11 February 22:30
An eventful and challenging few days; catching up after having no connectivity for three or four days.
The ride to Quang Ngai a beach resort in a remote area held little in the way of new items. Mostly a very noisy, even more noisy and diesel filled air on the road. Not a pleasant ride. Wanted to see if I could ride 85 miles in one day and found that I could. The butt being the limiting factor. Discussed limiting factors with the more experienced riders and they concurred that the butt goes first. Interesting. Quite raw after the ride.
The resort is a dump with mosquitos. Nice ride into and out of the resort area.
After leaving Quant Ngai in the morning we headed to Qui Nhon, another beach resort. Rode less, mostly to avoid long stretches of Hiway 1. The full ride would have been 170km. No one tried to do anything close to that on the noisy smelly road.
Got to a fabulous resort, the best to date on the whole trip. Hoang Anh Resort. Of Ventana (Big Sur) class éxcept it is on the water. My room had a view to die for. Tub, shower, etc. Had everything, quite a contrast.
After some massages, I went back for a second go around, and dinner and some sleeps made an early start to Nha Trang, a resort area built by the French.
Great ride today! My butt problems mostly resolved by lowering the seat and moving it back a bit. The other riders giving good advice – took me a bit too long to figure out what they were suggesting and to get it right.
About 100km today. Three passes, one of 500 feet, others of 300 and 200 feet. Gotta love the altimeter on my watch . As it is Sunday the roads were marginally better. As it is the week before Tet the roads are full of travelers going to their homes North of Saigon.
Excellent views of the water, hills, mountains etc.
First rain in the trip but not really real rain. Up at about 400 feet some very heavy mist light rain. Stopped a few minutes after decending. The boog's record of warm dry weather continues. The locals say that this is unusually warm and they need rain. Quelle Suprise.
Approaching the Cai Pass we had a tailwind of sufficent power that the Pelaton was moving about 19 miles per hour for over an hour. Then the climb.
The full day's ride would have been over 200km so a sweep of riders at 4PM was necessary and then off to the hotel.
The hotel here in Nha Trang, the Ana Mandara Resort, is internationally famous. Look it up on the web or in the upscale travel magazines. Excellent but I think the Hoang Ahn is even better.
Good dinner buffet, a bit of blogging and then to crawl into the mosquite netting in the room. Yes, even in a very high end place. Insect repellent is provided in the bathroom – pump in the same form as the shampoo; need to be careful .
Tomorrow is a bike rest day. The city looks quite interesting and modern. Sort of like Las Vegas at night. From the late bus ride in I could not tell we were in Vietnam. Part of the bike ride today was in the dunes, looked a lot like the coast near Oregon. Rolling hills and dunes and great riding. One 26km section was particularly spectacular and pleasant – read no noisy smelly trucks.
Will try to get back to adding pictures now that I have connectivity.
Do not remember if I sent the pineapple boad with warm squid from the cooking school way back in Hoi An.
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