It was quite hard to get woken up by the alarm clock this morning. The morning after this super evening on the villa’s roof having a few beers and guitar plays. Though we had our breakfast at seven and I got a real cà phê sữa again.
So we left the beautiful Riverside Villa and it’s great staff at about eight o’clock. The rain from the evening yesterday didn’t have an influence on today’s temperature - it was already warm.
We decided to follow Quoc’s suggestion (Quoc from our stay at the Cat Tien national park) and took the Ho Chi Minh road again. In some parts the HCM road covers the HCM trail in this section. We’ve seen a few rotten bridges next to the new ones we passed. I hope Quoc is going to read this post, if yes: Thank you! His advise was just genius. Our ride today was one of the top three we’ve had until now. Curvy but clear so we enjoyed every km of our trip.
In Quang Loc we decided to have a coffee. We found a smart coffee bar managed by a young guy who brought us two delicious coffees as well as a pot of green tea. By paying 10k VND (45 cents) we realised to be on the countryside again.
After passing Quang Loc almost all traffic has gone. There were very few and simple houses. But the less traffic there is on a road the more animals like cows, goats, dogs, pigs, chicken, … you have to expect. For the people living in the rural areas streets are more than just a path to go from A to B. They dry corn, rice and coffee in the sun and use the streets for that.
In Ta Long just somewhere in nowhere in the middle of a huge forest we passed a tiny village and stopped to have something to eat. Unfortunately we first didn’t see the restaurant but thought to find some noodles in the coffee bar. Yes, we’ve had another coffee. We’re kind of addicted in this freshly brewed coffees. Just on the other side of the road there was a restaurant where we got a delicious Phở (noodle soup). We also bought some more water to avoid getting dehydrated the last distance to Khe Sanh.
Khe Sanh is known from the battle of Khe Sanh (January - July 1968) is just a few kilometers below the Demilitarized zone which divided North from South Vietnam. In the battle of Khe Sanh the US Army has spread 100'000 tons of bombs and mines over the area around. There are still lots of undetonated bombs and mines so we have to stay on the official routes.
Later in the evening after having a shower in the “Green Hotel” we took a walk through Khe Sanh. This town seems to bee crazy for mobile phones. Only in the part of the city we’ve seen there were about ten phone shops. At the local market we found a fresh mango and many things from meat to fish we wouldn’t even like to touch. But actually I think it’s exactly the food we later bought from a street food vendor. And it was delicious as always. Just on our way back to the hotel we were surprised by a cloudburst. We were allowed to hide below the roof of an electronic market. The owner even brought us chairs so we had a really comfortable time of waiting.
