January 30, 2007
To Qui Nhon: Barbara's Backpacker
Just a short day today. As usual we have to wake up some people to get our passports back. Today there is a guy fast asleep on a folding bed in the middle of the restaurant. He rubs his eyes, gets out of bed (fully dressed) and calls on his cellphone. A little later the girls that were serving in the restaurant come running across the street. They check the room, retrieve the lamp they gave us last night (power didn't come on until 8pm), Patrick was already asleep when there was a "bang", and all the lights came on!
We get our passports back and head down highway one. Just around the corner is the turn off on a new shorter road to Qui Nhon. It's a nice ride, first we pass through some dunes, then the road climbs and hugs the mountain with beaches below. There are high waves crashing on the rocks. We buy some bread and eat with Nutella at a pretty viewpoint. The wind is strong and, in our faces again today, but it affects us less because we are mostly climbing or descending.
We reach our destination at about 9am, a room is available and just needs to be cleaned. So, we go down in the restaurant for coffee, some muesli with yogurt for Patrick and French toast for Rachel. After we move in and clean up, Rachel does some laundry while Patrick copies the latest pictures to a DVD. Next, we check our email and find over 200 Cambodia pictures posted on our picasa website. We spent an hour sorting and adding captions. Nathan does a great job picking pics to post. (Addendum reminder: the picasaweb site was bought by google a few years ago and shut it down, we still had the pictures, but lost the captions that we used as a blog.)
We have lunch again at the backpacker's place. Western fare while we can get it! Patrick has macaroni, Rachel tacos. After lunch we do a walk tour through the city first to a supermarket (not much there for us) then to a recommended bakery for nice muffins and cookies, and then towards the lagoon. We spot a Czech brewery and drop in for half a liter of a pretty nice pilsner. Then along the lagoon where new fishing boats are being built and old ones fixed up and lastly walking through the back alleys back into town.
Patrick spot two women with bamboo carrying sticks, a basket loaded with construction material on each end. He is curious how much it weighs; well she lets him carry and it is at least 90pounds! That's heavy, even for these small Vietnamese women! As sunset nears, Patrick takes more pictures of the woven basket boats on the beach. Dinner is again at the Kiwi Cafe (Barbara is from New Zealand). We find an email in their recommendation book from some Irish cyclists, Barbara had advised them to go inland to avoid the head winds and they loved the ride!
We are tired of the headwinds too and decide to do the same. Tomorrow morning we'll take an early bus to Kon Tum and ride from there in three or four days to Hoi An.
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 4,879 km (3,030 miles)
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