Another semi-restless night for me at the homestay. After not feeling well when we arrived on Day 1, and having a couple of hours sleep, I then woke up at 2am and couldn't sleep again. At 4am one of the roosters kicked off, followed by another then another. At 5am I threw the towel in and got up, and that's when I sat there and typed up the day 1 blog post.
At 7am our hosts woke up and got me a coffee, followed soon after by some fantastic pancakes with local bananas and honey. It seemed that everyone else had had a similar night what with the rooster and all.
Despite the lack of sleep, it would turn out to be another great day. We jumped on the bikes to ride about a mile down the lake track - pinky said it was 500m away - then down a very steep drop, to the lake itself. From there we boarded a small longboat and chugged our way across the lake. It was incredibly tranquil.
We had plenty of time to take photos, and there was some grand scenery along the way. When we reached the far end of the lake perhaps 30 minutes later we made our way up a stone stairway cut into the rocks. Several women had set up stalls all the way up, mostly selling snacks and drinks. Some of them had small racks of tiny smoked fish that you could buy, or buckets of tiny shrimp that they would munch on! No thanks. Over the other side of the climb there was an isolated lake about 100m across, where we stopped to have a drink of coffee. Despite the seclusion it was quite a busy spot with several other groups of tourists showing up while we were there.
It looks like we're something of a novelty to the locals, because whenever we stop somewhere like this, most of the time someone will ask to have their photo taken with one of us. That happened to me while I was walking over the steps, then again to Del when we were standing around having a drink. That's in addition to the usual waves and coy "hello's" that we get even when we're riding down the road. It makes a refreshing change for people to be so friendly. Coming from the UK I just don't think we're used to it, which is actually quite a sad thing. The Vietnamese are superb people, almost universally welcoming and friendly. Plus they work hard, in fact it seems they are always grafting one way or another. Half the country is made up of paddy fields which are levelled manually until they're flat enough to grow crops. Each one must surely be extremely time consuming and hard labour to get it ready, yet the country is full of them and they are all tended to and kept tidy. Riding through the countryside the hills are graduated with these giant steps. The people really have left their mark on the land. It's as though the whole country is tattooed with their hard graft.
We returned on the same boat back down the lake, then rode to the homestay to load up and get going for the rest of the day. Our plan was to ride to Cao Bang then on to Quang Uyen, and to stop at another homestay for the night. We rode through many villages which had something of a festival atmostphere going on, with banners and flags everywhere, and plenty of people out and about all in good moods.
By this point the weather had really picked up and it was now the high 20's with high humidity. We stopped in Na Pac at a small untidy cafe for some lunch. Initial impressions were not good. As is often the case here though you can't always judge a book by its cover. There are plenty of places we've eaten at where it appears unhygienic or even dirty, yet the food is cooked fresh, tastes incredible and none of us have been ill as a result. Even so, many local eateries are basic as you can get. Food is prepared in typical Vietnamese fashion - either on the pavement or in a large plastic bowl on the ground outside. There are often various smells wafting around in the vicinity, some not so pleasant, so ultimately it can take a bit of an effort to still eat in conditions which many westerners would find very off-putting. Despite that, the Beef Noodle Pho (Pho Bo) was as good as any we've had.
One downside of it being Vietnamese New Year (Tet) is that there are plenty of locals who have had perhaps a bit too much to drink. Pinky warned us about drunks in the road - not necessarily drunk drivers but pedestrians. We encountered one such fellow in one of the villages who was steadily staggering his way across the road as we rode by, literally just walking straight across the road right as a stream of 7 motorbikes were riding through.
Bryan's XR150 had started to misfire every now and then, and it seems that when we get to altitude, maybe 1-2km up, it's severe enough to cut out altogether. Since we rode a few small mountain roads today it's cut out a few times but at least it does it whenever there's a decent vista to look at and take photos of!
Late in the day Del suddenly pulled over with a problem on the bike. I was near the back so turned round and rode back. His luggage rack mounts to a bracket under the subframe, and the bracket had actually fractured pulling a large chunk of metal out of the subframe and meaning the rack was no longer very solid. We managed to bodge it with some zip ties, then caught the rest of the group up.
For the rest of the afternoon we had the enviable task of travelling 60km to Quang Uyen down a really excellent flowing road that tracked between mountains and karsts on either side, with lowland paddy fields filling in the gaps. It was an uneventful afternoon aside from the odd roadside animal darting out in front of us just at the last minute. Fortunately no-one hit anything! We enjoyed a lovely late afternoon ride in golden sun through this great countryside.
Arriving at Quang Uyen we found the place a nice little village with very shy but friendly locals. We were at another homestay, and the family made us welcome and cooked a top-notch meal for us in the evening. We called it a night relatively early since this was a quiet village, and by this point everyone needed all the sleep they could get.
Tomorrow we will be riding to Ban Gioc waterfall, which sits right on the Vietnam - China border.
Mileage today was around 160km.
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