D11: Đầm Hà to Ba Chẽ

February 14, 2018

First time I saw a woman wearing one of these outfits, she was on the back of a motorbike and I thought the driver was cleverly wearing his jacket over the bolt of fabric he was carrying

The red headdresses are all made out of very cheap Chinese cotton, often with standard patterns like the Dongbei green and red flowers

Well! I've figured out the mystery of the missing peninsula at least. There's no peninsulas on this stretch of coastline that have four or five 10% uphills followed by sharp downhills because all of the peninsulas on this stretch of coastline are flat. There is however, a, let's call it a protrusion for lack of a better word, which does have a side road that does have those features and does end at the water.
How do I know this?

Forever thanks to great President Ho Chi Minh!

Because somehow, even with GPS, even with making a concentrated deliberate effort not to take detours that led the obvious wrong direction because the wrong direction looked more "fun", I managed to get lost in exactly the same way I got lost 12 years ago.

It seems that I would have spent the night in Tien Yen. It's 82 kilometers from the border at Mong Cai to Tien Yen. I was carrying two panniers and a handlebar bag. When you account for the differences in bike (aluminum frame sports commuter versus steel framed touring beast) and the differences in rider (I'm 12 years older and, no matter how much of it is muscle, I weigh at least 15kg more), as well as the fact that I'd just spent something like 3 days sitting at the border waiting for my visa to be active, 82 kilometers in one day is a perfectly reasonable amount to have biked. Furthermore, Tien Yen is a big enough city that it does have places to stay which have helpfully put up signs with the word 'hotel' in English.

This spirit money had me fooled from a distance but up close it was obviously not US $100 bills

There are some hills but none of the crazy steep climbs I remember

Possibly because they've all been regraded like this one?

After biting back the tendency to make "Gooooood morning Vietnam" jokes, I came out of the city and saw the road to my left. It was clearly the wrong road but it was just as clearly the more interesting of the two roads. Already bored silly with what I'd been riding on and confident that getting lost just meant giving someone with a truck hitchhiker money, I made my decision.
I turned left.

Having just eaten a rather strange lunch because not many places are open this close to Tet (a sausage on a stick, a fried chicken burger, and an ice cream yogurt thing with those chewy milk tea bubbles in it), I came out of the city and saw the road to my left. It was clearly not the main road but it was just as clearly a road that went somewhere important enough to get a big directional sign. I pulled out my phone and checked the map. (I still haven't found a paper map.) The planned route which the GPS had scheduled me to take involved a 'shortcut' across tertiary roads that would get me off the main road for about 20 or 25km if I turned here.
I turned left.

It's not just that the buildings are colorful, but they also tend to be very different from their neighbors

With only a double chainring up front and an 8 speed road bike cluster in the back, I struggled up those hills. I was 24, however, so of course I didn't get off and walk. At least not at first. The downhills were nice. Lots of breeze. And pretty scenery. Also no trucks or busses with that dopplering waggawaggawahh aftermarket honk sound they all seemed to have.

The big gear on my triple chainring is only a few teeth bigger than the smaller gear that double would have had. Even on the flats, I prefer the middle ring; I'm on vacation, I don't need to go fast. My 9 speed cluster is also mountain bike geared and it's huge. When I'm in my granny gear, I ooze up hills so slowly that putting a foot down means being unable to get enough momentum to get balanced and started again. I still don't get off and walk but unlike 12 years ago, my not getting off and not walking doesn't ruin my knees.

None of this looks the slightest bit familiar

Just like the last time I was lost here, it was quiet and peaceful and my first bit of really enjoyable riding in Vietnam

I'm dubious of the 10% claim but it definitely was steep

The road ends in water. Actually it ends in a gate the other side of which is clearly a boat yard. Maybe a dock. But it ends. It ends and it doesn't go anywhere else. I'm going to have to turn around. And when I do turn around I'll be swarmed by a pack of enthusiastic middle school students whose teacher saw me—obviously lost—through the window and sent them to help out. I'll go back to the school and try to communicate with the teacher. We'll draw pictures on my map and speak pidgin English and random words of Chinese at each other. Eventually, I will give up and ride back to the intersection I came from.

I feel like I've been riding long enough that the next turn should be coming up soon. Probably before this little town that I'm just about to enter. I pull out my phone and check the GPS, I'm so far off route it's comical. Somehow, somewhere that I didn't notice, almost immediately after I turned on to this road, there was another turn. That turn was the tertiary road I should have been on. Instead, this one is going to end at the water in about a kilometer. And the only way to get from here to there is to turn around and ride back in the direction of the intersection I came from.

On the way back to where I came from, I don't see any signs of the road I missed. I stop at few times at promising looking intersections that head off into the hills to tiny villages but always it's ahead of me, ahead of me, ahead of me until I'm all the way back at the original intersection and the GPS tells me it's 700 meters behind me. I suppose I could turn around again and check but there's not really any point. Even shortcutting on the tertiary roads, it's still 50+ km to Cam Pha and I won't make it before dark.

Based on the Nhà Nghỉ on the maps and the fact that tomorrow is Tet, I can either stay in Tien Yen tonight (for a pitiful 46km day) or I can continue onwards and into the mountains a bit and spend the night in Ba Che. There's a bunch of places to stay there.
It'll be fine.

Back on the main road, I seem to have hit a break in traffic

"The Hospital of France - 1943" Historical Relics of the Prison (A historical relic ranking according to the decision number 3922/QD-UBND dated 13/12/2011 of the People's Committee of Quang Ninh)

"Construction of a 3-day house, just across the street from 18A, the second day of the day to collect money for a living room is a brick house with a house with 18A. Today's flour is mixed together, bringing the net vanilla fruit with the juice of another knife with a different texture. Today is the future of a new legal system in Tien Yen "

They are very pretty mountains.
They are also very steep mountains.

A few times, even in my granny gear, I zig zag my way back and forth across the road creating switchbacks where none exist. Even doing this, I'm going a measly 4kph. It probably would be faster to walk but getting off and walking is a last resort.

If only it were sunny, this would be perfection

Even minor middle-of-nowhere roads leading to small towns are getting the regrade and recurve treatement

There is a town at the end of this road, right?

Going to someplace as small as Ba Chẽ this close to Tet was a rather risky decision. I got lucky but, considering my total lack of Vietnamese, as well as my lack of camping gear, it was not a smart move. From the times that I've tried to camp in Asia and ended up getting hospitality, I'm sure something would have happened that wouldn't have involved me sleeping on the street but my lack of planning and my poor decisions should not be someone else's problem.

Although four hotels showed up on Google Maps, one of them appeared permanently closed and the other two were clearly Closed for Tet. Restaurants were mostly shut or in the process of shutting when I arrived at what would otherwise be dinner time. The big market was still open but, no camping gear also means no stove.

The fourth hotel, the one I stayed at, they took me around town on a motorcycle to look and see if anyplace was open and then they invited me into their home for dinner. They even tried to get me to stay for the rest of the holiday but, after one meal, no matter how yummy a meal it was, I wasn't ready to spend a whole holiday communicating via Google Translate.

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 426 km (265 miles)

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