Day 2: 128km, climb 1150m, Doc Trung - Lak Lake
Day 3: 53km, climb 387m, Lak Lake - Buon Ma Thuot
Day 4: 110km by bus from Buon Ma Thuot to 'Bridge 110' then cycle
77km, climb 884m, Bridge 110 - Pleiku
Day 5: 48km, climb 381m, Pleiku - Kon Tum
We visited some more waterfalls on our first (very long) day after leaving Da Lat and met some more Easyriders with contradictory information about where we can stay, which is the reason our first day turned out so short and the second so long.
We would have been on the road before it was light on day two had we managed to wake up the hotel staff faster to unlock the door and let us out. It was still very cold and the sun had not yet started to dissolve the fog in the valleys while children were already on their way to school with baguettes in their hands. After a second breakfast in a small village the road started climbing up into the mountains and the scenery got more beautiful and remote with coffee and tea plantations and a few huts here and there. The few locals we encountered seemed either very surprised or very friendly or both, sticking their heads out of the forest above us. After what felt like a long way up we finally descended into a lush green valley with bright green ricefields, farmers and waterbuffalos, and eventually just before it got dark to the sore of Lak Lake where we spent the night. It was definitely our favourite day cycling so far.
The third day was thankfully pretty short and ended in Boun Ma Thuot, which we liked very much for some reason, maybe because of the nice roll your own (spring rolls) restaurant and chatty teenagers, or maybe it was the massage that the hotel had to offer. Apparently it is also the coffee capital of Vietnam but unfortunately the only coffee Kiki had was in the bus station at 6am before we jumped on the bus out of there, and it was pretty terrible. We had been trying to find out if there was any accommodation between here and Pleiku and we had many differing opinions but the travel agents we asked said there was not and suggested we take a bus for part of the way and cycle the rest. We went with that plan as it is better to start the day with a bus ride rather than have to deal with it at the end of a days cycling. The scenery was not as nice as it has been but we did go through some rubber plantions and it was still fairly hilly.
We did not like Pleiku as much as Buon Ma Thuot, there were building works in our less stylish hotel and the roll your own restaurant was not as good.
On the way to Kon Tum we were going to visit a volcanic lake but we missed it and a local on a moto wanted to spend the day with us, but luckily we managed to shake him off, he was a maths teacher.
We arrived in Kon Tum on the 24th in time for the kitschy christmas celebrations.
roll your own dinner
rubber plantation
being chatted up
smelly dried fish
No comments:
Post a Comment