On The Road

   
 
Friday 12th Dec.

At last I'm online again! My journey started on Monday morning with a 7 hour bus ride to Da Lat and although the Peace Hotel did have Internet, I didn't find the time to write.
Mr Wing of the Easy Riders was waiting for me there and took me on his bike to show off his very nice new house on the outskirts of town. We discussed the options for a good trip and settled on a 6-day tour of the central highlands, ending on the coast at Hoi An. His prices have gone up recently from $50 to $65, but we settled on 1 million VN Dong a day to include accommodation and admission charges but not food. That's about 40 Pounds a day. As he will be my personal guide for the duration I reckon that's a good deal.

So I put myself completely in his hands and he hasn't disappointed. For the first time ever, I've been travelling without a map, although I had been looking over Mark's map before I left, which I should have brought with me, so I do have a fair idea of where we are, but not the names of places. Mr Wing makes the journey varied and interesting. Every so often he stops to let me stretch my legs and walk a short way, where he waits for me. What with that and the effort of mounting and dismounting (it's like getting on and off a horse!) I'm getting more exercise than I've had for some time.

The first two days we travelled with Fiona and Maria from Dublin and their Riders, Tom and Nam. We were really getting to know each other when they left on the third day to continue on to Nha Trang, a resort on the coast. However, they'll be in Hoi An by the time I get there so we'll meet up again there on Monday. My camera battery ran out on the second day and they took all the pictures of the silkworm farm and me climbing down a precipitous path to see a waterfall!

I've filled my camera's memory stick twice over, but today it stopped working just as we were visiting an ethnic minority village with amazing architecture! Mr Wing couldn't have been more concerned and put himself out to find a solution. We went back into town, where we'd already booked into a hotel and found a camera shop to get it checked out. It seems that my memory stick had got corrupted and eventually we found a man who reformatted it for me. I decided to buy another one as a safeguard and ended up getting a 2-gig for more cash than I meant to spend, but I won't have to worry about taking too many pics in future.

Tomorrow we visit another ethnic village with more photo opportunities. The people are all so friendly and are used to these strange foreign tourists visiting their homes and taking pictures. They seem to love it and want to see the results on the camera. Mr Wing takes a bag of sweets for the children and they all know him. However, it does seem strange when peering inside the woven bamboo dwelling of a longhouse to find the family crowded round a TV, now they have electric.

The travelling is great when the road is smooth and bumpy when its not. In some areas the road disappears altogether for a stretch before resurfacing. Mr Wing is such an experienced rider that I can relax completely, prevented from sliding off the back by my pack, which wrapped in plastic and secured at the back makes a good backrest. He knows these roads and sometimes, when travelling through the mountains, he'll cut off the engine at the top of a long hill and freewheel gently down to the bottom.

I had no idea when I came to Viet Nam how beautiful the country is. I though it would be just jungle, but now most of the original forest is gone, cut down to make way for a new, modern economy. Life has changed dramatically in the past thirty years for these friendly people who are really no different from people anywhere who want a better life for themselves and their children.
I have so much to say and pictures to download, but sleep beckons and we'll have another full day tomorrow, so Goodnight.