October 31, 2017
Vĩnh Long to Tra Vĩnh: Lovely country roads
We were on the road towards Tra Vĩnh at about a quarter to seven this morning. This wasn't the plan we had yesterday, which was to go to Bến Tre today, but last night we decided to head for Tra Vĩnh instead and carry on to Bến Tre tomorrow. We picked up a bánh mi filled with lovely crispy pork for breakfast and took the regional road 902 which followed the river's edge. It was wonderfully quiet with almost no traffic with more than two wheels. The countryside was a mix of riverside, brick kilns (they must have good clay around here), rice paddies and groves of dragon fruit.
At the village of Mang Thít we had to hop on a ferry to cross the river. A thousand Dong each.
After a bit more than thirty kilometers, the road joined up with the larger route 53 and for a while it got quite busy. At this point we started seeing some of the Khmer Buddhist temples that are in this area. The Khmer Buddhists belong to the Theravada school of Buddhism and the temples are very similar to Thai and Sri Lankan temples. The first one at which we stopped was Chùa Hạnh Phúc Tăng. It has been beautifully restored and is quite a magnificent structure.
A few kilometers further on we passed a Vietnamese Buddhist temple (part of the Mahanyana school of Buddhism) where a ceremony was on the go. While we stood and watched the monks and nuns perambulate, the nuns couldn't help waving and smiling at us as they went by.
The next Khmer temple was Chùa Koskeoseray. It has also been well restored and has some of the most beautiful paintings of the life of the Gautama Buddha I have ever seen.
We stopped for a lunch of cơm tấm and pork on the outskirts of Tra Vĩnh and then made our way to the rather crappy Gia Hoa 2 Hotel. The room is OK but over priced by about 100K Dong - I guess I should have bargained a bit but by this stage all I wanted was a shower.
Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 7,315 km (4,543 miles)
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