March 9 - Go North
After a foggy morning, it slowly morphed into a nice, sunny day - which was exactly what I needed, as it would turn out to be quite a major climb up some rather remote mountains. The first thing I saw, still at the Ecolodge, was a motorbike that delivered the meat to for the day - live chicken, stuffed in a cage on the rear. The remaining life expectancy of these poor animals was surely not very long, still, this is no way to treat any living creatures. As said earlier, I saw other animals being transported (probably to their respecting slaying location) the same way: goats, pigs, dogs - many of which would be squeaking miserably. I did not give Vietnam high marks for taking good care of animals.
I rode through a small town with a meat market - as you can see, not much is done to cool the meat there.
At the meat market
I was happy with the scenery - lush, green vegetation covering the hills and the mountains, shining beautifully in the spring sunshine. The area I was riding through that day (and in fact, the following days) is home to some ethnic minorities, some 54 are recognized by the state. I was impressed by their colorful dresses and headwear, they looked quite different compared to the majority of the population.
A lady member of an ethnic minority
Reaching an intersection, I turned north to a road - with the name D212 - and started gaining height - a lot of it. If you ever wanted to ride on a quiet mountain road with wonderful views and little traffic, then D212 is the road for you. The most striking "feature" here was the terrace-farming of rice fields, which is something that can be seen all over the northern mountains.
Terrace farming - typical for all over the northern part of the country
At one switchback, I spotted two men, one carrying a very strange music instrument, sort of a bagpipe, just without a bag. I approached them, the guy with the music was kind enough to play for me. Unfortunately, this free version of Wordpress does not allow videos to be uploaded, still, here is a photo of him playing.
If anyone knows the name of this instrument, please let me know what it was
More terrace-shaped rice fields, more uphill. The signs on the road showed I was getting close to a village, where I thought to make a spot. Reaching the village, I saw Caucasian people disembarking from a bus that had passed me a little while back - it turned out they were French tourists, doing a close-up of the ethnic life - so I went for the next village, some 10 kilometers of climb away. By the time I reached that village, I was starving and was quite happy to find a small restaurant. There I had a Pho, with double serving of beef and then some stir-fried pork - I needed energy for the rest of the day. A young couple entered the restaurant, they were just about to have their wedding, and were in a good mood. Here I was also offered a few sips of rice schnaps.
Just before the wedding
It was close to 4 pm when I finally reached the summit, which was followed by a nice long decent. There were two reasons why I did not enjoy the downhill ride as much as I usually do. One, I was a bit sleepy, after all the climbing that day, I suddenly stopped pedaling and my body said 'time to rest', so that I almost fell asleep. Second, my rear brakes, which I asked the Hungarian mechanic to thoroughly check, started malfunctioning: there was an adjustor know that sets the strength of the brake force via the pad, this one could no longer be moved. So I was using the front brakes only, which, with all my weight (plus that of the bags and the bike) was not quite sufficient. I was forced to engage the front brakes pretty much the entire time, not too pleasant for my hand. In sort of a slow motion, I managed to get to the northernmost road in Vietnam, QL-34, running parallel to Chinese border.
The views were spectacular: towards the north, there were mountain ranges with dramatic summits overarching each other. There was signs in Vietnamese and English at the lookout places explaining the geologic forces that formed these peaks - something indeed rather civilized, some other countries could take examples of this.
My strategy was to find a town with a bike mechanic and soon I got to the miner town of Thin Tuc. Yes, there was a bike mechanic, not a word of English, he immediately got his tools and started hammering down on my derailleur. No, not the right guy. The sun was about to set and I was rather discouraged - I found the a small motel in the town, not sure I remember its name, but it might have been 'The Worst Hotel in Vietnam'. I got a windowless room, with loud neighbors, tasteless interior. After a futile attempt at finding a solution to brake issue at night failed, I decided it was best just to drowse away.
That day, according to Google Maps, I had covered just 70 kilometers, but climbed 2,500 meters and dropped some 2,100. Now back from my trip, I am actually quite surprised - while on the road, it did feel exhausting, but did not think to have covered that much altitude. Despite all odds (my noisy neighbors, terrible room, uncomfortable bed), I slept very well.