8 July 2016

We’d had an excellent chilled out time in Dalat, and a fun last night with Phil and Danni at the beer hall celebrating Phil’s birthday. The hangover from the excessive number of dark beers is hitting home. We grab a late breakfast at the hotel before packing up the bikes. A quick fill up of petrol before riding out of Dalat for the last time on the high road past the cathedral. We end up retracing our steps from a few days earlier, past the cable car and the waterfall before heading south west on the CT14. The road here is very similar to the road in to Dalat, with lots of minibuses and also a very bumpy surface with surprise potholes.

It’s not long down this road before we reach an impasse. Thre next section of the CT14 is not permissible to take motorbikes, so we follow the rest of the small traffic and transfer on to the QL20. The road shadows the CT14 for the next 10-15 kilometres. It’s a quieter road and on the whole a good surface, with a few exposed rocky/pothole areas from time to time through roadworks. Whilst quite bumpy, it is still a decent road. As the two roads rejoin and continue to gently wind downhill, we pass a couple of tourist hotspots – waterfalls and riverside eateries. The whole time the weather is threatening to rain, and it eventually comes to a head and starts tipping it down. We stop to put our ponchos on and ride on, but as we enter a small town the rain suddenly turns torrential, so we dive for cover at a small banh mi seller on the corner and stop for a couple of banh ni and sugar cane juices to wait to storm out.

As the rain lightened, we set off again. But the rain was determined to persist for the day with showers of varying strength coming and going. We continued through the rain and watched as the pines of Dalat give way to swathes of tea as far as the eye can see. A number of very large tea factories were sat at the side of the road.

We arrived a small good looking town with a lake in the centre, Bao Loc, and after a quick pass through we decide to stay there for the night. We check in to the memories hotel, which has excellent views out the back across the hills and tea plantations.

After dumping our stuff in the room, we hop back on the bike and head in to town to see what’s around. We find a food stall at the side of the road selling sweet potato chips in a cheese powder, so get a couple of bags of those and stop by the lake in the light rain to eat them. Delicious!

We then decide to head to the supermarket to get some wine and snacks, and have an evening in the hotel writing up the blog and staying out of the rain. On the way back from the supermarket we pick up kebabs from another street side vendor opposite the temple and race back to the hotel. The wine was yet again a cork wine, so out came the 8mm ring spanner and shoe trick again.

A good night in with nice wine and snacks whilst the rain pelted down outside.

Full days route here:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1246450354