We've been asked that many times, and over the past couple of days, yet again, have discovered in ourselves, reasons and answers...
Also, some questions. Like, "what the hell are we doing!?".
That was what we were pondering on as we lay in the shade, exhausted and rubber-legged, after slogging up about the 8th 10% grade climb we'd hit that morning...
We had left Da Nang under a cloudless sky, but with a welcome tailwind. Pushing south, we'd knocked out 30-odd kms by mid-morning, before we turned off the noisy, busy highway 1, and started to head in a more westerly direction, and towards the hills and mountains.
We knew we'd have some climbing to do, but having studied the maps, it looked to be an evenly graded, mostly gradual ascent... Which it was for the next 60-70 kms. The roads were just what we'd hoped for... Gently rolling, with much less traffic and small towns to take a break at along the way.
By the time we'd done around 100 clicks, we were a bit tired, but the gently rolling ride, being more scenic and less filled with air-horns was very enjoyable, and so the kilometers were passing faster.
Then we hit the side of a mountain, of which the road seems to go straight up... And thus, the tough stuff began.
How we managed another 40 kms that evening, I don't know, but we did, pushing through sheer exhaustion and pain to finally get to the top of what actually was, at last, the last climb, and roll down the pitch black hill, headlamps throwing a barely sufficient wobbling light out ahead of us, into the small town of Kham Duc.
We rounded the first bend, now with welcome street-lights into town and like a glorious bright beacon, there right ahead was a huge sign bearing the welcome words "Khach San"... "Hotel".
We crashed out hard that night, and woke the next day, aching and still tired, but ready to push on.
By around 0800 the next morning, whilst stopped at a roadside cafe to have a nice cold water, a huge moth paid us a visit...
And it was that morning that found us, 3 hours and 40kms later, flat on our backs, legs like lead, totally exhausted, half-way up a thigh-busting, crazy-legs-gearing steep-ass 10% grade ascent...
Laying there, again, we asked ourselves, what are we doing..!? And just what does it take to be a Roadwarrior?
We came up with a few answers;
-You have to have some somewhat crazy ideas and be willing to put yourself through the most god-awful painful experiences...
-You have to manage to still enjoy the surroundings even when completely knackered and barely able to stand... ( OK, yeah, at that point we were laying down, but...)
-You have to be able to take a leave of absence from work, or just quit it all together.
And,
-You have to put in some serious training, and know that it still won't be enough.
I'm sure we could come up with some more reasons and ideas, but by then, we'd come down to one final answer...
-You have to know when to make a route change!
Not call it quits, as we wouldn't do that, but we knew we'd not make it to HCMC inside of 4 weeks at the rate we were going over the mountains, so for the first time ever, we made a deliberate back-track...
A 100 kilometer back-track to be precise, and it meant tackling some of the kick-ass hills we'd already been up and over.
However, it did mean that the REALLY big bad ones that we'd slowly and painfully ground our way up the day previously became the most amazing, fast sweet downhills!
So other than it being a 280 km detour, and pretty much 3 days of not getting south, it was an interesting ride, and we did get to see some amazing countryside and small villages.
We stopped at a few little cafés and shelter areas where we enjoyed a cold soda or fresh sugarcane drink, often being surrounded by curious children, all very amused at the strange tan lines we are acquiring, or that we use sunblock on our faces...
We also got to have a great chat with a local lady, Pham, who spoke good English, learnt during her school days, so we got to answer a few local questions we'd had, such as the local weather, food and correct pronunciation of a few words we'd been having trouble with.
So now we have rolled on, back along the more coastal road of highway 1, amongst the honking vehicles and suicidal scooters, making better K's south, and still enjoying the scenery and the people we are meeting.
Ok, this has been long overdue, so I'm just gonna post it now, but will add some more new pictures later this evening, once I'm sprawled out in the HUGE firm bed in the hotel we've stopes at here in Quy Nhon.
More soon...
Cheers!
RWK.
OUT.
- Posted from my amazing iPad 2!
Location:1,,Vietnam
