Killer Day !! Killer Bridge
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2011
1
22
45
Trip End
Jul 03, 2011
Ấp Tân Thành (3), Ten Bai, Vietnam
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Hard bed, like sleeping on a log with a stone for a pillow, another guest had his TV so loud Dad would have asked him to turn it down and he's deaf, air con so cold you could feel ice crystals flying around the room and if you turned if off and put the fan on it was like a jet engine. Consequently we didn’t get much sleep. When eventually I did fall asleep my bladder woke me up reminding me how much water I had drunk the day before on our cycle ride, I then heard soft mellow music and thought Oh! Roger’s alarm on his phone has got a nice ring, only to realise that it was a loud speaker in the street waking everyone up. It was 5 am…
Let’s get on the road early, may as well, so by 6 30 we were on our way, after about 20 mins a bridge came into view, what a bridge, see picture, feeling knackered from the sleepless night, the temp already getting hotter, the traffic rumbling passed I was not looking forward to the climb. I kept going, breath,, breath,,, take no notice of the honking lorries, mouth dry,, can’t stop half way for a drink of water, keep going, ,,, it was lovely to ride down the other side. The steepest hill in the Mekong and it’s a bridge.
We went a few Km’s and the road became very quiet, countryside roads and quite pleasant, the sky was clear and blue, unfortunately that meant no shade and high temperatures. We saw a roadside café and thought it’s time for breakfast, ice cold coffee and Phur again, lovely. We carried on and I could feel I had little energy today, we had to stop again for more cold drinks, the water we carry on the bikes is now quite hot. On again, past interesting villages, good roads but so, so hot. I had to stop again, my head was swimming, we found a very rough roadside café where the men from the local factory use and after drenching myself from head to toe in some rain water that had been collected in a very large earthenware jar, I collapsed in a hammock.
I had noticed that these earthenware jars was a common thing for people to use to collect water and it came in very handy !!!
After an hours rest we had to set off again, I was a bit worried as we had a little way still to go before we knew where there was any accommodation however, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, the temperature had dropped and the rest had done me good. We got to our destination for that day, Vinh Thanh, found a hotel checked in showered and went for an explore. The town was quite interesting, it is on the Mekong and attempts have been made to build a promenade. We walked around the back streets had some lunch, a beer in another café and it started to rain. It rained so heavy we were lucky that we were not still on our bikes; the rain water must have been about 6 inches deep. When the rain slowed we went back to our room for an afternoon siesta.
That evening I had seen a market behind our hotel and I wanted to have a look around, we noticed that the town was coming to life, lots of plastic chairs and tables were being set up. It was Sunday night and all the locals come out to eat in the street, different vendors cooking different dishes, to buy lovely ice fruit shakes and generally meet up with each other. We fancied a fruit shake but we thought a bit of alcohol in it would be nice, after looking unsuccessfully in the small supermarkets we found some Vodka ""In the Sports Shop “” So we sat and had an alcoholic fruit shake and watched the world go buy.
We cycled 54 Kms today, it took us cycling time 3 hours 12 mins and the temp while cycling reached 45 degrees Celsius.!!!!!
