLookie, you buy!" After 20min of this you get the impression that their understanding of our welth is that we just want to buy everything & anything all the time (totally regardless wether you need something or not, you can buy, so you buy...right?) ;-) But we don't need anything, plus we can't drag anything on our bikes so we just got some drinks, a snack, some more viet coffee & book reading.

22/02: Hue old city 'Citadel(+-in citadel-in citadel)' visit (+21; 3585km)

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Visiting Hue old city centre by bike really is a great (& fast) way to get a good feel of the place. The citadel area of Hue is basically a part of town inside some really big walls from some old emperor fort. About 9 bridges & gates (1 car wide only) to get in & out and most are 1-way only...didn't always keep to these rules on the bike, most bikes/cyclo's didn't seem to care either.

Inside the citadel is...another citadel (imperial city) with emperor buildings...stuf...& imagine...another citadel inside the citadel inside the citadel! This last one is the Purple City which previously only had concubins, the emperor & balless dudes. Wow, party time. All by all it's a nice place (quite) to walk around, take some pictures & gaze at the buildings. After the 'cultural' part of the visit, some strolling through backstreets. Tasty streetfood lunch (minced beef noodle soup with hardboiled bird eggs) for the remarkable low price of 5000d/plate :-o It is one of the few times we got the 'real' price, not the 'white-guy' price (which is somewhere between 2x to 10x the real price) & the more funny cause some other viet customer eating there was telling the noodle lady she should have charged us 20.000 for the food. Real price for a white guy?? That's just wrong! ;-)

Tomorrow we head out to the outskirts of Hue to see some pagodes etc along the perfume river. Different, but same-same.

21/02: Shazam! Hai Van Pass (+2 smaller one's) for breakfast & spearing on to Hue (+106; 3564km)

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Today we went from Danang to Hue. Original plan was to stop after the Hai Van Pass in Lang Co, but we already arrived there at 10.30am...so decided to pedal on to Hue already. The Hai Van Pass put only a small dent in our legs, as it was actually less hard than we expected. Peaking at 500m after about 6km of 6-8% uphill we got some beautiful sceneries, including a bay with a cute village on the foot of the mountain (apparently an isolated lepra colony ;-)). The further we went up, the more we were biking in the clouds. Our reward was a welcome by a cute dog & some annoying ***-sellers (who quickly spotted we didn't need anything so left us alone). Ardan is seriously thinking of having a dog when we get our place in Veltem...., we'll see :) but why not if we get all sorts of other farmlife?

Once we've crossed the top, we had to put on our raincoats. It was much colder on the other side and it started to rain a little bit too. The weather has changed a lot as we move more north. The trivial events of the day got spiced up by a snackstop 20 km from Hue at a little bakery where a guy came up to Line pointing at her jacket and pointing back at him, basically asking if he could have it. Her wolfskin jacket??? No way! Immediately clinched the jacket in 1 hand while snacking, but you can't blame the guy for trying, at least he tried by asking nicely :) The girls at the bakery counter laughed and shook their heads...They thought the guy was a bit strange too.

Arrived in Hue around 2.30pm and went looking for a hotel. Didn't do much today except taking a well deserved shower, resting and having a good dinner. We'll probably stay in Hue for the next two days and wander around.

20/02: Hot stuff & the first rain in a long time (+31; 3458km)

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Before lunch Ardan got the final fittings on the suits. One last fix on one suit later they were looking sharp & ready to be packed by the moto post officer (they drive to the tailor in Hoi An, no need to even make it to the post office). Package will now be underway for about 3 to 4 months by boat. Should arrive fine...lets hope so...fingers crossed. Anyway, just judge the looks yourselve. A casual grey & classic black. What more does a man need in his warderobe?



After that it was time to get back on the bike towards Da Nang. Already forgot how much wind there is this time of year around here. It seems to stay the same all the way to Dang Ha before we start heading west towards Laos. Also lots! colder than the part we biked before in the south. And we heard once after the Hai Van Pass (hard work tomorrow) it gets even a lot colder & more rainy. Today we also got a taste of light rain again, something we didn't get since Singapore.

On the way from Hoi An to Da Nang we passed the Marble Mountain Temple. A tall temple clinched on the edge of a rock formation rising steeply out of the ground. Quick tour of Da Nang downtown later we had spotted the cathedral (with a very busy evening mass), the main "disco" bridge (like a huge Xmas tree at dark) & the stone art decorated quay. We'll see a bit more of Da Nang when biking towards the Hai Van pass (from where you can take beautiful fictures of the scenery apparently).

19/02: Hoi An really is all about tailoring

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Owkey, today was all about the 'Hoi An' experience. Walking around from shop to shop looking & fitting some dresses for Line...soooo many shops, soooo many models (although most have the same dresses on show, a lot off them must be using the same tailors also).
By mid-day Line had found 3 dresses around town that were being tailored to her body so we kept on going back & forth to these shops to get them just right. All of them were perfect at the 2nd fitting. And does she look good with them :-) It's gonna be a 3-4 month wait before we get them back, that's the time it will take seamail to get from Vietnam to Belgium apparantelly...can't really judge wether that's slow or fast (well surely not 'fast' ;-)) Good thing we are just getting home in 2 months...only 1 month more of real waiting. Another fitting of the suits for Ardan & these should be finished by tomorrow morning. Let's hope they get it all right so we can get back on the bikes in the afternoon towards Da Nang. Back to the real Vietnam, Hoi is nice, but this town is a bit odd since it seems to only have tailors?? No food shops, hardware -, fish -,...making it a bit of a surreal place to stick around.

18/02: Making clothes in Hoi An

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Yesterday Ardan had a suit made and today we could go and check it out. For a first fitting it looked already very good. Some more minor adjustments had to be made. The shirt was also very good. You can really see the difference between a tailor made shirt and a confection shirt of C&A ;) Looked very handsome! I also asked them to make a dress. When I tried it on it really didn't look the way I wanted. She said she could make adjustments until it would be good. But both Ardan and me felt like even after several adjustments it wouldn't be the way we wanted it to be. To our pleasant surprise the lady said that she would give us our money back if in the end we still didn't think it was okay. We wanted to save her the time of trying to fix it, so just said that we didn't want the dress. We really felt a bit ashamed, but no problem. She was ashamed too :) I think she thought we would tell people that she wasn't a good tailor, so we reassured her that we really liked the suit and shirt. I also asked her to make a copy of a dress she already had in her store. She was very happy. We also looked up on the internet how much it would cost to sent this clothes and some other excess weight from our luggage back home. Airmail costs 100USD for 10 kg. Seamail will cost around 30USD for 10 kg. Big difference! The latter will take about 3 months to get home, but we're still in Asia for two more months, so doesn't matter.

17/02: Bus and Hoi An

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So when the new bus finally left, we had a good 8 hours delay. We normally would arrive in Hoi An at 6 am today, but we only arrived at 2.30 pm. It was a bumpy ride, sometimes got thrown up in the air for 5 cm :) But still, once the bus was moving, it was okay. Everyone was just so tired, that we all slept during most part of the remaining night. Once the sun was up, the busdriver started to hunk his horn again. We really think that they just learn it that way at driverschool. Look in your 3 mirrors and honk as much as possible, just for safety ;) I got up one moment and wanted to ask the driver how long it still was to Hoi An. He was on his phone, and there was no one on the road at that moment, still he honked his horn, just an automatic thing I think :)

When we arrived in Hoi An, we went looking for a hotel. Harder then we thought. A lot of hotels were full or they charged way to much. Finally we found one for 15USD/night and found out that almost everyone from our bus who got off in Hoi An stayed there, or were still coming in. Funny... Because there was some kind of bonding between the passengers of that bus, I wonder why ;)
Payed a first visit to tailors after that. Another (not so) nice Vietnamese guy crossed our pad: I had found a dress on the iternet that I wanted a tailor to make for me. So we went looking for a place where we could print it out. I asked the girl a couple of times how much it costed for one paper printout. I even checked in Vietnamese: 2kDong/paper. After we printed it out, another guy said we had to pay 4kDong. Well, no, the girl said 2kDong! The guy went agressive on us without any warning and started to yell 'fuck you' at us. Okay, no problem mistah! Here's your paper back, and no money, GOODBYE! This time we just started to laugh when we were out of his shop... we just can't be getting chocked or mad anymore. It's just beginning to become to ridiculous. So much in a row and so many stories from others.... Well let's just enjoy the nice Vietnamese people and ignore the rest (although easier said then done sometimes ;) ).

16/02: Beaching and another negative Vietnam experience.

Didn't do much today. Just laid on the beach, reading, walking around town and drinking an ice-coffee. At 6.30pm we were supposed to take the bus to Hoi An. When the bus arrived they said they couldn't take the bikes with them. There was already to much luggage in the bus. Plus we had to buy an extra ticket for each bike. But, the bikes would be sent to Hoi An on the next bus the  following morning. Yes well, NOT an option! We tried to negotiate a bit about the price, but it was a no go all the way. The guy said that we could get a refund and take the nightbus tomorrow. This is just bullshit! We said the guy in the tourbus office that we had two bikes with us and the reply was "no problem, just pay the busdriver something". And now they can't take us & the bikes with them?? Frustration started to build up, and after ten minutes the busdriver just drove off with the words "get your refund in the tourbus office". So there we stould then... The frustration came out in tears with me, Ardan was just angry. So we had to stay another night in Nha Trang. But then we asked the lady from the hotel if there was another bus leaving tonight to Hoi An. She made a phonecall and there was. Offcourse also pay an extra ticket for each bike. Grrrr. But we took the offer, because we realised that there was no way around that. So we got on the bus and after 20 minutes this bus had engineproblems. The busdriver and some other guys of the company started to 'fix' things. After 30 minutes we were back on the road, but no 5 minutes later, the engine just shut down. They're trying to 'fix' things again, but even a novice like me can hear that it won't be fixed! I guess they need more time to realize they have to call their company to sent another bus! We waited for 4 hours on a busy road. They kept trying to fix it. Then finally another bus came to pick us up. But first this busdriver also spent an hour trying to fix it. Finally they just tried insence on the motor, yeah well that was just to strange for all the white people on the bus! Everybody got a bit agitated...Why can't we get on the other bus and leave, why do we need to stay here and whatch you guys trying to fix something that can't be fixed?? Finally we took off...

Note to our readers: We know that our blog in Vietnam is more negative then the rest, but it's just one thing after the other. We enjoy the nature and the people in little towns and villages, but there are always this things in the bigger places that makes the Vietnam experience a less fun experience. It's not only us, we've already met a lot of people who've had the same problems in Vietnam and put Vietnam on the bottom of their list. Plus on almost every bikerblog we read, same problems. Normally you would say that 5 people or 5 bad experiences fade out next to a 100 positive ones. But the contrast is just so big when you compare it to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. Let's see what Hoi An brings us tomorrow. And most of all, at what time we will arrive there.

15/02: Nha Trang Laziness

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A good night rest after two hard days of biking. We went to the beach in the morning and took a dive. The current was very hard, so we both got sucked into the waves and spit out again a couple of times. Not exactly a relaxing swim, but still a funny swim :)
After that we visited a Pagoda & a Cathedral and went hunting for a busticket to Hoi An. A lot of busoperators, but they all want you to buy and extra ticket for your bike. Here the argument that it's not fair because you don't have to pay extra for big luggage either, doesn't work. We even asked if we could place our bikes on the chair next to us since we're paying for and extra person. Nope, doesn't work. So we went from one to another busoperator. We decided to just buy a ticket without mentioning that we had bicycles with us and we would discuss the extra price with the busdriver himself. But I didn't want to give in, so I went to yet another one and he said that we just had to give the busdriver something. How much? He couldn't say, but "maybe something like 50kDong". Well that's better then an extra ticket of 10USD! This is the cheapest option, so let's work on our negotiating skills for tomorrow evening :) 
We also gave our bikes a good wash today. Four people for washing one bike: they looked brand new, so shiny they were! Tomorrow another day in Nha Trang and at 6.30pm we'll get on the nightbus to Hoi An.

14/02: Oww, it's starting to hurt...too much road & too much wind! (+108; 3427km)

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You make a plan, you change the plan, you ride another long day ;-)So we wanted to make a short ride into Cam Ranh & sit by the beach, enjoy valentine's day ;-)...Well, we seemed to have missed Cam Ranh seriously...we found a port, a shipbuilding dock...& that's it...where did the town went to? Where are the beaches? The hotels...? So it is off to Nha Trang in 1 jump. A solid 100+km ride instead of 50...owch.

Headwind is pounding solid again for most of the day dumping our average cruising speed to 12km/h for long streches...this was becoming a long & difficult day. Chose the new Cam Rahn, Nha Trang airport rd instead of Hw1 which has almost no traffic, new tarmac & nice views into bays on the way to Nha Trang. Some 6% climbs, but none are too long. The beating wind is the hardest part...we are hoping for the best when get more up north! Cross your fingers...

So at around 5pm we rolled into Nha Trang feeling weary & soar. Too much hotels & guesthouses made us loose another 30min before settling on 1. Too much offer isn't always the best ;-) Anyway, we think we have a decent place for the night..Lets evaluate tomorrow morning if we can get the nights sleep we deserve.

13/02: Killing headwind, insane busdrivers & a ride to be proud off (+133: 3319km)

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Left Mui Ne behind early this morning to bike to Phang Ri. We already arrived at there at 10.30 am. There is really nothing of interest in Phan Ri, so we decided to continue to Phan Rang. Still a long way to go, but better to bike a couple more hours than being bored in Phan Ri :) It was a hard ride: a lot, and we mean a lot of headwind and insane busdrivers who think that it's okay to pass another bus, no matter what comes from the other direction, as long as they honk a lot and turn on their indicator lights. Even if that means that they almost drive every biker or motocycle on the side of the road over!! Assholes!
We finally arrived in Phan Ri at 4.30 pm and after 133km of biking. Longest day so far. Very proud actually :)
We found a cozy hotel for 160kDong. Now we know why it's cheaper than the first one: there's a club on the other side of the road and we can hear the bass very loud! Let's hope they have to turn the volume down before we go to bed. Phan Rang doesn't look like a partytown, so fingers crossed! If not, maybe we're just to tired from the day and we'll fall asleep no matter what.
Still deciding what we will do tomorrow: stay here for a day and rest (although nothing much to do here), bike to a town in between Phan Rang and Nha Thrang, or go all the way to Nha Trang (another 105 km). We'll see what the morning brings.

12/02: Mui Ne Red & White Dunes by Xe om

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Today we rented a motocycle to go to the yellow/red and white dunes. Feels a bit like walking in the dessert. Beautiful! There are guys selling you a "sledge" for 1USD to slide down the dunes. The sledge is just a piece of plastic and it doesn't slide at all. Yeah well, a dollar gone to a good cause we hope :)
We will bike a part of this route again tomorrow to Phang Ri. It isn't going to be an easy ride: several hills, but most of all a strong head wind.

Coming back we had lunch in a little road side diner. There was a Vietnamese guy asking us where we came from because we were asking the lady of the diner how much it costs and we were saying the numbers in Vietnamese. The guy thought we were living in Vietnam. When we said to him that "we're from Belgium and we are travelling for six months by bike", he started talking in Dutch!! Why does a Vietnamese guy speak Dutch? Well, just because he likes the sound of the Dutch language :) He could speak English and Italian too. Amazing! And then he gave us, what was for us, a big compliment: we didn't look like tourists. Yesss!

After that we returned our motocycle, two houres earlier than we said we would, so the lady just gave us 1 dollar back and a bottle of water we wanted to buy, we got for free! Nice lady! :) A dive in the pool, a banana and pineapple pancake for snack, some HBO watching on television and a little dinner ended our day. An early start again tomorrow so we can beat the hottest part of the day.

11/02: Really nice coastal road (+84; 3186km)

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We keep following the coastal road up north. Our map only shows a little grey (dotted) track, but in reality there is a perfectly paved road hugging the beach. At some stretches it seems it is actually running over the beach with huge dunes on you left and the beach on the right. Terrain is getting a bit more hilly than in the Mekong, not enough to really qualify as hills, but there is enough to make you crack a sweat :-)

We are getting hooked on their 'shit', condensed milk, ice coffee more & more. So we took a pit stop on the Ke Ga cape where Line got a old lady rubbing her arm again...they just have to touch the beautifull white lady it seems ;-)

Middle of the day we got to Mui Ne, the vietnamese costa! Strangelly the beaches here are not as nice as the one's we past by during the day (hoping to find the nice spots tomorrow) and half of the signs are in russian. Half of the resort are probably owned & aimed at sovjets holiday dollahs. (Kapi-Commi help kapi-commi?) Looking at the sunset and having a Saigon beer.

10/2: 6! bikers riding the coast road to La Gi (+82; 3102km)

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Set off in the morning along the coast rd after our usual noodle soup breakfast, unbelievable but we are still not yet bored of the noodles ;-) After only 3km orso we suddenly spot 2 bikers in front of us...gettin closer revealed they were the 2 britisch guys we met earlier in Can Tho! Since we had a good time then, we kept biking together again today & probably also tomorrow since we are all heading to Mui Ne next & there is only 1 logical way to get there from here.

Some more km down the, very nice, least busiest rd in vietnam till now, we cross 2 more bikers in the other direction. Is this stretch gettin popular or what?! The coastal rd hugs the coastline very often, with good view onto the beaches & sea, a real bikers treat. For the rest there are big plots along the strip that with big construction plans, but most are yet to be developed (or never in the end).

Riding in to La Gi we found a hotel on the "main" street with is nice and new. Little strange 'artwork' on the wall above the TV though...:-) The hotel maybe also dubbles as something else from time to time...a stroll on the market, fruits, cocnut candy & mystery meat sandwich later we it down for a powerfull coffee before we go out to dinner. After that it's all about the rest for tomorrows ride into Mui Ne.

9/02: Hydrofoiling to the sands (+36; 3020km)

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Today we took the boat from HCMC to Vung Tau. A ticket: 200kDong/person. For the bikes they charged 100kDong/bike. Way too much according to us. But they woudn't give in. So after a couple of minutes trying from Ardan we were thinking of biking down to Vung Tau. But we didn't make a GPS-route, it was already after 9 'o clock and we had to bike 125 km. So maybe another try? I went up to one of the ticketoffices again, but, no luck. Off to the next one. I tried to persuade her by saying that when you have big luggage with you, they don't charge you extra. "Well our bikes are our luggage, so can you please give us a discount, because that is not fair". YES, it worked! Although only 50kDong discount. When it was time to get on the boat, the lady who checks your ticket said that we had to pay extra for our bikes, because her captain woudn't take them on the boat otherwise. We said: "no, we already paid extra, look it's written on the ticket". She again said that we had to pay extra. Two more people of the boatstaff joined her and said we had to pay extra. After that the captain came and also said we had to pay extra. We were saying all the time that we woudn't pay extra, because we already did! First very calm, after a while not so calm anymore ;) I was even physically reacting, litteraly trembling. After a while the lady from the ticketoffice came and gave the captain the money she charged us extra. Problem solved... Pfff.

A 75minutes boattrip later we arrived at very hot Vung Tau. We had a noodlesoup for lunch and set off to Long Hai (more quiet and less touristic then Vung Tau). It took a bit of searching, got lost in a little village, but we found our way. Arriving in Long Hai, we looked for the only guesthouse in the lonely planet. Lonely planet should update their information on Long Hai! A lot of guesthouses to choose from behind the "military guesthouse"! Really one after the other. We also got a good discount. In the first guesthouse it was 350kDong (too much!), so I just went back out and went looking next door. The lady came back out and all of a sudden said 200kDong. Okay then, let's have a look :) Very clean and nice room. After our shower we went for a walk on the rather dirty beach and stopped for an ice (weasel shit?) coffee somewhere on the road, where cows almost came into the shop :). We ended our day with a 'pau bo' and 'com bo' for dinner again.

8/02: Walking around HCMC

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Woke up at 8 'o clock (long sleep for us ;) ), had breakfast in our guesthouse and started daytripping in HCMC. Reunification palace was our first stop. Not much to see actually, rather boring... seemed like just a couple of fancy rooms. On the roof was a great view though. After a Pau Bo (beef noudle soup) we visited the War Remnants Museum: a museum about the Vietnam war. This was a good one, confronting and sometimes chocking, but a good one. Worth the visit!!
The rest of the afternoon we read our books at a coffeeshop and in the park. Another Pau Bo for dinner and a treat of Western Pizza Hut food later, we went back to our hotel to get a good night sleep. Tomorrow we'll get up early again to catch the boat to Vung Tau from where we will bike up the coast again. Today is our '100 days on a bike' anniversary: Thanks for the 5th present Mum, Dad, Femke, Matti!!

07/02: Up to the big city of Saigon (+74km; 2984km)

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We planned a route that would take us to Saigon while minimizing our riding time on the hw1...we missed the first turn out of My Tho & started on hw1 after all :-) Actually not that bad...just again a whole lot of xe om's. First chance we got we took a turn & followed a quite parallel road for a good 20km. After that unfortunately it was back on hw1 for the remaining 40km or so.

Anyway, its not the nicest biking, wouldn't want to ride it for days, but for 1 trip its not really a problem. When we got into Saigon city suddenly we were riding almost empty streets?? Whats wrong? Maybe lots of people are still with family for Tet, or the boulevards are just so big that traffic 'disolves' into them. Saigon so far is good. Found a guesthouse tucked away in a backalley in a more quite part of town, again plus for Saigon.

Tour around town proved Saigon isn't the busy monster we feared! There are even bike lanes on some streets! Bangkok & KL are a lot worse from the traffic & busy point of view. So it just seems maybe we will spend a day more than planned in Saigon (that is if we can keep ourselves occupied)

6/02: Ben Tre & it's Keo Dua / My Tho & it's Rainbow Icecream (+85; 2910km)

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Some more backroads towards Ben Tre to get to My Tho. Roads are gettin more busy...closer to saigon...sunday relocations after Tet holiday? We have a feeling the roads are always this way...moto's all around an occasional car/bus honking continuously to get them to move so they can pass. Funny, but also a bit dangerous & mostly loud!

To get to Ben Tre we took our first real ferry in the Mekong as we needed to cross one of the 9 river runouts that are streaming through the Delta. They get loaded up fast and full and they are leaving continuously. Bikes are 1000vdg...about 0,05 usd!? (for a solid 15min ferry ride that is, not a small little stream or whatever) Next crossings have bridges & some big ones too! Looked like copies from the big bridge in Can Tho...make 1 good design and then just use it as much as possible? That's profitable engineering!

In Ben Tre we bought some Keo Dua (coconut candy) for which the town is famous, but it was a bit hard to find a non-durian flavoured version...king of fruits, maybe, but it rieks of shit seriously. Finally got 2 packs of sweets so we have a small supply of biking candy.

It took us some time to find a decent hotel in My Tho. Strange so far that has been real easy in Vietnam...& My Tho should be the tourist getta-way from Saigon?? Nice, big hotels are expensive and it seems there are not a lot of others around. Finally took a old place which looks a bit worn, but actually has everything & more then the basics needed. A night market dinner & some ice cream for dessert in along the river park. Chocolat for Line & rainbow for Ardan...rainbow = chocolat, strawberry & yess, unfortunately Durian...dow. Lets remember to no longer take 'mystery' combo's :-) Rest of the evening we prepare ourselves mentally for the epic entrance into Saigon tomorrow :-)

05/02: Back on the road to Tra Vinh (+81km; 2825km)

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After a day rest we set off to Tra Vinh. A lot of smiling people and hello's made us warm up again to the Vietnamese people. But we are feeling the road for some reason...maybe we had a bit too much R&R at the combodian coast in the end? ;-) Had a couple of good views along the way and some impressive "big government public works" sights such as the Can Tho bridge.

Tra Vinh is a charming, although basic enough town. Not too small, not too busy, not quite either, not too interesting, not too uninteresting...pretty bland at first sight. & also after the 2nd look (which mostly yielded a couple views of commi architecture). We did have a nice curry dinner in some restaurant which was all out of rice so they went out & got us bread instead. It was pretty hard to understand what they tried telling us in vietnamese, but in the end we had a good snack.

04/02: 1 Asshole makes the difference

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Decided to take a rest day in Can Tho. A bit bigger city, seemed fairly nice at first sight & we felt the urge of 'visiting' something...biking from A to B doesn't really count as visiting...So after sleeping out we headed into town looking for breakfast. Strolling the river front you get hassled by a lot of people for a boatride on the mekong & what you hear is correct. Vietnamese touting can be a real bitch. They just won't stop & go away, basically your first response has to be quite agressive to our standards so they get it immediately (even then....) or just totally ignore them, but really totally, if you even only give them a brisk moment of attention it's over.

So it seems baguette is also popular in Vietnam. So far we only had the paté, veggies & chili stuffing version and its good. And cheap 5-10k dong (0,25 - 0,5 USD) it just depends who you ask it to...Unfortunately we also managed to have the first shit experience!

Breakfast at some roadside terras, 15k dong for a noodlesoup (sort of a standard price) and when your finished eating it's 50k dong...the dude could speak a bit of english so we didn't asked him to show us the price in bills...and yes, 15 & 50 sounds similar...asshole. We paid not wanting to discuss about it too long, but this is clearly the shit, ****** bad stories you get from others tourists. And this 1 guy is enough to fuck up the feeling you get from vietnam, even if yesterday we met really nice people all day long. Bad sticks a lot harder then good unfortunately. Anyway, learned our lesson. If they speak a bit of english take double care! Always ask to see the bills or pay in advance or discuss & fight about the bill when they try to rip you off. And 100% sure he didn't say 50k & it doesn't cost 50k...all our other soups so far cost 15k. So the hour or so after breakfast we walked around frustrated before letting it be, but nobody likes to get ripped off. I even don't mind paying 50k for it if that's what he said in advance & I agreed to it! This way you just really get ripped! Anyway, from what I hear it seems it's a bit of a cultural thing in Vietnam to rip people off, not just tourists or whatever, the guy will probably try to rip off locals too if he can. Really a shame, cause if you have 5 guys like him on a 4 week trip through Vietnam (& a 1000 nice guys) it leaves a bad after taste. Especially if nobody in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore & Cambodia tried this kind of shit. Well, learned our lesson. Try to fuck me over, I'll fuck you over. Similar mentality as in traffic....?? Is there something in communism that makes the vietnamese wanna overcompensate their individualism/personal gain/...?

And we just don't learn it, but we don't really like 'visiting' all that much...after 1h strolling through town we got bored out of our mind & headed back to our hotel for some star movies & clothes washing in the shower. Next time lets just stick to biking :-)

Compensated lunch with a nice dinner & mama's got a pair of new shades.

03/02: 2 brits by bike for breakfast, lucky boattrip & crazy,drunk xe om's (+114km; 2744km)

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The day after Tet, Chinese (vietnamese) new year! So, Happy Tet! Vietnam so far is similar but clearly different from the other countries we've been to...for starts, Vietnamese are loud. So are cambodians, but vietnamese seem to be it especially when it gets dark & others want to sleep?!? WTF? Our hotel receptionist was screaming (no shit) all the time for some reason, so hard we got not get any sleep (and we had a room of the top, 6th, floor in the hotel)...crazy. Line even had to get up & go downstairs to give him a seriously pissed off look to shut him up. Luckily it worked so we finally managed to get some rest.

At breakfast we also met 2 British brothers biking around who were also heading to Can Tho so after a bit of "bike-chitchat" we headed our ways. Roads are busy! It's like an antfarm. Xe Om's (motos) everywhere moving in some strange kind of chaotic order. Only dodgy side is that a lot are drunk, shitfaced out of their mind even. We counted at least 3 dudes crashed on the ground with their xe om. Most Xe om's also shoot out of side streets into your path everywhere & its your problem to dodge them, they just don't care, they don't even look at the coming traffic! So without surprise we witnessed a guy crashing to the ground because some other dude suddenly getting in front of him. The idiot then takes a minute to watch the crashed dude & his xe om before going on with his bussines. Crashed dude doesn't show any interest in stopping him or even talking to him...?? It's seriously dog-eat-dog...you crash (even clearly because of somebody else) it's your problem! So we know to always try to at least hurt/damage the other if they caused the accident, that way we get a bit even ;-)

Small backroads through the Mekong Delta to Can Tho...Sounds good, but it's hard to find your way around! All the water doesn't make it easy 'cause loads of tracks end up & crossings without bridges...you just never really know what side of the river to be on. Couple of friendly locals showed us the way for a bit, but we still managed to get stuck at the wrong end of the water at some point. Luckily a local quickly 'boated' us across 1 by 1 to the otherside where sweet sweet bridges awaited! No charge! We said Vietnamese aren't nice guys?? Finally ended up on another 'ferry'dingy with 3 xe oms (free again??) and where surprised to find the 2 brit bikers on the ferry's other crossing...what are the odds to meet up in the middle of some backroad while we we're both not really sure where we were :-) So we decided to head on together to Can Tho.

Can Tho looks like a enjoyable, laid back town. But we probably will not stick around for a rest day, maybe tomorrow in the still town of Tra Vinh. So had a nice BBQ, river side dinner by 4. Nice chats & laughs. Maybe we cross them later in Vietnam since they are moving the same way.

Owyeah, Mieke, mama, Gelukkige verjaardag & dikke kussen vanuit Vietnam! Ier met een brommerke rijden is avontuur verzekerd!

--> Impro-kaarsje voor uw verjaardag ;)

2/02: Rach Gia, Tet & Green lemon Tea (+93; 2630km)

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Biked 100 km from Ha Tien to Rach Gia. A lot more traffic here. Although 98% are motorcycles, once in a while you become deaf for a second when the busdrivers decide not only to honk their hornes ten times before they pass you but also when they're right next to you!
We've also found our new favourite drink of the country: green tea with lemon.

1/02: Country #5, enter Vietnam (+45; 2537km)

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Last stretches of red packed cambodian dirt roads today, through the salt fields around Kep. Looks just like  rice paddies except they are filled with salt water slowly vaporating until only piles of white salt remain. Nice views to end our month in cambodia.

Border crossing itself is a really minor experience ;-)...the dirt road suddenly is blocked by a really basic barrier, bike along it, get a cambodia check out stamp, bike about 200m in no-mansland (gamble ville! Ha Tien Casino :-)) Vietnam may be commi, but not if there are dollars involved. Anyway, then get a check-in vietnam stamp, where some borderdude takes your temperature & tries to ask you for a dollah...pfff; right, I've been on the asian road already too long for that crap. Take the passport, just walk away to the guy with the stamp (who didn't want an extra dollah :-) btw) Only pay for something you really need, ha. So Line then just skipped the first booth and went straight to the second.

Enter Vietnam, asfalt, no red dirt! Lets see if this will continue for the rest of the trip...Ha Tien, a nice, little town along the coast with a lot of hotels. Really, a lot! So we found a 10usd, new room with all the extras (warm water, cable tv, fridge). Sweet. Walked around town, learned to count in vietnamese, ate our first pho's (noodle soup) & saigon beer! Tasty stuff, all of it. Vietnam day 1, we like it. On to the others.