It has been a while since I made a nice long trip with my bicycle. I did a four day trip through the Ardennes during the ascention day weekend back in May and I planned to make a trip around Iceland during the 2017 summer. However due to 2017 being a busy running year for me I decided to skip the Iceland trip. After doing all three distances on the The Hague CPC at the beginning of March, the Rotterdam Marathon in the middle of April and the RoPaRun in the first weekend of June, I decided that my body was just too tired to do a three week cycling tour during the last three weeks of June. Especially with the prospect of doing the New York Marathon in November 2017. I came to this conclusion after my weekend in the Ardennes, which showed that with all the running I did, I actually lost my cycling legs :,-(
Athough 2017 was a very good running year for me, i’m really excited to make a nice trip on my bicycle again! So here’s the plan! For my job i’m currently expatriated to Ha Long in the North of Vietnam. My collegues and me have been here for a little over two months to help our client finish a big construction project. When my employer asked me whether I would be interested in relocating abroad I only had one condition, which was that I would be allowed to bring my bicycle. Of course that was not a problem, so now i’m here :-)
24/02 Day 12, Sa Pa
Its really great being back here. The surroundings of Sa Pa are so amazingly beautifull. I’m staying at the Eco Palms resort, which just consists of five or six traditional thatched roof houses, which all have an amazing view on the rice terraces in the Muong Hoa Valley. The resort is located some 7km from Sa Pa, so this morning I decided to walk to town and enjoy the wonderfull views over the valley.
Right before Sa Pa I came across a crossroads, with one road leading to Sa Pa’s city center (to which I actually intended to go to) and a road leading just into Sa Pa. For some dumb reason I chose the second road and walked into Sa Pa, and then also walked out of it again. I figured that if I would just keep walking, that I would come accross another road leading back to the city center, but I didn’t. Instead the road led into the Valley. At some point I came through a traditional Hmong village. In this village I found some stairs leading even deeper into the valley. Along the stairs were stalls with traditional colorfoul Hmong arts and crafts, which were a joy to look at. I followed the stairs along the stalls down and down and down, untill I reached the river at the bottom of the valley. Two rivers came together at this point and at their crossing was this very nice bamboo village, with houses and waterwheels using the power of the fast flowing rivers. At the point where the rivers merge there was this magnificant waterfall (Cat Cat falls). It was a really nice surprice and incredibly unexpected! So nice to take a wrong turn now and then :-)
Right before Sa Pa I came across a crossroads, with one road leading to Sa Pa’s city center (to which I actually intended to go to) and a road leading just into Sa Pa. For some dumb reason I chose the second road and walked into Sa Pa, and then also walked out of it again. I figured that if I would just keep walking, that I would come accross another road leading back to the city center, but I didn’t. Instead the road led into the Valley. At some point I came through a traditional Hmong village. In this village I found some stairs leading even deeper into the valley. Along the stairs were stalls with traditional colorfoul Hmong arts and crafts, which were a joy to look at. I followed the stairs along the stalls down and down and down, untill I reached the river at the bottom of the valley. Two rivers came together at this point and at their crossing was this very nice bamboo village, with houses and waterwheels using the power of the fast flowing rivers. At the point where the rivers merge there was this magnificant waterfall (Cat Cat falls). It was a really nice surprice and incredibly unexpected! So nice to take a wrong turn now and then :-)
23/02 Day 11, Sa Pa
It actually has happened a lot during the last 11 days: Vietnamese standing alongside the road, seeing me stroll by and then yelling something. Probably it means something like “look at this idiot, doesn’t she know we have motorcycles?”. But as said before, the Vietnamse love it when you just smile and wave back at them.
Today was no different, but in today’s case all Vietnamese that saw me pass by actually knew that the road that I was following went up some 1500 meters. In their eyes, that made me into an even bigger idiot. “Are you really going to cycle up there? Don’t you know we have cars, taxis and busses? You very weird person!” I came accross a lot of Vietnamese today. The people on the motorcycles hooted their horns, combined with frantic smiling and waving and gesturing that I should just hop on. The people in the cars turned down their windows and stuck their head out of the car and cheared me on, but still screamed stuff to me. People with pick up’s gestured that I should just put my bike in the back. The people in the busses just took their cell phones out and tried to take as many pictures of the white idiot as possible, after which they waved at me and stuck up their thumbs...