to Dien Thanh and Pho Chau

October 30-31 - our last two full days in Vietnam.

Wednesday... nice to start with sunshine through the mist...

These two days are spent in rural areas...

We're seeing more Christian churches...

scooters reign supreme, and yes, that's a live duck being taken home for dinner...

...bicycles too, to the fields and to market... yes... guaranteed fresh live chickens...

We pass mainly through small villages...

before 8 a.m., kids heading for school

gg

nicely situated school house

As well as agriculture, there is lumber and wood manufacturing...


business must be okay judging from the house behind

We've been on some really rough roads in the last two days... worth it for the scenery...

...and this morning, the first 10 or 15 km was along the shore of the South China Sea...  rough road, beautiful sunrise and scenery...

Tomorrow we leave Vietnam and cross into Laos.

Happy Hallowe'en.

Ninh Binh to Ben Sung

Tuesday 29 October - 130 km on country roads...

...a lot of pineapple growing here...

 ...across some rivers that were not full of barges...

...apparently no law about driving an ox cart while talking on the cell phone...

 

A banner, in English on one side, Vietnamese on the other, in one of the villages we went through... Ho Chi Minh is revered as a liberator from colonial rule...

...and if I understand correctly, communism for Ho Chi Minh was not the objective; rather it was a means to achieve independence. We've seen several war cemeteries and memorials like this. For our generation in the west, the 'Vietnam War' was the one engaged in mainly by the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s. To the Vietnamese, it was the War of Independence, the struggle that began in the 1930s against France and continued until the country was re-unified after the fall of Saigon.

 

 

We've noticed throughout the country the schools, kids in uniform coming and going, playing in the school yards. The school buildings are all painted in this yellow colour, they appear clean and well-kept and so do the grounds, typically behind a wall/fence and this kind of gate. When I tried to take a photo of this one, the kids all wanted to get into it too...

We stopped for a cold drink in a small village this afternoon. Apart from kids and other people around being both curious - we are off the beaten track for foreigners - this lady crossed the road and went straight to Ursula, wanted to shake her hand. Then without a word of English from her made it very clear that she wished Ursula to stay and join her for dinner... what more can I say... 

 

 

Hanoi to Ninh Binh

27 Oct - a day of rest in Hanoi...

The influence of French colonial days is evident in the street patterns, parks, and architecture...

 ...a bike repair shop on the sidewalk beside the park - lunch time...

...mobile goldfish shop...

We took a tour, again arranged by the local support people, in the afternoon...

Water Puppet show

Ho-Chi Minh's Mausoleum

The nearby Canadian Embassy

 ...and a rickshaw ride to dinner...

 

28 Oct -- breakfast at 0530 and on our way on the bikes just after 0600 to try to get out ahead of the traffic, which is nearly all scooters. A short ride on city streets and up onto a road on a dike that follows the river south out of Hanoi. It's another cloudy poor-visibility day...

The poor visibility is mainly pollution... I've written that before... diesel fumes, smoke, goodness knows what all else. We've given up... when in Rome... well, when riding a bike here in this pollution... I wonder if we'd be allowed to wear these in Quebec if they pass their new law?

It was a bit brighter after lunch, pleasant scenery, not much traffic on dirt roads like this one...

...even less traffic here...this was a tough climb with loose gravel and stones on top of big rocks - many decided to walk it...

It would not be a TdA excursion without roads like this...the reward is scenes like this...working people setting out by boat to do their chores...

...and without moving our feet, we re-aim the camera and get scenes like this...

We're in Ninh Binh tonight, where 1000 years ago was the capital of Vietnam.

into Hanoi - 26 Oct

It was supposed to be 159 km today, but just to make sure that we got a full 'century' for Dave Cramton, we took a wrong turn and ended up making it 170 km for the day. 

On the bikes just after dawn and depart Ha Long Bay along the shore...

...the first 35 km riding as a loose group to take a ferry near Hai Phong harbour...

...squeezed around small trucks and busses...

 ...then a variety of mainly small roads until the last 10 km into Hanoi...

...through small towns and their busy streets and markets



...even the tiny roads are a marketplace, often difficult to pass through

...almost everything can be carried on a bike...

fields are full of family crypts

...a few buddhas along the road

What looked like an irrigation channel to us is a source of fish... not sure I'd want to immerse myself in that water.

Of course the joy of being on backroads is that they aren't all paved...

...and still in a rural setting just 10 km from downtown Hanoi...