Up the Hill

This story was posted under the categories: Big Asia Trip, Cycling, Cycling South-East Asia, Vietnam

After the South Coast it was time to head into the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Everybody we heard was very excited about it so we left with very high expectations for our first stop, Dalat.
This kitschy town known for it’s disneylike attractions even has a real Eiffeltower (at least they think they have), a giant lake where you can ride swanboats (which we of course tried) and a “Crazy House”, a guesthouse that looks like a fairytale house.

After our splurge buffet with more than 50 dishes we started the next day bright and shiny for our easy ride to Dam Rong….

Wauw, doesn’t this little road looks appealing? Yes that’s what we thought as well, so change of plans… It was the right direction so 5 km after we started we left the sealed road and headed into the woods. We crossed the most scenic mountainbikeroutes ever. And stopped for lunch at this intersection with “the big” road. Yes, we found it!

Full of energy after our strawberrysandwiches we started the last 30 km. But soon we discovered that the big road wasn’t that big and that after 2 hours of cycling we were again in the middle of nowhere with no villages or sealed roads in sight. At 2h30 we saw a little village with 5 huts and a lady that pointed us the direction to the city we were looking for. A little bit stressed we continued our way and kept on cycling this beautifull little roads that leaded us over hilltop after hilltop after hilltop after hilltop…

 At 4h30 we finally saw “the village” but we only had 1 hour left before the sun would go down and leave us in the jungle with nothing to eat and no camping gear.

We raced down the last slope and literaly crashed on to somebody’s floor for a well deserved night of rest.

The next day we left this sparkling town with 50 inhabitants for the Lak Lake. Where we splurged and spent the afternoon at the swimmingpool of our resort!

As it was Tet for everybody we also treated ourselfs to another splurge the day afterwards with another fancy hotel in the city of Pleiku.

We ended up spending 2 nights and as many bottles of Dalat wine before we could master the force for our last ride to Kontum.