After sad farewells to Miss Giang who had her new pagoda visiting outfit with her, off I jolly well set. Different kind of route today, 30km along a quarry road, quite busy but wide enough to stay clear of the traffic, much dust though. Open quarrying was apparent on both sides of the road with busy paddy fields between. I saw another wedding – lots of black mini skirts & white tops on motorbikes and stopped for coffee, some fruit and a banana before getting onto the HCM ROAD for the first time.
Lunchtime was sleepy sunday so I stopped slightly early in case there was nothing further on and they stop serving about 130pm. Had tea with the owner whilst feeding the inumerable nervous kittens. They had a splendid fireplace reminiscent of a bread oven.
Found a wobbly HSBC-Like two-wheeler bridge which gave a good view of the river
The last few miles I knew would be steep and indeed it kicked off with a 1 in 4 (25%) so a steady but strenuous push was required. The nav showed this was less than halfway up to my nights stay. By zig-zagging I was able to pedal manfully past a crowd of cheering locals outside a pagoda up the apparently 11%. Dripping sweat like the proverbial I reached a plateau and ordered milk tea no sugar from a giggling 12 year old left by her laughing mum
The homestay was just that, a very large imposing house and outbuildings. The owner tried to help move the bike into the parking place he wanted it but he soon felt the need to rest it against a wall. I changed from a room on floor 2 to an outside shack with shutters. Did not need the mosquito net.
Owner – 4 foot 5 inches in heels cooked dinner for myself and a 22 year old zoo-ologist who’d just done Ha Giang on a motorbike and was interested in the Nature reserve nearby in the forest where they care for rescued primates, hunted down as pets and medecine for the chinese.
Breakfast was a Banh cake like in Cao Bang but smaller and cold luckily there was some mollasses to ease it down. The owners were fun and google translate helps in so many ways with frequent lash-ups.
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