It was another rolling ride today with lots of ups and downs, but only for a "short" 50km. One memorable climb was quite a steep pitch (surprisingly so for Vietnam) out of one town which we rode just as all the kids were finishing school (at midday). The crowds of kids all wanted waves and hellos as we puffed and panted our way to the top, trying to smile back and wave without falling off.
This one was shyer than most
Mum was watching closely from across the rice paddies
The reason the ride today was short was that we would spend the afternoon travelling by long boat to Ba Be lake. We boarded our first boat at the edge of a small village and chugged (slowly and very noisily) about 40 minutes to our lunch stop with our bikes on board. A couple of local kids also hitched a ride.
Not our boat...
Lunch was in a guesthouse by the riverside and featured home-made pork sausages (which I declined - the memory of fermented pork still strong...) and hot chips of all things. The host also produced another questionable-looking bottle of rice wine, this one containing some kind of leaves (can't remember what our guide said they were).
Dried fish for sale at our lunch stop
The one Vietnamese meal I take a photo of and there's a big bowl of chips front and centre...
After lunch, we took another longboat further up (?) the river to reach the lake. Our view was once again obscured a bit by misty cloud - we got vague impressions of steep-sided islands and jungle-covered mountains along the shore. Maybe it wasn't the iconic view of blue-green water studded with lush islands, but I liked the moodiness of the mist all the same.
The only other craft on the water that we were "fast" enough to overtake
We spent the night in another homestay. In fact, most houses in the town were set up as homestays. This was another stilted house which we shared with the host family. They had built an extension off their main living area for their guests which consisted of one large room with curtained-off alcoves built all around the sides (similar to the previous homestay but with walls between the alcoves).
The outside of our homestay
Kitchen inside
There was no electricity - apparently Vietnam depends mainly on hydro-electricity which becomes a bit unreliable towards the end of the dry season, so the small villages would take turns having their power cut to maintain the supply to the bigger cities. Once it got dark, our hosts started up their generator, and then (to our surprise) switched on their WiFi. Vietnam was a bit funny like that - the houses often looked quite run-down or ramshackle and it was easy to assume the people must be living in relative poverty. But every house, down to the tiniest shack, had a satellite dish somewhere on the exterior for television, most people had mobile phones and they were always clean and well-dressed.
As we wandered the village that afternoon, we came across large groups of French tourists (the first time we had seen other tourists for a while). The Brit took it as a challenge to see whether he could engage any of them in conversation (being of the opinion that they were too stuck up to talk to him). He had about a 50:50 success rate.
Local servo
Rice paddies built on the silted up backwaters of the lake
Despite our accommodation being very comfortable, I suffered through a sleepless night thanks to a mixed-up rooster next door that crowed continuously from midnight to dawn. Ryan, however, slept right through. Sigh.
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