Boog's Blog

12 February.

A rest and tourist day in this old French resort town. Wonderful food in this 5 star hotel – one of the best in Asia according to them.

Two pics, one from outside my room and one of some of the tour riders eating breakfast.

Some observations overlooked.

Golf::
Much of the ride along the central and north central coast looks like golf courses. The rice fields are so verdent and widespread, with random flags waving (not sure if they are delinéators or scarecrows, that they appear as wonderful courses.

Wildlife:
The South was dogs and chickens and very tired and think cows on the road. Occassional pigs. Here we see Oxen, cows, ducks, and goats up on the higher passes.

The cows and oxen are working and often crossing the road, even the hiways. Have had to stop more than once to let them pass or push through.

Architechture::
South, as mentioned, is a small narrow house which doubles as a store front. Dirt in front and then the road.

Here, nice houses, real cities, far less living on the road, taller and more narrow housing and stores. Lack of the dirt frontage.

Temples::
This area is dotted with Cham temples. Each more beautiful than the previous one.

Food:
Excellent but not as fresh as the Mekong. More extensive preparations as not as immediate from the ground or river. Prawns, giant, the kind we pay $30/lb at home, are expensive in this area. About $9 per pound here. With a living wage at $100 /month for one single person prawns are out of reach.

Morning excercise:
Starting at 5 am, especially North of here, folks are out doing their morning routines. Walking, jogging and lots of Tai Chi variations. Done by 7 am as it is too hot. Very good to see but not join.

Tet:
As the holiday starts next week (first day is the 17th) the preparations are evident everywhere. Roads being cleaned with village crews. They seem to be converting the roadside garbage eyesore to air pollution by roadside burning. Wonderful biking through it.

Doors and trees being decorated. Kumquat trees and many other types of flowering plants to decorate the entrance ways. Lights and cleaning.

Busses full of people mostly going North to visit their families. Busses so full that we would not consider getting on, let alone riding for several days. Motor bikes on top of the busses. Police stopping them to check papers (or bribes).

Fellow travelers:
Very experianced and wide ranging travel junkies. Cuba, Amazon, Alaska, Polar Bears, Europe, Barges, Cross (fill in the geographic area). Not a lot of Asia travel, except China, so far. This is not a stay at home retirement group.

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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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Feb 9. Evening

A day of bookends and real contrasts.

First the bookends.

Leaving the hotel on small rural beautiful roads. About 20km of scenic and almost traffic free riding. Then 100km of Hiway 1 riding. Noisy, more noisy, more noisy with big trucks and even bigger horns, contantly blaring. Nothing really charming. Bad air from all the diesel.

Then at the end of the day 12 km of even better riding than the morning.

Long day ending at a dump of a 'beach resort'. Many mosquitoes on the room. Clean by non-beach standards. I showered as best as I could and thén put on all my Permitrian clothing and some deet. Will sleep this way.

Outside is a perfectly respectable beach. As we are leaving early in the am unlikely I will have time for a swim. Very hard putting on my right sock so I probably would pass anyway so as not to take it off and have suffer with each yank.

The hotel would rate a half star on the Boog Scale.

On the rural roads saw lots of livestock (cows, chickens, goats) crossing the road at their convenience. Hiway was not a good time for pictures.

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8 February 17:00

Still no connectivity.

Excellent day, just about perfect.

Weather was again sunny, not too hot, and no strong headwind. Off on rural roads, once we got off Hiway 1 (just the first 20 km). Then perfect roads both in quality, views and lack of trucks and horns.

Some minor rolling hills to break the flatness and then to My Son a UNESCO site.

The Cham people, one of the 54 ethnic minorites used to live in this area. Between the 6th and 10th century this was the center of Hinduism in Vietnam. Temples, what remains of them after we bombed them to oblivion as the VC were supposedly hiding here, are of three types.

Hindi – tall and windowless with Shiva and many other carvings

One old stone – sandstone – as the only Khmer (think angor wat ) remaining temple (ruins) left outside of Cambodia.

Viet with their typical square roofs.

The original stone work from the 10th century is evident. The restoration work is all erroding from the humidity. Modern concrete does not work. Not clear (asked twice and got different answers) if they ysed any mortor. My guess is that they did and once again the ancient recipie is lost.

Of the 70 structures only a handfull are still standing and only a few are not ruins. Walked into a few of them. The site is like a great park hidden in the hills and framed by the gates one sees "Lucky Mountain".

Later a ride along the beach – both directions and through a village. I think the proffered pens confused the children but they took them.

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7 February morning.
Will be sent later as no connectivity here.

Arrived last evening at about 18:00. Long day of cycling that had everything. Headwinds, a mountain pass of 1500 feet, distance (65-70 miles), wonderful scenery and outstanding views, beach (real sand with water at 20 C ).

Had a lunch of mussels and other seafood just before the Hoi An pass. Good that we ate first .

Hoi An is a world heritage site. Home of the Chaum peoples – mostly Hindu and Moslem. Own language of the Malay-Poly language group, most similar to Hawaii.

Hotel is another of the Victoria group. Excellent views and right on the ocean.

Cooking school via a boat ride:

First a walk through the market in Hoi An. Then off on a boat for about an hour to a restaurant / cooking school. Watched and made
-eggplant in clay pot
-warm squid salad in a pinapple boat (sweet and sour)
-bahn xeo (pancakes with shrimp filling)
-our own rice paper from rice or rice flour on a steamer with a linen cover
-lesson on decoration

Bike ride along the sea shore in the late afternoon. Hoi An is a UNESCO city (the market tour gave us a chance to see the ancient city center). The hotel is about 4km outside and right on the beach. Beautiful beach, water temp at 22 C

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5 February. Evening before and after dinner

Another perfect weather day, a little warmer but plésant compared to the Mekong.

A day of boat and biking. Both on the Perfume River, a river so named as about 100 km upstream there are romantic mountains with wonderful flowers and smells which fill the river. Did not notice but did enjoy the relatively clean water and good Junk boat. Once again asked all get in safety position when the river police are watching and then no OSHA concerns of any kind.

Bike ride to another Pagoda. Hué is home to 300 of them – the center of Buddhism in Vietnam. One pic included.

The stupa used to be bigger but the French took the top one. This is the Pagoda of the Heavenly Lady.

The local village ride was bumpy but peaceful. Off then to the Citidal, the original Hué capital imperial center. 2km by 2km with moats, and inner city and a forbidden purple (read dynasty of emperors) city. While the architechture is Asian (Chinese and Vietnamese) the feeling is the same as one gets walking into the Russian Winter Palace or Versailles or the Vatican Museum. Extreme wealth of the Emperor and abject povery in the cities. Shall we use 3000 today to dig a spot for me or should we use 5000.

The buildings are much nicer here but the logic is different. In the South they are wealthy as they have lots of rice and good food. Therefore they can spend all their money and do not need to save or bulld nice homes or invest. Life in the North is just the oppisite so they build nice homes and husband all their resources.

Dinner menu
-Phoenix shaped starter
-Crab soup with mushroom
-Fried seafood roll on melon boat
-Shrimp pie and rice shrimp cake
-stewed pork with beans and dumplings. (beans used to be reserved for the emporer)
-Grilled grape leaves with beef
-Steamed rice with lotus seeds
-fruit, tea, beer

Long ride iin the morning

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4 Feb. 23:50
A bit more on an earlier item.

In an earlier post (about the perfume pagoda) there is a picture of me in front of a temple and I am holding a stick. At the time it was just a stick but now it is a stick.

On the way up the hill, a very rocky road and very slippery, I was sold a bamboo pole for 2000 dong, $.12 (12 cents). Did not think much of it.

Helped a bit and used it coming down. However it then started to have a life of its own.

First as a security item when I was not permitted to take it on the cable car. Then retrieving it.

I was wearing my dark sunglasses and soon it was a stick as if I had no sight.

Then it became a way to get preferential entry at the airport. A betting item to see if I could get it through security at the airport. Finally got it checked as luggage, with a full bar code.

Then the staff used it to herd others.

A life of its own and a real stick (New York pronunciation).

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4 Feb. 23:30

Just arrived Hué, the ancient capital. Had spectacular dinner, many but not all of the dishes included.

Stuffed grape leaves
Pork on sugar cane
Calamari
Prawns
Hué sticky rice, a speciality
Melon soup and fish

Notice especially the presentation. Carved veggies with each of the dishes. Beautiful work with carrots and white raddishes etc.

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4 Feb. 16:00

Waiting is.

Flight to Hué is delayed so I am waiting in hotel lobby.

Botanical garden and temple walks.

Buffet lunch with excellent local fruit selection.

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Feb 3. 22:30 hours

Nice ride to the Perfume Pagoda today. Approachable only by boat, so one hour on a small boat with rowers to get to the remote hilly area. Then a climb up to the chair lift area (avoides a 6 km walk straight up hill) and then a 15 minute walk up and down stone type steps. Worth it however.

One climbs down to a large cave with staglitites (sic) and pertrified trees, flowers and stones. Wonderful space with several alters. Very calming and interesting

Make me feel that this is the ultimate in "if we build it they will come". Now a whole industry related to getting yo there and extracting funds as one approaches and leaves.

The ride was near perfect. Cool weather, excellent road quality, beautiful rice fields and other fields, small towns and then the scenery of the boat ride.

Two pics of the Perfume Pagoda. One the expected, has the equivalent of scaffolding.

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