December 28, 2016
Hi, Hai Van: Lang Co to Danang
THERE'S only one story to the day and that's the Hai Van pass. It sounds something, doesn't it, although it's only 10km long and it rises to just 500m.
By Vietnamese standards, that's enough that drivers stop at the summit in automotive triumph at their achievements. Tour parties on hired mountain bikes have it as their epic of the day.
(Am I alone in thinking mountain-bikers look awkward and graceless the moment they put any effort into it?).
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The thing about Hai Van is that it rises from and redescends to sea level. For a cyclist, the attraction is that most of the traffic is diverted at the start into a tunnel. Not to be seen again for hours. Motorbikes, a few cars and the occasional small bus go over the top but the only thing of weight is the intermittent petrol tanker, presumably banned from the tunnel.
The road rises from the start, with bends every so often, and long, long waterfalls to the right. It climbs in spasms of a signposted eight per cent before blushing and settling down a little.
The top is a tourist sponge. There's a parking area and trinket shops and cafés, and people with blank expressions and wind-watering eyes. And pole-legged motorcyclists with backpacks regretting wearing shorts, and a scarlet coach of Chinese tourists respectfully admiring what they're shown but wondering how it matches the world's highest mountains at home.
And aggressive touts at each elbow.
"Bicycle! Here, bicycle! Coffee. Come, come..."
There's nothing you'd stop for and the climb is neither long nor hard enough to need to. It's an unpleasant experience and so we set straight off back down.
"Hey, bicycle, bicycle, where you go? Come, come...".
A safety fence lines the left side and beyond that and the bushes and trees is the view over Hang Co bay, its beaches and the high-sided freighters waiting at sea for their next load.
We'd seen this climb from the train when we went north to Hanoi. Vietnamese trains run on a narrower gauge than elsewhere, to wind through the trees and make steeper turns. Halfway up the climb, a clean white building housed the pumps that draw stale air from beneath ground and replaces it. It made a lasting metallic noise as we neared and passed.
It must have been essential in the days of steam. Because the line necessarily runs through tunnels before it blinks briefly into sunlight for the same sort of stunning view over the sea that we were enjoying now.
We're now running out of time. Once we had too much, now circumstance brings the reverse. Tomorrow we'll take an overnight train south and then a bus up to Dalat. Getting up there is a long, tough climb and we would gladly have ridden it. But the straight, obvious and prettiest way has no food and no accommodation for any but the first 20km, and it climbs into the clouds. The two or three-day route goes in a dog-leg but misses the main attraction and takes too long.
In a moment, therefore, we'll leave this café and go back to Danang station, where we bought our sleeper tickets a little earlier. And there we shall admire the handsome black steam locomotive parked outside and wearing its bright yellow star. We'll entrust our bikes once more to the railway luggage service and I shall return on another page to tell you how we got on.
See you there.
Today's ride: 43 km (27 miles)
Total: 1,297 km (805 miles)
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