Kon Tum to Hue

It took me another three days of hard riding to get out of the central highlands where I popped out on the central coast of Vietnam at the old port trading town of Hoi An. It is a great little city and I used my time there to soak up the colonial charm and eat my way through a number of fantastic meals. I also had to get my bike fixed as all of the back gears weren't working unless I changed them manually by pulling the gear wire but this didn't always work. This wasn't the best situation to be in as some of the hills were fairly steep and on one such hill I couldn't get the gears to change so I spent the next hour and a half pushing my bike straight up in 35 degree heat. You could say I wasn't happy as I'd already biked for over an hour and hadn't had anything to eat!! Although Hoi An was a great place I wasn't meeting any other travellers and after spending the last 11 days in the highlands where my conversations consisted of hello's and good-byes only, I really wanted to talk!! So I heard about this great little travellers hang out 20km out of town called Hoa's Place. Hoa has been labelled the coolest guy in Vietnam and I was about to find out why. He runs a group of guest houses on a deserted part of China Beach and learnt all of his English from the American GI's during the war. He is hilarious as all of his sentences contain the buzz words of 60's & 70's America. 'That's so rock and roll dude' and 'take it easy bro' are just a couple of my favourites which seemed to be said in every other sentence. Plus there was a good bunch of other travellers just hanging out and enjoying the beach, free flowing beer and local rice wine on a nightly basis so I was struggling to leave the place as each day I was a little more hung-over. I finally made the big decision and got up early one morning and cycled out after having spent some great times with a good bunch of people. I cycled to my next destination of Hue but got caught out in some heavy rains just south of town. After relaxing in a cafe for about half an hour it was back on the bike to finish off the final kms and find a hostel for a couple of nights.The plan from here is to get up to Hanoi in the next few days and get my visa extended before heading out to Halong Bay where I plan to do a couple of days cruising on one of the traditional Vietnamese Junk sailing ships.

Riding Stats
> 5th Sept - 117km
> 6th Sept - 116km
> 7th Sept - 82km
> 9th Sept - 23km
> 13th Sept - 108km
Total - 2179km