K’Bang to Prao: 303 miles

The man from the petrol station laughed and shook his head when I told him where I was going. The woman across the road expressed some concern. While the lady at the banh mi stand was all business, preparing the four baguettes I’d ordered for the road.

According to the map there were no villages or services for the next 80km. Just primary forest and lots of hills.

With little else available, I decided on the Paddington Bear approach, filling my bags almost entirely with sandwiches to see me through.

*no marmalade available!

I was aiming for Kon Tum, the provincial capital. There I’d join the Ho Chi Minh Road, which shadows the Laos border on its way north toward Hanoi.

After all the hype (and head shaking) about ‘no services’, one of the first vehicles I came across was this guy with a motorbike full of hot steamed buns. He actually has a charcoal fire going on in there to keep them warm! I found this far too funny and flagged him down for a bag full.

After this, the trees closed in, and aside from the frequent ‘10%’ signs, I was alone.

At first it was fun to be cutting right through the forest. Really though, I was working pretty hard with no reward at the top of each hill.

The only open spaces were the odd coffee plantations that were beginning to encroach on the otherwise wild landscape.

It was kind of eery without much passing.

Even more so when I emerged on this bizarre six lane ‘runway’ after about an hour in the jungle. Apparently nothing to do with the war, it runs for 3km before the road dips abruptly back into the trees.

For hours I followed signs to the remote Xa Hieu crossroads, where I hoped I might find a coffee.

lnstead, there were three buildings, a truck and a dog. (Thank goodness for the sandwiches!)

At the 100km mark I finally hit a small town where I had what was probably the best pho in all of Vietnam, maybe the best in the world. It was really great! Served up almost military style in a big roadside tent.

Here a lovely man busied himself bringing me a steady stream of condiments and toppings, refills of my tiny tea glass and extra ladles of steaming broth, whilst his wife smashed up poached chicken carcasses with a huge cleaver, as if all mankind depended on her. It was a dedicated operation.

By this stage I was pretty whacked, but after all the climbing, had a huge descent in my sights and my eye on a motel down the road.

Usually I am the only guest in these places, so was surprised to stroll in on what turned out to be a training event for PLAN International (a global children’s rights charity). The place was full.

It was 20km more to reach Kon Tum, which didn’t seem far. I cracked on but after 15 minutes it was pretty well dark and I found myself in a violent thunderstorm. The road became a river, ankle deep, and the rain was driving into my eyes as I counted the intervals between thunder and lightening.

Finally the lights of Kon Tum appeared in the distance and on a hill just outside town, a motel. It had been a long day. I could see the family at dinner, cosy and dry, and wondered if they might resent my soggy intrusion.

Instead, they greeted me with a smile and this sign!

Squeezing out my clothes in the parking area, I was soon approached by the dad, a man with a Beatles haircut and statement moustache, who insisted I join them for dinner.

The three brothers took turns to load my bowl, the culture across much of Asia, and coach me on good herb and dipping combos. They were pretty disappointed that I only made it through two of the three free beers they presented me with! Dinner was also at their invitation. What a welcome!

Amazingly, I caught the famous moustache in the corner of my eye the next morning, some 15km from the motel, on the other side of town.

I joined the dad, Tran Huynh, for a coffee and we had a long chat using Google Translate. He invited me to stay again and to keep in touch.

The wilderness was behind me for now and the road busier as it crept up to the Laos border. Despite this, the scenery remained rural with coffee plantations, rice drying, work in the fields, and of course, big groups of school kids, even though it was a Saturday, (I never got to the bottom of their frenetic schedule…)

At least these guys were having a break:

At lunch I stopped for another show stopping bowl of pho. This one the harder to find ‘dry’ variety.

The lady in charge found it funny that I was so excited to try it and so interested to watch her make it.

Delicious 🙂

The area I was riding through was of major strategic interest during the war and home to a number of key US-South Vietnamese bases. In 1967 these bases increasingly came under attack as the North Vietnamese built up troops and gun batteries in the surrounding hills. They aimed to sow chaos, drawing US attention and troops away from the lowland urban areas of the south, in preparation for the Tet Offensive of 1968.

In the afternoon the road took me right by one of these bases, the Dak To ‘Phoenix Airfield’. Today it lies unannounced, down a muddy track, the runway used by local farmers to dry coffee and cassava.

A lady cycled its length to tend to some crops whilst the sound of some weekend karaoke drifted by. A strange calm over a vivid scar.

I carried on, but was a little tired. England were due to play in the Rugby World Cup Final, mid-afternoon, so this seemed a good excuse to call it a day early at Ngoc Hoi, a dusty town just short of the border.

Unfortunately, my VPN could not outwit the ITV streaming service and it seemed Fox Sports Asia were more interested in showing reruns of the Bundesliga.

The only English language TV station didn’t even mention it was happening. I followed some live text updates, but disappointingly it seemed to be all but over by half time.

The next day was my first stretch on the Ho Chi Minh road, a place of some mystery. The main mystery being – why the Vietnamese government put so much effort into building this relatively new, largely unused transnational route.

It doesn’t pass through any major towns (in fact, it doesn’t pass through many towns) and sees almost zero commercial traffic. For much of its length (especially the western section), it just blazes up and down a series of non-stop steep jungly climbs as it weaves its slow way north.

Joyful cycling! (…kind of…)

The area (once largely cut off) is home to a number of minority groups. I occasionally passed giant rong houses like these, meeting spaces for the local Bahnar and Giarai communities.

You can spot a rong house in the corner of the poster below. The government always seemed keen to show minority groups “Working together to build the new Vietnam!” (as the poster exclaims).

These communities drifted away as the road got higher and my first big pass felt pretty wild.

At the top I saw a child building new road barricades with cement (more work for PLAN International), whilst others stood high on the cliffs, throwing rocks and shouting abuse as I passed, unheard of in Vietnam, but this hilltop was a strange place. Some dogs chased me and a man a little further along asked (in all seriousness) if he could hitch a lift down on my bike! Aside from everything else, my rack is only rated to 25kg, so I had to say no.

Tired on arriving in Kham Duc I had my first bowl of mi quang, a Central Highlands speciality. The noodles are fat and chewy in comparison to the more translucent pho and the dish heavier on the fish sauce, almost more of a curry – good food for riding.

I found a cheap hotel with a mountain view – no complaints.

The road out of Kham Duc was moody, misty and Jurassic.

In the afternoon the road climbed higher and I saw almost nobody for the next 50km.

I put on an audiobook, a new history of the war, to take my mind off the gradient. I learned that General Giap’s forces used over 20,000 bicycles to move weapons and supplies when beseiging the French at Dien Bien Phu. The peasant forces would be working in the mud, often at night on meagre rations. I could certainly have had it worse.

Eventually, (with the help of the book), I conquered the climb, but then came a nasty creak from my pedals. Followed by a now familiar snap.

My new chain, just 10 days old, had broken again. I suspected one of the teeth on the cassette was bent and eating into it.

Sometimes the world scoops you out of trouble before you know it. Other times, you are on your own. In this case the ants (whose highway I was now blocking), kept biting. A motorcyclist paused to have a look, then drove off. The sun continued to set. And I had no spare chain links.

Luckily I was only 10km from Prao, the nearest town, so bodged it, riding with a shortened (very tight) set up, which restricted me to only a few gears (putting the chain under some serious strain).

It got me to Prao, but Prao was a pretty far out place (in all senses) and much more isolated and demanding sections of the HCM Road lay ahead. I needed to trust the bike.

I was a bit dejected, I knew I’d have to give up my unbroken journey from Singapore and take some transport to get the problem fixed. I just wanted someone there to agree I’d done my best.

(…or to provide me with new parts! 😄)

For now, the trip was on hold.