meandering roads

Today was one of those days that is a pleasure to ride the road wandered along side of the river, passing small villages and going over rolling hills, the sun was out with a little bit of cloud, we were following one of the lesser roads west, it meant we could ride along side each other and chat to pass the time as the miles slipped away. I had managed to dry everything from the down pour the day before, my room had looked like a laundry mat with everything strung up. But I have to say it is always nice to start the day dry. Katrina had broken a glass top but again a 100.000VND sorted that out. The road continued it’s gentle up’s and downs all day. We stopped at one point to get pictures of each of us riding through the Rice fields and then carried on.
We eventually came into Yen Bai a provincial capital, this would be our stop for the night then on again the next day into the hills. We had stopped on a corner and it just happened to be right outside a hotel, so we checked in and that would be home for a night. We headed out in search of food as we had not really had that much, after finding a shop with snacks we decided to have dinner before we headed back to the hotel.
After finding a restaurant that sells rice, we placed our order, through some miss understanding it seemed we had ordered a whole chicken for dinner, Katrina went in to do battle against the lady and got yelled at, it seems the locals really raise their voices, there was a lot of yelling coming from the direction of the kitchen so Mike went in to see if he could help, I stayed back and looked after all our stuff and was ready to make a run for it if the knifes came out. She had a few big knifes around. After half an hour the yelling had died down, the lady was still throwing different things into pots but Kat and Mike had managed to secure us half a chicken and rice for 50000VND each. About as expensive as the tourist places.
It turned out to be a really good meal and we powered through the food, not only was there the chicken and rice there was also potato in a mint type source and some green stuff that was fried with garlic that was really nice, so I thought by the time I had finished it was worth the $3US that we paid, I have to say it was one of the best Vietnamese meals I have had.
We headed back to the Hotel to check on all our washing and to relax for a while, watched a DVD and then it was off to sleep and let the bodies repair for the next day and the miles of road we have to cover