December 27, 2016
Over the top, grumbling: Hue to Lang Co
DO you feel aggrieved when everyone gets to cruise through a tunnel? While cyclists, who'd most benefit from the flatness, have to go over a mountain.
I do. But then I'm irrational. I'm annoyed that cyclists are so carelessly banished from a tunnel that they most of all need while at the same time feeling grateful that I don't have to ride it. And acknowledging that I have yet to ride a mountain climb that isn't far prettier than the tunnel. Some of the most beautiful pictures I have are of a snow-covered road in the Massif Central I was forced to take because the tunnel was closed to me.
So, stop grumbling, Woodland.
Well, there were three climbs today and two had tunnels. And the first? Well, that had Germans instead. They were riding identical mountain bikes with their bags heaped in a van behind them. They looked the sort who'd taken early retirement and started a new life with a week of exercise in a strange land.
They passed in an orderly line, a fit-looking local guide at their head. We were having lunch out of the day's rain. They in turn stopped at a café further up the road.
We saw them again on the first climb, up through dripping trees and around custard puddles that swamped half the road. The first two of the now struggling group caught us as we took photos of the grey and black lake beneath us through the branches.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The water was divided into rice paddies. But everywhere is flooded at the moment and often only the tops of stakes and small trees poked from the water.
Below us, between the road and the lake, two barefooted boys of about 10 playfully guarded four or five brown cows. Animals are an odd feature of Vietnam. Where there are three or four in safety, they'll have someone to look after them. But whole herds are left to wander as only cows can, sometimes across Vietnam's busiest highway. Drivers who hoot at each other for no reason never hoot at cows.
We rode a brief stretch of Highway 1 today, in absence of anything else. We watched drivers approach the slowly chewing cows and politely and silently inch their way round them.
Anyway, we were just watching the youthful cowherds and wondering why they weren't at school when a grey-haired German panted up to us with a look of aggrieved triumph on his face.
What we - and perhaps he - had yet to find was that not only was there still a while to the top but that the descent was followed by a still longer, higher climb where the planner in Hanoi had denied us the tunnel.
What a service he did us. The old road rose, certainly it did, but it was empty and beautifully surfaced and carefully graded. That planner, like all tunnel planners, had done us a favour. It pays not to grumble.
There was another col, too, steeper and longer and with a proper hairpin before we spotted the sea deep below.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Outside, it is raining. Other than an hour around noon, it rained all day, hitting our cheeks in a bullying side wind. In the distance, we can hear waves hitting the sand. It makes the day - and being indoors at the end of it - better than ever.
I don't know where the Germans ended up. But, wherever they are, they'll have heard that it's going to rain all day as well tomorrow.
Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 1,254 km (779 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |