March 17, 2018
D42: Đức Long to Đồng Đăng
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This is it. This is really it. This is my last day in Vietnam. I'm sure of it. Sure as sure can be. I mean I was sure of it yesterday afternoon and sure of it the morning before yesterday but today, when I say "I'm sure" I really do mean it.
Đồng Đăng doesn't merely sound like an onomatopoeia for the sound a large clock makes, it's also one of the major border crossings between China and Vietnam that shows up on all the various English language travel sites. On the other hand, my English language tourist map was how I found out about the first border crossing so I'm a little less sure than I'd like to be. Still optimistic though. Prepared to be disappointed but optimistic nonetheless.
Woke up this morning to yet another gray drizzly mess. I can't say as I loved the heat I was getting along with the sunlight in northwestern Vietnam but I definitely liked the blue skies. I miss the blue skies. The blue skies were very nice.
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I head towards the border gate not because I have the slightest expectation that I'll be allowed to cross into China nor because I intend to try. I head towards the border gate because I'm hoping that maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll find someplace with food for sale in the 500 meter or so stretch of buildings just this side of the gate. And I do. Breakfast is most of a large package of crackers, a can of Coke, and some beef jerky. The rest of the beef jerky along with some dried corn snacks and some peanuts goes in my handlebar bag for later.
The road from Đức Long to the first border crossing is one of the good kind of Vietnamese roads with insanely overengineered berms making for long shallow climbs and drops that more or less completely ignore the surrounding terrain in favor of just gently making it over the next pass. It's also really nice blacktop with a 10 ton weight limit keeping it nice.
A few times I pass little dirt turnoffs that, from their position, must go into China. Even without a prominent sign saying "Border Area" right at the head of the trail, it's a safe guess. Back in 2014, when cycling in the border area on the Chinese side of the border, I'm reasonably certain I wandered into Vietnam by accident and that I did so more than once. And in 2006, when I was waiting at Dongxing for my Vietnamese visa to become active, the local bike club took me out on a day ride than included going for lunch in Vietnam.
However, one of those fields that probably doesn't actually need to be filled out on the Chinese hotel registration system is your location of entry and the date. And it's definitely one of the fields that gets filled out when I register my return with my local police. Whether or not it would be really simple for me to just wander into China, my having valid travel documents requires me to enter from a valid border crossing. If the big border crossings with their gates and multilingual staff and truck parking and all the general trappings of a border crossing aren't valid, the dirt trail definitely isn't.
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When the road I'm on intersects with the QL3B I'm faced with a choice, do I continue heading south or do I start out towards the main road? The maps seem to indicate that even though it's a Vietnamese road, it twice crosses into China for about 600 meters before meeting up with the DT229. I decide to go with the main road.
Now I find out what the probable reason was for the border guard insisting I should turn around. There's an insanely steep climb with posted 12% grades coming up in the first two or three kilometers. Mind you, even if the road Google had sent me down had been paved, turning around still involved my riding 80 some odd kilometers where 15 would have done. But I want to think that it was because he was being nice and letting me avoid the big mountain. Because thinking he was trying to be nice is better than thinking he really was that unaware of the short, direct, very nearly flat route between where we were and where he was sending me.
While I'm walking up the hill a few trucks very slowly make their way down. We nod respectfully at each other. Them to me "thank you for clearly indicating that you are getting out of my way" and me to them "thank you for not killing me".
Four or five kilometers later, after I've stopped for some banh mi and a water refill, I'm faced with another decision to make. I can continue on the road I'm on to Thất Kê or I can take a wiggly windy road that will drop me a few kilometers south of Thất Kê for very nearly the same distance biked. I actually go so far as to find the turnoff and start to bike it but, after a moment's reconsideration, I decide the main road will just be less hassle, less brainpower, less effort.
It's all downhill to Thất Kê. I didn't even especially notice it being mostly uphill when I was going the other direction. Probably because it's what I once would call steep 4% and 5% grades but now, after a month in Vietnam, consider gentle.
I stick with the QL4A all the way from Thất Kê to Đồng Đăng. It's a much more major road than anything I've been on in a very long time. There's hardly any dogs asleep in the middle of the road. There are even signs every 8 or 10km of someone going fast enough and maneuvering poorly enough that they smashed up the crash barrier.
If the weather had been a little less gray a little more sunny or if I hadn't been in a "I just want to leave Vietnam" mood, I might have found the road beautiful. The karst cliffs, the mountain ridge, the river off to my right, this is all scenery that should be breathtaking. But it's just more Vietnam and I'm really really really ready to be not in Vietnam. Even if the scenery on the Guangxi side of the border is basically going to be the same, it's going to be the same with people I can talk to and signs I can read.
Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 2,098 km (1,303 miles)
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