March 14 - More Troubles

The trip to Cao Bang was uneventful - we arrived in the morning. I did not even leave the bus station, just started looking for a connection to Bao Lac, which I soon found. The bus was only half full, which was a pleasant contrast to the trip in the opposite direction. It was somewhat overcast, still, I really envied the people living there for the amazing mountains. As far as I could judge, they were used to the scenery, while I was snapping away my camera, they were sleeping or looking utterly bored.

A snapshot from the bus

Arriving in Bac Lao, I of course had the soup I had the other day, though it was only left-overs. I knew from my map there was another road heading north, so as to avoid a repeat, I chose that one. It was unpaved (to be more precise, it had been paved many decades ago, not much of which was left) and very steep. As I was pushing uphill, suddenly there was no more tension on the chain. I thought it just needed to be placed back - but no, it was actually broken, yes, the new chain installed just a few hours ago. Apparently, one of the bolts was not snapped in correctly and therefore it was bent. This was the time when I seriously considered giving up this attempt at biking, change my flight, return to Hanoi and fly out of the country, back home. Seriously. I was so sick of all the issues: the brakes, the bolt and now the chain...

But then, I thought, now that I had ridden four buses for some 800 kilometers, preceded by all the biking - would I ever forgive myself for not checking out what was behind the next curve? Patience, I told myself, let's fix this issue and then take it from there.

My second attempt at hitchhiking in Vietnam was even more successful - not the second, but the very first car stopped to take me back to Bao Lac - a town at which I would be arriving the fourth time in just two days. Two guys managed to squeeze my bike in for a relatively short ride and let me out in front of the many motorbike shops. There it took some convincing to get the guys to repair the chain - I was first a bit shocked at their method in getting a hammer out and start beating down. I showed them a YouTube vide of how to fix the issue and an hour or so later, I was on the road again.

The chain worked, though not perfectly, far from that. It rattled and crackled every time I shifted, it was definitely not a happy fellow. This time I decided against the steep road, instead, took the road I had ridden on two days earllier next to the river. Things started improving as the chain got used to the new setting - when having a new constellation, my good friend Rupert explained a decade or two back, it takes some riding for the cogwheels to stop making a noise. Even better, was when I met the first long-range biker on this trip, a Frenchman , whose name I have since forgotten, he spotted that the mechanics in Bao Lac made a mistake in threading the chain - he was able to correct it. I do recall he had been biking northwards from Saigon.

Merci, Frenchman, for helping me

So now most obstacles were cleared, I was riding in the direction of Meo Vac, one of the highlights in the Stefan Loose guide book. I saw more wonderful mountains and met even more ethnic folks.

Mountains everywhere

Generation gap

Lady with baby

At six in the evening, I was still 20 kilometers outside Meo Vac and the sun was setting. What I did not know is that a big climb was also ahead of me, it was pitch dark by the time I arrived in town.

As I got there, I met two young tourist girls, one from Germany, the other from Poland, they met each other on the trip; we had dinner together, it was stir fried beef, quite good, but nothing to rave about. I found an OK hotel - the price was fine, the room not really, as windowless - and rested for the night. I needed it - while it was just 72 kilometers of riding, it was 2,350 meters of riding up and 1,530m of downhill riding.