Northern Vietnam - Day 4

After another nutritious bowl of noodle soup, we left the homestay early in the morning. The plan of the day was to travel 150 km to a remote natural park and lake.

The first 60 km went by really quickly. The roads were good and the view even better. We were basically riding on small asphalt roads the whole time, but we were still in the middle of the mountains.

At about 11 o'clock, we stopped to rest our sore asses as well as try some local soy milk. A group of 6 or 7 young girls and boys had made an impro soy-milk stand and were selling soy milk to each other. They were super excited to see us whities, and even more excited when we started taking pictures of them. Whenever we showed them the picture, they were all giggling and couldn't believe that this little black box could actually reproduce what they were looking at. The wonders of technology, eh?

Anyways, we now had a choice as to which route to take. 1: We could be really boring and go with the easy conventional route, or 2: We could take the rocky trail with a better view. We opted for option # 2, and off we went.

The first thing we see after leaving the main road is something that could barely be called a path. There were rocks absolutely everywhere and an a steep incline leading off into nowhere. Needless to say, Haakon was excited. The next few hours were spent manouvering through these incredibly challenging riding conditions. Helga was struggeling and we had to keep her in first gear for most of the way, but it was all worth it. By the time we came to the top, we left the road and went to a small field with a view of the valley below. The only other living creatures were water buffalos and a few cows!!! Another incredible memory.

We left the cow-littered field after 45 minutes of much needed rest just to find out that the sky was about to break open and we would get super soaked. The next 2 hours was undertaken in pouring rain but it was still a lot of fun.

We made it to our final destination, a Vietnamese stilt house just by the edge of a gorgeous lake. In fact, the owner was the village chief!!! Just as the previous nights, the evening was filled with good food, rice wine and beers.