From the city of Quy Nhon we were taking back roads north to try and keep away from the dreaded state highway 1, the carnage and traffic was well worth hiding from. The drivers are crazy and the passing maneuvers are insane.
We were to jump on a bridge over to a peninsula and then head north from there on quiet country roads, it would make for limited traffic and some beautiful views of the beaches up the coast. After a little bit of a wrong turn and some back tracking we found the bridge we needed and we were off heading north. Once across this new bridge we had two options follow the 4 lane highway or the dirt road, after some discussion with a local it was the dirt road we had to follow.
We headed along the harbor side of the peninsula snaking our way around all the pot holes in the road, like me I think everyone thought we were going the wrong way, it did not seem like a road we should be following, the only thing we were sure of was that we were heading north and that’s the way we needed to go.
As we snaked through these pot holes one decided to leap out in front of me, I caught my tire on the edge of the hole and the front slide out and twisted, causing the bike to fall over, sending me over the handle bars and flying into a ditch on the side of the road, the problem with the ditch was it was full of water. So the bike survived the fall with nothing wrong, I on the other hand was soaked, I leaped up as quick as I could but I was still too slow, my bag, and me we soaked, bugger, a couple of locals came out to have a look as well. My dignity had taken a hit, dam road tires. Notice how it is the tires fault and not mine. I had to ring my cloths out to get most of the water out before we headed off again.
We came across more of these big 4 lane roads and decided to follow one that would hopefully take us the right was and it would be a improvement from what we were riding on. But it was not to last the road headed across the peninsula and then south, so we had to turn around and head back the other way, yep great. It was also looking like it could rain to, great yet again.
Back on the correct road we started to make good time, the problem with these small country roads is that there are a limited amount of signs and the villages that were on our maps did not match up with the villages that we were riding through, very confusing, the only good thing was all the roads we were on were heading north and that was the key to the ride to head north.
The fellowship was working we were all getting on really well it was excellent, and after about an hour of riding I was starting to dry off, life was getting better. The beaches along this coast are stunning, blue waters, golden sands and not a person around, the coast line was rugged at times and we had a few hills to climb. We stopped for second breakfast and I ate a lot of pork, pretty much every ones pork, could not really complain, this was looking good getting to eat every ones left over food.
I had a couple of races with some kids up a hill, one of the bikes I was racing was using double kid power, one on the seat peddling and the other on the carrier with his feet on top of the other kids also pushing on the peddles. I managed to lead all the way to nearly the top when Zach came cruising through. At the next hill as the kids had kept following we were off again on another hill challenge the boys considering their bikes gave a good show for themselves and I was pushed climbing the hill, I was thinking at the time it could have been a mistake as we still had a long way to ride that day.
The road weaved to and from the coast as we made our way north, the speed was not what I was used to but our average was still around 19km/h so not too bad. We came back onto the state highway 1 with about 20km to go, but it did not seem long before we were pulling into town and had settled into our rooms.
We all went out and got our bikes washed, mine had not been done for a while so it was pretty happy about that, now you’re asking how a bike can look happy, ride for 4000km and your bike gets a personality, it has it qwirks and kninks and it shines more after a wash. It was also Mikes birthday so a cake was brought with lots of pastries and that was dinner sorted.
There was a bit of a panic for the Americans as they thought they had left their computer in Quang Ngai, taxis were called and Elise was going to head south when they had one more look through the bags and found it, it was not in the usual place. It is one thing about biking, I now pack my bag the same every day so I hopefully will pick up on if I have missed something, won’t speak to soon have a few more days travel to go yet.
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