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Hoi An → Da Nang → Hai Van Pass → Hue
Day 6
Monday morning, stuff got real. We were leaving beautiful Hoi An where tourists are pampered, for our adventure toward riding the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
We checked out of the hotel and saddled up the motorcycles. Rain was expected so we secured rain gear outside the backpacks and secured the raincovers on the backpacks. Our new Irish friends watched. Bernadette inquired our feelings about American politics – I told you she was not shy. I told her truthfully I was embarrassed by the state of American politics. “The fact that you are embarrassed by U.S. politics is a sign of intelligence.” I think she was a retired school teacher.
Bernadette asked us to pause as we mounted our motorcycles so she could take some photographs. As we bid farewell, I asked two favors: pray for us and sin a little before you leave Vietnam. She just cackled and said “I will.”
Backtracking, we rode the coastal highway back to Danang. Even though it was January, it was hot and humid at the coastline. We got gas downtown, then rode across the beautiful modern bridge. It seemed much easier now that we had some experience and some confidence. Leaving Danang heading North along the coast, we began to climb in elevation. The air cooled and the roads became winding. Along with the winding roads, we were introduced to giant trucks that did not follow road or lane conventions.
The winding roads led to the world-famous Hai Van Pass or ocean mist pass. The mountain range meets the sea at the Hai Van Pass, forms a climate boundary, and marked the ancient line between North and South Vietnam. It was made famous by a 2008 Top Gear Special where the hosts gushed over the beauty of the pass, leading touring motorcyclists to classify the pass as must-do. Tom Divers at Vietnam Coracle has an excellent description of the pass here.
Like before, all our senses were on high alert experiencing the curves, the drops, and the traffic. Even so, we were able to take in the beauty of the place. Leaning back and forth to negotiate the curves is almost hypnotic.
Near the top, it started to rain – hard. We pulled over and put on our rain gear. On the other side of the guardrail was an older man and woman who ran a coffee and soft drink concession. They have a few plastic tables and chairs set along the edge of the cliff. We pulled in, bought a couple of soft drinks, and the gentleman and his wife invited us under their umbrella table to wait out the rain. The gentleman spot excellent English and spoke to us casually as if we were old friends. They were struck, as many in Vietnam were, by a father and daughter team traveling Vietnam by motorcycle together. And, in another pattern to become familiar in Vietnam, they mistook 27 y.o. Lauren for much younger. Meeting these kind people proved to be providence a week later (see Day 12).
When the rain slowed we bid farewell to our new friends and went down the other side of the pass. Losing elevation meant increasing temperatures and clearing skies. We kept descending until we came to a colorful fishing village.
Back at lower elevation, we rode many kilometers for some hours through rice fields, many with water buffalo, and through many small villages. Thankfully, traffic was sparse. Not used to riding motorcycles, our butts hurt.
At a certain point, Google Maps alerted that we were about to miss … oops missed it … a turn.
It was the most insanely invisible turns off a high road over a crest that seemed to be no more than a sidewalk. Observing for a couple of minutes, there were other tourists also missing the invisible turn, no doubt as led by Google Maps. We are such lemmings.
After a short distance, we came to a walled compound that hid the beautiful An Nam Hue Boutique Hotel.
We booked it randomly from the local booking app called Agoda. Agoda is like Airbnb but much cheaper. It is also very popular in Vietnam. Agoda never disappointed in our experience.
The An Nam Hue Hotel ground might as well have been a flowering arboretum. With only one other room booked at the hotel, it was almost our private palace.
Despite being January, it was hot and the A/C was not working. No English was spoken but Google Translate was good enough to get the problem across to the young man assisting the manager. He made some adjustments figuring the problem was operator (me) error. Not so, and we changed rooms an hour later.
The hotel is in a sparsely populated area with few restaurant choices. We walked to a vegan restaurant run by the wife of a Buddhist monk. We had mushrooms, tofu, okra, and 3 beers for the equivalent of $6 U.S. which was typical in the non-tourist areas. It was delicious.
Best sleep of the trip that night as we were tired and it had now been a week to work through jet lag.
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