The journey today was very gruelling but worth it. Had a lay in and left Cao Bang about half 9. Google maps said it's a 4 hour journey. I've got used to doubling it and that's a lot closer to the actual time. Let's just say the views today were spectacular. Well I'm at least 99% sure they were. Unfortunately I only got to see about 50% of them. My day started and finished riding in dense cloud and then my visibility was about 10m tops.
The roads rose sharply out of Cao Bang and straight into the cloud. My visor steamed up and so couldn't use that and water droplets started collecting on my eyebrows and eye lashes. It was awful riding conditions. This coupled with the shocking road conditions made it a really crap start. I don't know how the bike stood up to the potholes that I failed to avoid. Although in some instances a better description would be the road that I failed to find. The surface just completely disappeared and became a rocky lake district mountain path at times. I may as well have been there considering the weather. I never rose above the cloud which is unfortunate as that would have made an awesome photo. The edge of the road would just drop away on occasions and any false or stupid move could have ended very badly. Especially when the huge trucks left only about a 3ft gap to get past them. Nothing was gonna stop them, they were coming through no matter what. But all day I could be traveling along a new perfectly laid tarmac road one second and the next there was a huge gouge out of it the width of the road that I just couldn't avoid. When it was good today it was perfect, but when it was bad it was shite. The bad parts tested me to the max but the views, however, far out weighed them. When I dropped below the cloud the world just opened up in front of me. I looked straight down never ending valleys and saw rivers snaking between the feet of numerous mountains. I followed emerald green waters all along the route and the tiered paddy and crop fields gave the whole hillside a rippling water effect. With the decent roads beneath me I got my head down and chewed up the miles. My green waterproof poncho billowing behind me like the cape of a masked super hero. Except my mask was a pink and black scarf and of course I had no one to save. On I rode, mind the poo, further I got, avoid the cow, bend after bend, there's a woman walking her hose!, mush, CRATER, mush, please chicken stay where you are on that side of the ro...god damn it you stupid chicken, screeeeeech, why does everyone stare at me, am I saying this out loud? After the exciting game of dodgems I ride up into the cloud again, the freezing fog dropping the temperature quickly and I finally arrived late afternoon, probably about half 4, in Meo Vac, somewhat cold and wet. It's in the far north of Vietnam. A quick google search found me a hotel on trip advisor and after a brief search found it. 400,000 dong a night. Not bad. But for some reason there's a tourist permit to stay required. An extra 300,000 dong. From the minimal ability of us to converse I get the impression this applies to the whole of Meo Vac. That only equates to 24 quid and I haven't been spending anywhere near my daily limit so decide to splash out. I think I've worked out here that the more you spend the straighter the water jets that comes out the shower head, and the cleaner under your bed is. The room is massive! But the bed is rock hard. I'll see in the morning how that is. I headed out to dinner, a huge bowl filled with noodles, grilled minced pork pieces and soup, grabbed a beer on the way back and write all this while drinking it. Bed for me. It could be similarly testing tomorrow. I'm heading up to the extreme north before finishing in Ha Giang.
that's a pretty luxurious room matey. All the best.
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