After a huge breakfast at One More Cafe, I ride through the streets of suburban Dalat which are lined neatly with pine trees. The smooth tarmac of suburbia transitions to rough farming tracks and then off-road along what would in England be a footpath! The end of this section pops me out on the twists and turns of Highway QL27.
This is a welcome contrast to my previous experience of riding on a highway. There is very little traffic on this superb section of road. Mountain passes twist skyward, each hairpin bend revealing giant views over wide valleys, deep ravines, and mist-shrouded mountains. At times the jungle is so dense and lush that it appears to be uncontainable and threatens to grow over the road completely. A hypnotic rhythm is induced by the constant switch-backs – lean left, lean right – and the flashes of sunlight that pierce the thick foliage and streak the road at regular intervals. It is an exhilarating, but also strangely soothing, ride.
For the first time on this journey, I am reluctant to leave the highway, but leave it I do to take the backroad DT722. As I ride along the tarmac slowly turns to sand as I head further into the forest. I roll through tiny village after tiny village until I meet a river and, with it, some new friends.
Thoroughly confused by the lack of a bridge, as according to the maps - both paper and google - I should be able to cross here, I park Harry to explore the edge of the river on foot. I slip and slide down a steep sandy banking towards the river and see a tiny tin boat tucked into the bank. I try to communicate my request, with my three words of vietnamese and lots of pointing, to the owner of the boat. The tiny lady in the tiny tin boat seems confident that she can take Harry across the river. Given my linguistic limitations, I was unable to convey the size and weight of Harry (he's a bit of a porker). I scramble up the sand to return to my motorbike to figure out a plan B.
As my eyes reach ground level, I spy a crowd of curious children huddling around Harry. Despite the language barrier, we are able to understand each other and have a giggle together, essentially revving the motorbike as loud as possible and honking the horn.
Thoroughly confused by the lack of a bridge, as according to the maps - both paper and google - I should be able to cross here, I park Harry to explore the edge of the river on foot. I slip and slide down a steep sandy banking towards the river and see a tiny tin boat tucked into the bank. I try to communicate my request, with my three words of vietnamese and lots of pointing, to the owner of the boat. The tiny lady in the tiny tin boat seems confident that she can take Harry across the river. Given my linguistic limitations, I was unable to convey the size and weight of Harry (he's a bit of a porker). I scramble up the sand to return to my motorbike to figure out a plan B.
As my eyes reach ground level, I spy a crowd of curious children huddling around Harry. Despite the language barrier, we are able to understand each other and have a giggle together, essentially revving the motorbike as loud as possible and honking the horn.
After my new friends return to their games in the river, I retrace my tyre tracks to the main junction and continue across country, parallel to the river I was unable to cross. I nip across the highway once more to join a backroad which heads around a lake and cuts through a bedraggled landscape: a patchwork of small-hold farms and plantations; a previously forested region that has now been scalped. This throws me out onto the hellish highway (AH17) which I just blast along to get off this bloody road.
Buon Ma Thuot, the coffee capital of Vietnam, is not a particularly nice place, but nor is it anywhere near as bad as many guidebooks suggest. It is big, hot and busy. The streets around the old quarter, near the market, are full of lively commerce, interesting street food, local banter, and throbbing cafes. That said, I retire to my room early to try to solve a Type 7 Bristol Stool Scale problem from a pretty porcelain throne.
Distance: 246.1km
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