DALAT TO NHA TRANG

23rd July 2015

When I was about 10, my uncle John died in a motor bike accident. I have been petrified of going on a motor bike ever since. I remember him, through a child's eyes, as the coolest uncle ever. I have memories of John and Kathy turning up to our house on their bikes, dressed in their leathers. If we were lucky they would even let us sit on the bikes!

I have always avoided going on motorbikes ever since, and throughout our travels there have been opportunities to hire bikes and I have said no. However, when we arrived in Saigon, motorbikes became unavoidable. Literally - it's a city with one bike for every two people. They became a thing to dodge - crossing the road involved looking for a slight gap in motorbikes, then closing your eyes, stepping off the curb, and walking forwards at an even pace whilst bikes decide whether to cross in front or behind you. If you stop, hesitate, or show weakness of any other sort, you mess up everything!

Then came the time I had dreaded - one day we had no other option but to take a motor bike taxi. And it wasn't so bad. It was a little tricky to balance carrying the huge rucksack. Then a few days later we hired one to get around ourselves. I wasn't confident enough to ride by myself, but I started to enjoy the freedom having a bike gave you. We started talking about the possibility of living the travellers (cliché) dream in Vietnam and biking up the coast. However, going the whole way seemed a bit of a stretch for newbies like us, so we decided on just a day. We heard from lots of people that the mountain road between Dalat to Nha Trang was a beautiful journey full of incredible scenery, with a recently tarmaced road - it sounded perfect. In Dalat we asked at our hotel if they knew a place where you could rent bikes one way, and she said they did it there, and that they could deliver our bags so that they wouldn't have to be strapped to the back - brilliant! At just $35 including helmets and bag delivery, we'd have been stupid not to! All that was left to do was name our bike. We called him Mikey the bikey.

I don't know what finally made us go for it, I think it must be the sense of adventure that comes with travelling.

The day started with an egg baguette and a strong coffee. We were both nervous for many reasons, (mainly that foreigners are meant to have a Vietnamese drivers license to drive a bike, we just had to hope we wouldn't be noticed by the police) but above all we were excited. We had bitten the bullet and hired a bike to drive to the coast. 

As we were driving out the city (which was easier said than done, we left in rush hour), we realised we had made the right decision. There's a huge graveyard at the edge of the city, and we were able to stop the bike and explore - on a bus it would have whizzed past in a second. We also saw hundreds of industrial sized greenhouses with flowers of every colour in them. Dalat is famous for its flowers, but we hadn't seen much evidence of this until now.

With the city firmly behind us, we started seeing the beautiful scenery that this ride is famous for. Everywhere was a sea of green, and the best bit was that for the most part, we had the road to ourself. Small villages popped up every now and then, meaning iced coffee breaks for us! At the first roadside place we pulled in to, there was a policeman sat at the table with a friend drinking coffee. FUUUUUCK... Act calm... We gave him a nod, ordered our coffees and hoped for the best. His friend came over to Will to compliment him on his beard. The coffee was the best we've had yet and so so cheap. As we left, the policeman asked us where we were from. We said England, then jumped on the bike and sped off. A quick look over my shoulder confirmed we weren't being chased and that was it.

We passed a huge group of Vietnamese cyclists going the other way (up the hill) who were spaced over a few kilometres. Every time we thought we'd seen the very last cyclist, we turned the corner and there was yet more of them. They had decorated their bikes, we guessed it was a charity bike ride, and waved as we sped past. Many of them had gotten off to push, but they all wore smiles and matching hoodies.

We saw a bike group stopped outside a 'Rong House' which is a community house. They are unusual in that the roof is ridiculously high. It wouldn't look out of place in a fairy tale, and we half expected a witch to pop out and lure us in. It was a much needed rest stop, and once the big group had pedalled off, we had it to ourselves. I sat and had a moment and thought of all the adventures auntie Kathy and uncle John must have had together. 

As we sped on we climbed even higher. We were heading for a mountain pass. Will commented that it was like doing the whole of the Annapurna Circuit but in one day, which made us appreciate even more how exciting it was - the sheer amount of scenery we were seeing, with a 360degree unlimited view. It really was thrilling.

The lady at our hotel had told us there were loads of waterfalls on the way. About 2 hours in and we still hadn't seen any. However we heard the unmistakeable sound of running water so we stopped the bike to check it out. We found a very flat waterfall, not quite what we'd been imagining from her description, but it was only us and made for a pleasant break!

Once we had made it through the pass to the highest point and rounded the corner we were in for a real treat. The view that greeted us was out of this world, looking down the entire valley, with barely visible light grey mountains in the distance to add drama to the skyline. We stopped for a while to take it all in, and continued on, stopping at some incredible dramatic waterfalls (the ones she was probably talking about) that we could see rushing over the top, which we later saw from many different angles from different points on the road further down.

Signs like this were common place for the next bit of the journey, we saw evidence of quite a few landslides. We kept going, talking a little quieter for those parts. The incredible views just kept on coming.

After a while, we must have reached the bottom of the valley, as everything flattened out and we found ourselves speeding in between lush green rice paddies. That's when the photo opportunities presented themselves in every field - groups of people were working with their traditional Vietnamese cone hats on to shade them from the beating hot sun.

All too soon, we hit civilisation, in the form of the main coastal road. We navigated our way to reach the Easy Rider tour desk to give the bike back and collect our bags. The ride had been incredible, definitely one of the highlights of the trip. I never would have thought we'd have done it when we planned to come to this part of the world, but some opportunities are just too good to pass up on.

Nha Trang was a resort with a beautiful but insanely full beach. We had planned to get a night bus straight away to Hoi An, but unfortunately the universe had other plans. All the buses were full for that night. We went to the beach and checked into a hotel. The next day we went to book the bus and were told they were all full again. Damn... Why didn't we just book last night!!!! The guy could see how pissed off we were (it was a nice town but FULL of people) and said he'd see what he could do. He called his friend at the bus company and managed to squeeze us on a bus - however there was a catch - Will would be sleeping on the floor, and we would be paying twice the price (to cover the bribe the driver would have to pay the police if caught). After a little umming and arrring, we went for it. We had to keep moving as we wanted to fit in everything we had planned for Vietnam.

Me asking for too much discount: