11:23am 12 January 2024
Canterbury to
Milton Keynes by
Train
12:03pm 14 January 2024
Milton Keynes to
London by
Train
Today gets off to a bad start when the hotel rip me off on the room.
MoreThree days off the bike getting fat and now it's time to get going again. I'm going to head for the coastal resort of Nha Trang along highway 1 (QL1). It'll take five days.
MoreLang Co is just north of the Hai Van Pass, considered by many Vietnamese as the physical divide between north and south Vietnam.
MoreIncluding the day I entered, I've now been on the bike for four days in Vietnam. It's rained for all of them.
MoreThis isn't going to be pleasant, this isn't going to be comfortable, but it is going to be. It's supposedly pretty much all downhill on good surface, so hopefully I should be in Hue well inside four hours.
MoreMy first steps into the cold and wet this morning take me to a banh my bakery. I wait for my baguettes to be filled as I bask in the warming glow from the baking ovens. A team of guys shape the dough on large trays, slam them in to bake, and then dump out the freshly cooked ones into a heap for the sandwich makers to mine into.
MoreToday's main task is not the ride, but the border crossing into Vietnam. The weather is overcast, and unstable with it. I think there's a real chance of rain, and try to make quick progress.
MoreA shorter day today, after yesterday's, umm, bonus kilometres. Breakfast is the remaining baguette. It's gone a bit soggy, but it still hits the spot.
MoreToday I've gone pretty much due east, towards the Laos-Vietnam border. Savannakhet has a ferry and bridge border with Thailand. I could have chugged across, headed to the beach and skipped Vietnam and Cambodia in favour of sipping Singhas by the sea for a few extra weeks.
MoreSavannakhet certainly has the air of a border town. Plenty of people passing through, few staying. It's not unlike Hekou's China-Vietnam border. In Hekou's case, Vietnam's tiny Lao Cai is across the Red River. Here, Thailand's Mukdahan is across the Mekong, and it doesn't look small. Thailand's economy dwarfs that of Laos.
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