Monthly Archives: January 2017

Bicycle Touring

Day 73: Đà Nẵng

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no cycling

After (for me) double portion breakfast, we decided to visit the mountain resort called “Bah Nah Hill”. It is close to Đà Nẵng. Arrived at the bottom we got some tickets for the cable car. Everything is built for long queues,  but there are no people to queue 😂



We had to take two cable cars to get to the top. There they tried to rebuild some castles and build up a little resort there in french style. Behind that one there was a little temple. When some clouds placed everything in fog,  we decided to go down again.


The good eye can see: I have two cameras,  one belongs to Banh and she took this picture with her phone 😂






Banh had a selfi stick with her,  from that moment on, she took a million selfies😂



We decided to visit a pagoda at a half island of Đà Nẵng. Before we arrived there,  we visited a colorful Buddhist temple we saw on the road. It started to blow heavily and I sometimes had to slow down because of tge wind 🍃.





Because of the wind,  somebody got a little bit cold and I gave her my buff and my orange long shirt,  which I had packed for the day trip.

After the  temple we then went to the Pagida,  where we also saw the sunset behind Đà Nẵng.





At 8:30 in the evening Banh had to take the bus back to Kon Tum. I returned the motorbike, got a bed in the hostel I stayed in one day ago. I git into the same room but the lower bed😀

The rest of the evening I spend with repacking my stuff and writing the two blog posts (as I didn’t write one yesterday).

So who is Banh? She is a tourist guide from Kon Tum,  who decided to join me in visiting Hoi An. How do I know her? She is a friend of a girl I met in Kon Tum and we were all spending a nice evening together with some more French people (read it here). If you want to travel to Kon Tum,  I can give you her contact☺️

Tomorrow I will cycle to Hue,  where I again will stay one day.

Bicycle Touring

Day 72: Hoi An

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no cycling

The day started early at 5 o’clock. Banh arrived with the night bus and I took the motorbike to pick her up. We decided to get immediately on the road to Đà Nẵng. It is just a one hour ride with the car. As I am not that quick on the motorbike it took us a little bit longer. We also stopped at some rocks, called “Ngu Hanh Son”, on the way,  where there is a temple inside. It was nice,  as nobody was there.

A picture of Banh,  me and a Buddha

Arriving in Hoi An we got breakfast at a place of a friend of Banh. He then showed us a nice guesthouse. We left our stuff there,  Banh took a little nap of half an hour. Then we took of to get to “My So”  some more ancient temples.

After the temples we drove back to Hoi An. As we had to pay for the ancient town, we decided not to go there. We went to chill at the beach,  where we stayed till the evening. We also had dinner at the beach. I didn’t took any pictures… Just a picture from Banh’s phone.

It was so nice to have a person with me who speaks Vietnamese,  so I just always send her and she then did everything😀

Bicycle Touring

Day 71: To the coast

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Distance: 106,50 km Time: 5:05 Total distance: 3651 km

Got on the road early and got a really nice landscape because of some clouds,  less traffic because it was not the main road and too small for lots if big trucks😀

Eventually the clouds got more and it started to rain again, but it was still warm,  so I just continued without a raincoat😀 it stopped quickly after 10 minutes,  so it was alright.






After 60 km I reached the end of that road,  and I got back on the main road which follows the cost line. Only 40 km left. From there on it got boring. Just straight roads with traffic,  no hills. I wouldn’t have thought that getting back to such a road would put my mood that much down… But I arrived as I was able to cycle quicker than in the hilly areas.

Now I am in Đà Nẵng and passed Hoi An because I will visit it from here with a motorbike,  which leads to one more day without bicycle 😊 not that I don’t like my bicycle,  but I currently use it a little bit to often😂 But I am visiting Hoi An not alone. Banh (the girl from Kon Tum) joins me tomorrow morning and shows me around Hoi An 😀

In the evening I was just walking around the city center. Got some food at a Vietnamese fast food restaurant. While walking next to the river I realised: they know how to put lights on their bridges around here. I just forgot to take a video, I will try to do it in two days when I am back here.

Because we stay over there for one night,  I don’t know if I will write a post tomorrow as I leave the stuff to get the pictures from my camera to my phone in Đà Nẵng with most of my luggage.

Bicycle Touring

Day 70: I ♥ climbing

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Distance: 86,58 km Time: 5:35 Total distance: 3544 km

This morning I felt really great,  sun was out and I knew that I had a beautiful climb ahead of me😀 The climbing part was just the first 20 km but on that part there were constantly signs with a steepness of 10% 😀 Which meant that I was just riding with 5 to 9 km/h,  but the views: amazing, less traffic. This picture is ment to align with the sign







The clouds in the other valley

Arrived at 1100 meters of altitude,  I also reached the clouds at that moment. On the other side of the hill it was cloudy and rained a little bit from time to time… but never enough to get me wet 😀 On my way down from the mountain I met a group of 6 german touring cyclists going up the mountain. Sadly I forgot to take a picture with them.

I arrived in Kham Duc,  but it was too early to get a hotel,  so I continued on the road. Ban, the local girl from Kon Tum told me which road to take,  as it is a shortcut and a quiet road,  so I took that one. It’s really a quite road☺️





In the town I expected a hotel,  there was no hotel… So again I had to continue. Again in a village which is not marked on the map,  there is a really tiny hotel😀 It is somewhere on highway 14E.

Just after I arrived in the hotel,  it was still early it started to rain heavily. So good decision to go to a hotel☺️ This village is really little. That little that there is no place to get some dinner. the woman from the hotel gave me a ride to the next village (only 5 minutes walking) where there was one place where I got some noodles 🍜 To get back to the hotel I had to walk, but it wasn’t raining☺️

Tomorrow I will cycle to Đà Nẵng, where I will stay for 2 days. One day to visit Đà Nẵng and the second day I will rent a motorbike and pass by Hoi An☺️

Bicycle Touring

Day 69: flat, flat, hilly

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Distance: 115,11 km Time: 6:34 Total distance: 3457 km

First of all: DON’T PANIC with flat I just mean flat roads,  NOT a flat tire😀

Secondly: Yesterday evening. Of course it didn’t went as I thought,  it got even better😀 Ban,  the girl who picked me up for dinner had to meet some people who wanted to do a trek today. They turned out to be from France and liked playing music. Because we promised to visit the cafe where on of the other two girls were working, we quickly said goodbye to the french people and went to the cafe. After that one closed,  we all went to a guitar bar where we met the french people again. The Vietnamese girls and the french people are really great at playing music and it was a really fun evening.

The evening was also long so getting up in the morning was a little bit hard. At 8 o’clock I then finally left the room and went on search for breakfast. I am really sad that suddenly all the rice places don’t serve rice in the morning… So I got phố again. Some noodles in soup.

So now to the title: in the beginning it the roads were inside a really big valley,  so it was flat nearly always. Eventually it got hilly again😀 As the Ho Chi Minh highway turned twice off main road (main road git to a different road and the Ho Chi Minh highway was a smaller side road), which resulted in less traffic for me😀

On the road then I realised two miscalculations of me:

  1. I was running out of cash,  I thought I would have had one more 500.000 Dong bill,  but there wasn’t. I realised it only the afternoon were I already passed the last town with an ATM. I checked the map: No ATMs until tomorrow at the destination…  I checked my wallet: enough money for a hotel,  dinner,  breakfast but no lunch for tomorrow…  I came up with some solutions. Either go as far as possible get food and the next morning try to get to the ATM as quickly as possible. Another method would have been exchanging or buying stuff with my remaining US Dollar from Cambodia.
  2. The villages I choose to stay in all had no hotels.

And now the solution to both of the problems: In the last village I marked on the map for today I saw a kilometer stone with another city marked in 25 km. I checked my maps,  no city,  no village not even side roads…  I thought the worst that can happen is me cycling the whole night 😂 Or somebody would just host me but I went to that village called Dak Lak. It’s actually a nice little town with everything a guest house and an ATM 😍. The only thing,  I had to cycle so much,  the last 15 km were just me dying up and down the hill,  rolling with 10 to 15 km/h on flat parts… But worth it in the end. Also the landscape was really beautiful,  as there are many hills and when the sun went down,  some were in the shadow and some were still in the sun,  sadly I didn’t took any pictures, I was too exhausted.

Tomorrow I will climb probably my last big climb. Because after celebrating luna new year in Hanoi with my brother and his girlfriend I will return back home. I will leave Thailand, Laos and the rest of Vietnam for another trip or multiple trips. Why probably? Well I never know what will happen on my way to Hanoi😂

Bicycle Touring

Day 68: not having a plan

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no cycling

Since I left the beach in Cambodia I was cycling every day. Eventually I got a bad mood while cycling, as Kon Tum seems to be a nice town where I could visit some stuff,  I decided to stop here for a day of not cycling. I checked: there was a museum and a wooden church and probably some more stuff to see.

But first: sleep long.At least that was the plan,  I already woke up at 5, at 6, at 7,  at 8 to get up at 9… But okay more sleep.

I went out found some breakfast and went on the search for the museum. The first place kind of didn’t seems to be museum. The second place: no museum. I gave up,  I wasn’t even in the mood to go into a museum. I visited the wooden church and walked around a little bit.


I had lunch and meet up with a local girl. She then showed me where she lives. There we met a friend of her and went to a beautiful bridge. I got to drive the motorbike and they shared the other one😀







For the rest of the day we were sitting at a cafe drinking some juice and talking and  taking pictures with the baby. Even more people joined us😀

Tonight I will meet up again with them,  we will have dinner and relax more😀

Tomorrow I will continue cycling 🚲

Bicycle Touring

Day 67: Kon Tum

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Distance: 87,40 km Time: 4:59 Total distance: 3341 km

It was hard to find breakfast in the morning,  as I always try to get rice. Eventually I decided then to take some noodle soap. At 12 o’clock I was really hungry again… For the rest was it a normal day like the last once,  just that the clouds went away,  so most of the time it was blue sky😀



When I entered Kon Tum a woman on a motorbike started talking to me. I asked her for a good hotel and she then helped me to find one. She herself had to ask around. But now I am in a nice hotel😀

After a shower, I went outside to find some soap,  as I am running out of it. I needed to search a little bit for something like a store and found one with shampoo. When I asked for soap and showed them a picture,  they went to the back to get some,  it kind of seems that it is not a usual product here,  I don’t know,  I have soap again😀 I just walked a little bit around the market to find something to drink. As always people start saying hi to me. Dan and Dam (hopefully I wrote the names correctly), two sisters who asked me about where I come from,  then showed me a place to drink something. They joined me and we talked about what to visit here and they explained everything to me. We took their motorbikes to see the 2 wooden churches here but it was night. I will be going back there tomorrow. Then we went for dinner. and separated,  as I am really tired 😴.

Tomorrow will be no cycling day and I will relax and visit Kon Tum.

Bicycle Touring

Day 66: Road 14

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Distance: 104,59 km Time: 5:48 Total distance: 3254 km

Again just a normal day,  expect the clouds went away and I could take off my long shirt 😀

If you take out the camera here girls get wild and want you to take a picture of them😂

As lunch time approaches I keep looking out for these signs with “COM” written on it. Com means rice. Which I am eating really often here because I don’t really like the soups here. This sign is a really really big sign, sometimes I really have to search for it, but there is always one at least every 5 km😀

I intended to only ride till Nhơn Hòa, but as I felt really great cycling in the afternoon, not like in the morning,  I decided to continue 20 km to Chư Sê where I am now. Nice little town again. The room is a normal room,  not like the hole from yesterday. And there are people on the other side of the street playing karaoke 🎤 (not a karaoke bar,  a private group,  but they are so loud 😂)

Before I will crush the karaoke party (I don’t know if I really want do that 😂) I found a bakery where I bought some desert. The one on the right side (with something red on it) is called Bánh Pía,  it has a salted egg inside and is normally eaten in mid autumn. The other one remains unknown, but its good,  I think something with coconut (I am bad at guessing whats inside).

Tomorrow my destination is Kon Tum,  where I will stay for one whole day,  to visit and not cycle for one day😀 for the past 12 days, I was on the bicycle every day😯

I ran a little bit out of titles so today I made a little reference to a road in America as it is the 66th day WINK 😂 And I am always on highway/road 14☺️

Bicycle Touring

Day 65: The other way around

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Distance: 99,76 km Time: 5:45 Total distance: 3149 km

In the morning it was so cold because of the wind and the clouds blocking the sun that I had T-shirt and long-shirt both on. After 2 hours of cycling,  the sun came out and it was hot immediately 😂 The wind stayed though. It was so strong sometimes that I had to slow down while going down as it was hard to control my bike with the speed and the wind pushing me in the middle of the road…










The last few days were always going up first and then going down. Today it was the other way around. First I was going down, to climb again in the afternoon.

Arrived in Buôn Hồ I searched for a hotel. The first one was open but nobody at the reception for 5 minutes,  eventually somebody came shouted a name,  nobody answered and went away again. So I decided to go too. I found a second one, but as they saw me,  they waved with their hands to say noo. They showed me that down the street would be another one. Which I then took. After taking a shower I realized why there was so much dirt on the floor. The whole bathroom was under water. I got to the reception and they gave me new room,  which is freshly painted,  so it still smells in there…

Also I have the impression that people in this town are a little bit strange,  some of them hide and laugh. At least is that my impression of them.

Tomorrow I will just continue following the highway☺️

Bicycle Touring

Day 64: close to raining

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Distance: 70,43 km Time: 4:21 Total distance: 3049 km

Today was a shorter route. I decided not to do the trip to Đă Lat,  as I was told Hue would be better to visit. Todays route was not only shorter but also cloudy, windy and therefore colder. I even changed my T-shirt to a long shirt as it was too cold. I always thought it would start to rain,  but it never did. For the rest I was just climbing to 900 meters to get down again to 700 meters. But it’s never a constant climb,  always up and down and up and down.







When the road gets steeper and there is a fully loaded truck,  then they sometimes roll slower than me 😀


I arrived early in Đăk Mil. I got a room,  packed my luggage out and then was told that I had to leave as the hotel was already full… But they showed me another hotel at the end of the town, not in front of the lake, but the same price.

I walked up and down the main street,  ate an ice cream and waved back to people who waved to me. I found a place where they had fried noodles. Eventually some people from another table joined me to improve a little bit their english. When they left, the girl from the restaurant joined me and invited me on a milk tea😀 We made some funny pictures together☺️


Tomorrow I will continue again on the highway. The highway splits into two roads. One of them passes the Cambodian border really close, that close that it is marked on the other side. I checked in the Internet  and found out in forum posts from 2015 that foreigners are not allowed on that road and send back from military. So I will take the other road.

So here is again some little bit of my equipment. Today I will present the stuff around my head:

  1. Of course my helmet,  I always wear it on my bicycle.
  2. This little funny thing on the upper left side of my face is a mirror attached to my helmet to look behind me. I am so used to it,  that when I am walking in the street,  where I don’t wear the helmet, I sometimes want to look behind me with the mirror, which isn’t there😂
  3. My glasses. Either the normal once or my sunglasses 😎
  4. On can not see them, but they are always there while riding,  my earplugs. For those underneath you who want to shout up and say it’s too dangerous: Shut up,  I hear everything around me,  I even hear people saying “hi” to me😂 So everything is save.
  5. Today because it was so cold,  I started to wear my Buff again around my throat.