Let’s start with yesterday and with my notes (that normally relate to the day/days before).
Yesterday, my tour was 9001km long.
Until my first stop at km45, I memorized “old US Gods perfection helmet no helmet clothes”. When I had my break, I first turned on the “Spot” to send a GPS signal of my current location. It is interesting that it took me more than 150 days of travelling to find a better way to use that device. You normally can use it as tracker and set an interval between 10-60min. In the beginning, I used 60min to have a continuous path, but it was too battery consuming and loading via USB didn’t work well. So, I changed to 10min and turned on the SPOT only 2-3x/day for 20-30min. But that didn’t always work and when I made a break, it also made a break, because it reacts on movement, and I could see it only later when I edited the map. And now, I use another feature, the “OK-message”. This is independent of movement and the message goes to selected email addresses. So, I sent it to my own address and get a message on my phone when it worked well and can turn off.
Back to my list:
“Old” refers to some old people (some men and more women) who also smile and greet, what makes me especially happy. “US”: I saw some raincoats in camouflage style and the writing US-army and also other things with “US” branding. I wonder, why people in Vietnam can buy, wear and use such things. I cannot “forgive” the US the Vietnam-war as long as they still have the same attitude (Nationalism, Imperialism, sick anti-Communism) and for that are ready to kill countless people and I wonder how people in Vietnam as direct victims can deal with that.
Gods: refers to the hostel clerks in Hué, who in the morning prepared coffee and always put a cup on the little altar, too. (I didn’t see what happened later to the coffee, because in the next morning, the place was empty and ready for a fresh cup).
Perfection: when I see the elaborated furniture offered in so many shops, I wonder why in practically every hotel some things in a ridicule way didn’t work. Yesterday in the hotel, you couldn’t close the door of the bathroom, because it was broader than the frame. In Hué, they always locked a door in that new built house, because it was to small and only by locking, you could reach the frame. I could have made an endless list especially of bathroom failures, but this would be too time-consuming, so I often just smiled silently for myself.
Helmets seem to be worn less often since I am travelling to the North, but now I see more often helmets reminding on army helmets.
And finally “clothes”. I still wonder how I can feel cold when people at the same time go in sandals or work barefoot in the rice-fields. Some people are dressed even warmer than me but most – and most children, too – wear less. Maybe, I will adapt better after a while, but 14°C so far never had been “my” t-shirt&shorts-time.
Today for the first time, I had breakfast in a restaurant. When I yesterday had finished my grand meal, a owner of another restaurant wanted me to come there for dinner. I was sure, that at dinner-time, I would sit or lie in bed, well covered and still well-fed and not willing to move outside. So, I promised to come for breakfast. It is in some way a good start in the day, to fill something warm in the stomach and maybe I will do that tomorrow, too. As said before, there is no heat of the day to avoid anymore, so I can take my time for that.
I will tell you, if I will have a day without strong head-winds, and when I don’t write about wind, that will not mean there was no. Today, like yesterday, there was no rain. And two short times, I got a slight idea in which direction the sun could be. Then it again looked like bad weather, but nothing happened, only fog came sometimes.
Around km80, there where many hotels and I was a little unsure if I really would find hotels around km100, like shown on the map. But I didn’t want to stop much before half of the distance to Vinh (200km from Dong Hoi), because what I don’t do today, I have to do tomorrow. But at km93, again hotels appeared and now, I thought, 7km is not too much asymmetrical and stopped. Later I found out, that this was the place I had selected as possible address for the stop. Mr.G had complained about my route several times, although there was only this road to go, and I had seen before on the map that there is something strange with the route design. I guess that the road had been renewed after the issue of the map. And by that I explain to me how I could go 7km less than the route-planner had calculated.
And today, I saw again some houses halfway cut off, and finally combined the course of the streets with that. Now I am sure, that they had to give way for the roads.
Today, I passed Tokyo hotel, tomorrow I will stay at Hotel Tokyo. (And the band Tokio hotel, that drove girls mad around 2005ff, still exists.)
Today, the temperature outside was higher than in my room (16°C). I stayed with my new routine of staying in bed the rest of the day. At least yesterday and today, even with warmer temperatures I wouldn’t have a better place for working on my laptop although I don’t find a good position to work without a table. (The name “laptop” for sure could not be invented by me.)