March 30 - More HCM Trail

Early in the morning I rolled to the bus station and found a bus heading towards the road I had left behind. The driver wanted a very high amount - well, to be precise, it was not too expensive for Austrian prices, still, it was a tourist tax of 100%. I got heard-headed and decided I would not pay that extra amount and started looking, in vain, for another possibility. That guy (some adjectives were erased by WordPress) knew this, i.e. that he was my only option, he did not budge. I got frustrated and left, decided to have breakfast, at the bottom of my hotel, tasty Pho was being served. After that, I was quite disappointed to see the driver still being there, his bus still only half-full. To cut a long story short, we made a compromise, we met in the middle. OK, the debated amount was about $2, I still felt I did the right thing.

Alas, he was a lot slower than the speed-king of the day before - even worse, I soon realized he was taking another road - the one I missed the previous day, meaning I would not be able to continue from the exact same location I had left off. After a couple of hours, I asked to be disembarked 20 kilometers from the town I had originally intended on sleeping. So there I was, now pushing on quite a steep incline, somewhat cursing about how events shaped out.

It was rural, mountenous countryside, I stopped at a kindergarten to have a laugh with the children.

Cute, eh?

Hi, hi, hi

Zoom, zoom...!

The HCM Trail did not fail to impress me with the beautiful, green trees. Oh, in the jungle, the mighty jungle...

Jungle

...but apparently there were snakes. I stopped at a wooden hut, saw a jar there, first did not pay too much attention to it, it turned out to be a snake.

Snake, probably poisonous

Wooden huts - this was a rather poor area, with very friendly people

Waterfall - I was tempted to go for a swim, but did not

Even more jungle

Late in the afternoon, I met a lady, most probably a granny, carrying her child on her back.

Granny with child

Then came a huge incline, the second (and not last) time I had to stop someone to get water, as I ran out of it. A bus came the opposite direction, the driver was kind enough to stop and gave me a bottle (of water, not schnaps).

The road disappearing in the fog

It was in the darkness that I noticed two motorbike riders behind me, giving me an escort. I stopped, it was two Czech brothers, living in the UK, riding for a couple of weeks in Vietnam. They told me they were heading for a small motel, which was just a short distance away - so we rode together and found the place after only a couple of minutes. It was a small, but clean place and got a very reasonably priced room. At the hotel was a long-range cyclist from New Zealand - so the four of us sat down for a dinner opposite the hotel. I noticed they had a washing machine, so had the few pieces of dirty clothes washed. Good night.