Tag Archives: windy

Bicycle Touring

Day 81: Train, train, train,… 🚂

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Distance: 131,62 km Time: 6:29 Total distance: 4339 km

So today the same stuff as yesterday, flat, boring roads. At the beginning it was foggy.



They kind of look funny with this tiny head for these big arms.


The rain got exchanged with wind facing the opposite direction of my driving. At the end there was a really, really small hill of 50 meters of climbing,  I enjoyed that one😂



To the left of the picture there was a car and from the right of the picture there was a car,  so don’t think that the roads are empty here,  they are getting more crowded as I get closer to Hà Nội.

For the rest it was mentally really hard to continue… But I managed to arrive in Ninh Bình, as it weren’t my muscles who didn’t want anymore but my mind. Putting on the right music and skipping the bad one helped.

Actually I often saw the rails from the train, but rarely the train or it was behind buildings. As the road and the rails were running in parallel with nothing in between, I got myself a challenge: taking a picture of the train here,  as I like trains and I know some people back at home who like trains😀 The first train was going into the same direction,  so the moment until I had my camera out,  I could just get the back of the train…


Shortly before Ninh Bình I got to a closed rail crossing,  so I stopped and placed myself with the camera to catch the train. It was a little bit quick…






Arrived in Ninh Bình I checked online for a good hostel,  as I didn’t have any clue what to visit here and with a good hostel,  you get english speaking stuff. I found a good one,  ironically it is the old train station😂

After a shower I talked to my roommate and I ended up going to dinner with some more people and now we are hanging around.

Yes I managed to take more pictures today😀 Probably because it didn’t rain anymore.

With my roommate I will visit some places on a motorbike we will rent.

The day after tomorrow I will do my final cycling to Hà Nội where I am going to meet my brother and his girlfriend.

Bicycle Touring

Day 77: Đồng Hới

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Distance: 67,00 km Time: 3:43 Total distance: 3930 km

As yesterday morning, I was not motivated to get up, so I got up again late. Outside it was still raining. Not much but still enough to have to wear a rain coat. After all,  my cloth don’t dry during the night as it is not that warm anymore,  so I just wear not completely dry cloth. The temperatures are still okay to do it and as soon as I start moving,  it gets warmer inside the raincoat.

I was out of energy. I did an early break and drank a coffee. 

Sadly after the break I was still without energy. So I had an early lunch at 11. After that one it was a little bit better. Also the rain had stopped and I could take of the raincoat. But the wind stayed. I even took out my camera to take some pictures😀 (the picture at the break was taken with my smart phone)

Because I was cycling so slow I arrived not that early in Đồng Hới at around 14 o’clock. After some searching I found a hotel to stay in and I put out all my wet stuff to dry.

As I want to visit Phong Nha and Paradise cave tomorrow, I tried to join a guided tour for that. I walked through Đồng Hới  to find some agencies offering that. I just found one place on the internet,  so I just went there. Now I have a tour which visits the two caves and picks me up in the morning 😊

On the road now appear always the signs with Hà Nội written on it and the distance. I find it nice because it is like a countdown to my final destination 😀

Bicycle Touring

Day 76: On an unmapped road

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Distance: 104,26 km Time: 5:25 Total distance: 3863 km

I didn’t want to get out of my bed this morning as I knew it would rain. Actually it wasn’t raining. It was just drizzle. So I was able to ride without a jacket and just my long shirt. But the closer I got to lunch the more it started to rain.

At lunch I met a British guy travelling with a motorbike. We had lunch together. The picture of him is actually the only picture I took today…

After lunch,  the rain was joined by wind and I got cold so that I put on my rain jacket. The wind slowed me then down. I just followed main road until I checked my GPS, I was in the middle of nowhere… I checked Open Street Maps and Google Maps, on both providers there was no road but it was the main road and all the traffic went over it. After 15 km it joined again the main road marked on my GPS. These 15 km were long as I didn’t knew if it would go into the right direction,  windy,  rainy,  lots of traffic on a small road and nothing but rice fields as far as I could see. The view wasn’t really clear because of the weather.

I arrived in a hotel and had a long half-warm shower. The heater didn’t gave out more hot water…

Tomorrow I will continue to Đồng Hới. There I will decide. Either continue and skip the national park or stay and visit the national park the day after tomorrow. It depends on the weather. Currently the weather seems to be fine on the forecast,  but I have to check that tomorrow☺️

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 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.

Bicycle Touring

Day 63: going up even more

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Distance: 94,59 km Time: 6:12 Total distance: 2979 km

Today nothing really special happened,  expect that I forgot to change the batteries of my GPS so it ran out of juice in the morning. It was no problem as I just followed the highway and my road computer told me how far I went.

Fir the rest it was lots of climbing to somewhere above 800 meters and going down a little bit to the town called Gia Nghĩa. The landscape while going up was amazing☺️

Just notice the smoke next to the truck  😂








When the highway hits a town then the road is transformed into an allay with some green stuff in the middle.


And these are just a few spots. Often there are electricity cables,  houses,  trees or something else in the way to take a picture of it but just by passing by,  the view is great. For example here are cables in the view


For breakfast: rice

For lunch: rice

For dinner: pizza…  wait what? Yeah I found a place where they sold pizzas and some kind of bubble tea😀 Luckily there was a girl who spoke english and so helped the waitress and me to make the order😀

This evening I will check if I should take the train to visit a city a little bit off the highway and get back or just continue on the highway and therefore visit some other places.