February 3, 2007
To Hoi An: a day with no wind, replaced with honking
Rachel says "I never thought I'd see it, today I did," Patrick stopped to take a picture and then unable to click out, sits on his butt in the ditch, luckily unhurt. Rachel also has two flat tires. Soon after starting out today, there was glass on the road, a section of the road under road construction was rocky and red mud and after the second flat tire found the small splinter of glass imbedded in the tire that worked its way to puncture the tire. The second flat was a slow leak that was discovered after sitting in a roadside Cafe for a break.
We started out this morning still wearing fleece and rain jackets, we still had a few descents and climbs. There are a couple of trucks on the road and we leap frog past each other for a bit. Trucks constantly break down. Only after about 8kms out of Kham Duc, was the turnoff 14E. Today is going to be a long day in kilometers, we have nice gentle descents with occasional climbs, through mountain villages slowly getting more populated along the road and back to green rice fields. Today, no wind!! Traffic is not crazy until we meet up with Highway 1 again. The quiet of the past few days replaced by honking. It was so quiet in the jungle mountains, we heard birds!! Reminiscent of a section in Terra del Fuego when we finally heard the birds again after days of howling wind.
Then the adventure of finding the road to Hoi An. We are on an overpass above the road with no access. A man points to narrow steep steps along the embankment. We shuttle gear down, Patrick rolls the bikes down, we reload and under the request of the man for money we carry on.
We reach Hoi An and as looking at a map for the hotels a man on a motorcycle shows us a brochure we follow him to "his hotel" only that it is full. We return to the corner and find a nice room with a balcony and satellite TV, free internet. We go to "Good Morning Vietnam" a branch restaurant from Nga Tang for salad, pizza and beer for dessert...a banana split!
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Today's ride: 117 km (73 miles)
Total: 5,172 km (3,212 miles)
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