The days plans were to head out to a place called Son My, were the Americans massacred 200 unarmed local people during the Vietnam war, then a year later completely flatted the area first with bomb and then with tanks to completely remove all trace of what had happened. Like in any war the victors only tell about the atrocities of the other side and forget the atrocities that they did themselves, least we forgot to the victors goes the spoils.
After this we were to head up the coast off state highway one and stop at a beach for lunch then it would be back onto highway one to Hoi an, well that was the plan anyway, best plans can always go astray. We made it to the Son My Museum and had a look around, the captions under the photo’s are entertaining on what they say. A lot of the photos were taken by an American photographer who smuggled a film out of what he had seen take place. Interesting anyway.
After the museum we mounted up and headed off, from the looks of the maps there was just one major road that headed up the coast so should be a easy ride, ha yea, one road right o, I wanted to stretch my legs a bit so headed up the road in front of the others, you all know the saying it’s best to stay in a group, learnt that the hard way. I headed off and to the beach which was not really that far up the road, really nice beach with white sands, I had gone across a bridge and seen one further down the road so thought I would cross back on that and the catch up with the others.
I headed off pretty quick and then the road started to degrade and at this stage I was thinking I had gone the wrong way, but this was the only road, I can to a small village and then took my first of a lot of wrong turns, now by now I knew I had gone wrong so I put on the power to see if I could catch the others, the paved road or what was left of a paved road then headed north so I took that and ended up at a dead end, by a nice little beach full of locals.
Back the other way and asked for directions, I was heading to Son Tra, which could be mistaken for Son Trinh which was back south, this is where the locals were telling me to go, by my shadows I knew I was going the wrong way but did not have to many options, I was starting to panic a bit, not that I was lost but that the others were waiting for me or trying to find me, I had now been going for over two hours with the speed I was doing would have been 20 or more kms that I had done and still I did not really have any idea where I was, after 3 hours of riding through dirt roads I finally made it back onto a tar sealed road.
With being gone for 3 hours and the others only supposed to have taken 1 hour to where we were supposed to go, I was now hoping that they would have headed north and we would meet up in Hoi an, but I could not afford for them to be waiting for me. I ended up meeting another cyclist, and finally found out where I was which was right back at the start of the day Quang Ngai. So from the path I had taken I recon I had done at least 30km loop.
I jumped on State highway one and headed north, I would cut back in further up and hopefully meet up with the others, I could not find the first turn off which was about 15 km up the road so then took the next turnoff, this is where they would be coming out if they had gone the right way. I really put the power on up state highway one, I had not really stopped for that long and it was getting close to 12:30pm now I had been missing for 4 hours, I had a bit of food in my bag so eat that to keep my hunger at bay. I stopped a local guy and got directions from him for where I needed to go and headed towards the coast, my cut off time was 1:30pm if I had not found them by then I would just have to head north to Hoi an.
I made it to what I thought was the right place to find no sign of travelers of any description, it was time to head north, I would just have to leave them an email and hope they did not spend to long looking for me, god I was feeling bad. I had probably wasted half their day. I ended up cruising up a coastal road for another 8km before I hit State highway 1 again. I found a internet place in a town called Nui Thanh and sent Zach an email, hopefully they would get it.
Just as I was leaving the internet place I looked down the road and you would not believe what I saw, 4 bikers coming down the road, so I was now thinking shit they just spent 5 hours looking for me they will be so pissed off, I was not really sure what to say, sorry and an explanation would have to do. They stopped and were really happy to see me, ok was not really expecting that, it seems that they had got lost as well and they were thinking the same thoughts I was. So it ended up working out, the fellowship of the bike was back.
The group now whole again headed off towards Hoi an, we were not to make it that day, it was just too far after all the miles we had all done, we stopped in Tam ky, not much here to speak of really food and bed was it. The group had done around 140km and by the root I took I would have been around 150km to 160km by my reckoning. What a day.
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