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Uncategorized / January 1, 1970

Client trip report: He said/She said on biking the Dragon's Tail, Vietnam (Day 1)

This summer Asia Tour Specialist, Lindsay, helped her friends and neighbors Stephen Schuit and Marsha Greenberg find and plan a bike tour in Vietnam. Schuit and Greenberg are American expats living and teaching English in South Korea. They chose to do the guided Dragon's Tail Tour  starting in Dalat and going north to Hoi-An. Both Schuit and Greenberg have traveled extensively in Asia, but this was their first tour by bike. Both wrote about their experience. Here is a he said/she said travel log of their tour. 

[caption id="attachment_980" align="alignright" width="576"] Steve and Marsha with their guide, Vinh. [/caption]

Dragon’s Tail Tour, Dalat to Hoi-An, Vietnam

Day 1-Monday, Departing: Dalat   Destination: Lak Lake Tourist Resort
Steve:

Our driver, Minh, met us at the hotel in a Toyota SUV and drove us to the outskirts of Dalat to an area of greenhouses filled with roses. The overnight rain was continuing but we were glad to see growing patches of blue sky. We started out biking in our rain parkas.

Our first morning segment was a long downhill meandering stretch on a road filled with motorcycles, buses and an occasional car. I spent some time getting used to my Giant touring bike with its smooth tires and disk brakes--which were insanely noisy at first. I sounded like a wounded hyena coming down the hills. The valleys were filled with coffee trees boasting vibrant green coffee beans. Vietnam is now the world’s leading exporter of coffee, having recently taken the mantel away from Brazil. Vinh, our guide, took us to a cricket farm, a small-scale rice-wine manufacturing facility, a silk production factory and then a waterfall and pagoda featuring the woman Buddha, Kali.

[caption id="attachment_985" align="aligncenter" width="430"] Steve taking a break.[/caption]

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at a pond-side restaurant teaming with locals-teachers having finished their first day of classes--and government officials, whose tables were filled with empty beer cans. The afternoon skies were stuffed with puffy, fair weather clouds.

Back on our bikes, we headed up-hill, deep into the Vietnamese countryside, past more coffee farms and an occasional village. Many of the children who saw us were surprised and yelled “hello-hello.” We turned onto a major road and stopped to enjoy coffee and coconut juice. The adjacent shop sold caged singing birds and hens.

Our final segment of the afternoon was a long, slow uphill stretch through busy towns and villages. The sights and smells were reminiscent of the South Korea (editor's note: Steve spent the early 1970s in Korea in the Peace Corps) I knew back in the early 1970’s: pock-marked roads, drainage ditches filled with the brown watery outflow from local farmlands and the smell of manure, fermenting in the sun. Our driver met us at 5PM at a quiet hillside intersection. We were exhausted and ready for dinner and our evening. But we still had a good 2-hour ride in the SUV up into the mountains. Daylight turned to dusk, then evening and the light of a nearly full moon. We passed small, dimly lit villages of wooden planked houses populated by Vietnamese tribal people. It had been an awesome day of riding and beginning to get a taste of Vietnam.

 

Marsha:

We woke up to pouring rain. This is one of the first days it has rained since our vacation began 7 weeks ago.  Of course it’s pouring this morning, we have the longest day of biking ahead of us. All those thoughts of why we didn’t pick a vacation of lying around on the beach are crossing my mind.

[caption id="attachment_988" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Marsha about to attack the hills on Day 5.[/caption]

We were picked up at 8:00 in a van with our smiling guide, Vinh. We had met him the day before when he asked how old I was and he told me that his father and I were the same age. I assured him with confidence and a bit of bravado that I was in great shape and could handle the biking. We piled in the van with all our belongings and headed to the outskirts of the city. After about 10 minutes of driving, Vinh asked if we wanted to get started. By then the rain had actually slowed down a bit and I thought now is as good a time as any.

We mounted our bikes and began on a long decline down the mountains. This isn’t bad, I thought. I can handle this. We made several stops in the morning eating crickets, drinking rice wine, stopping at a silk factory, a waterfall and a pagoda. All the while we were either biking on easy sloping hills or downhill.

We stopped for lunch at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant and ate enough food for a small army. I was so full when we left that all I could think of was a long nap.  I asked Vinh what was ahead for the afternoon.  “Some uphills and downhills and then a 10k uphill before we would be heading down to the hotel for the evening.” A 10k uphill, YIKES! We approached the first big uphill and there I was walking up the hill with my bike. My thoughts went to the 10k uphill Vinh told us about. By this point we had biked about 25 miles.  It seemed pretty respectable to me. I was grateful when I got to the top of that hill and mounted my bike for several miles of sloping hills.

I decided I would skip the thrill of the 10k uphill and when we stopped for one of our coffee breaks I informed Vinh and Steve that I would be getting in the van for awhile and maybe would rejoin them at the beginning of the downhill to the hotel. They were both supportive and I hopped in the van with our driver Minh, who doesn’t speak a word of English. We slowly drove along up the mountain. I took in the amazingly beautiful countryside, all the while imagining what went on during the war.

I asked Vinh during the day about the war and where the battles had taken place. His father fought in the war with the Americans and was wounded twice. It was a little surreal for me hearing all this and thinking about my friends who had both survived and died in this now beautiful country. Life is funny that way, bringing us around to experiences we only imagined through movies, books and stories.

When we got to the top of the hill to meet up with Steve and Vinh, they stopped biking and got into the van.  We were going to drive the rest of the way to the hotel. We started down the mountain on roads filled with holes that probably hadn’t been repaired in years. Motorcycles were everywhere, some with 3 or 4 people on them and others with passengers carrying loads so large it seemed impossible to manage. There were buses and trucks and a few cars. We passed through several villages and I kept thinking about how far it would have been on the bikes.

It was beginning to get dark and after an hour of driving I asked Vinh, like kids in the back seat, how far it was to the hotel.  I assumed he would say it was right around the corner. “About 40k more.” I did a quick calculation that it was about 25 more miles.  Wait, didn’t he tell us at the start of the day that after the 10k uphill we would bike the downhill to the hotel? I realized that some things get lost in translation and in fact in order to complete the trip in 6 days there would be times we would be driving in the van.

We arrived at the hotel about 7:45, just shy of 3 hours in the van. It was dark and hard to see where we were. We were taken to our small bungalow and made plans to meet in half an hour for dinner. The room was clean and had a wonderful, hot shower that felt great. We met for dinner in the dining room of the resort and ate and talked and laughed. After dinner we headed back and I’m sure I was sleeping the moment my head hit the pillow. I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring but I imagine we will be on the bikes more than the van. At least I hope so.

Ready to head to Vietnam now? See tour details here!



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