Last night’s Karaoke mercifully finished and I had a great sleep. It was very quiet and peaceful this morning at this hotel at the top of the hill. I thanked them again for helping out with dinner and left.
I thought about some extra food or coffee on the way out, but the majority of the town was behind me and I didn’t want to backtrack.
There had been thunderstorms last night and the road was still wet, but drying out. It was Monday morning and it seemed like everyone was reluctantly getting going again.
The hills seemed to grow steeper as the day progressed giving me some nagging concerns about the big climb tomorrow but the ride was very calm. Traffic wasn’t an issue and the cars and trucks were really nice. The best part of the trip was the locals saying hello. I felt like every hundred metres or so, there was someone smiling, waving and shouting HELLO. It wasn’t just kids either. It was workers, mums doing chores, ladies at roadside stalls, Hmong or Dao people.
It was a really friendly day. I created a video of a kid who just left the primary school. He was happily skipping along the road. When I went past, he sprinted past me – as happy as Larry the whole time. He was one of the few kids without a school uniform, or bicycle, or friends walking with him – but he seemed to me to be the happiest.
The strange thing today was that I started in Than Uyen and had lunch in Tan Uyen. That’s got to be confusing for the Post Office, surely.
After lunch, things dragged on a little. I was heading to Tam Durong where there were some hotels about 43kms from Sapa, my destination tomorrow. Unfortunately, getting to Tam Durong involved a 3-4km downhill that I have to climb up tomorrow.
The other problem was that I couldn’t book either of the hotels. The preferred one, the Putaleng Hotel was booked out on Agoda. Thinking there must be something on in town, I managed to book a refundable bed in a hostel but would ask at the Putaleng anyway.
I was surprised when there was nobody at the Putaleng. A pair of bikepackers from Australia turned up later (Travis and his girlfriend) but that was it.
I had a ride around the place and found a supermarket for some breakfast items and a coffee shop for tomorrow morning. Dinner was next door, so everything was organised. I had an early night to get ready for tomorrow.
I’m definitely feeling tired. It’s been a week since we left Hanoi, and ideally I would have had a rest day earlier.
