Planalto Cycles

(containes only 3(!) selfies!

Only 60km where to be done to Mong Cai, the last city in Vietnam, directly neighbouring DongXing and only separated by a small river.
I left my unfriendly host, but there were friendly guests. They were greeting and one of them saw my gold-coloured chain and thought it is rusty and brought me machine oil from his car to grease it ?
One of the for me yet unsolved riddles in Vietnam is the lot of small money you find on the streets but mainly on bridges. Some of them are folded and I picked one up and saw that salt was in it (at least I guess it was salt – I didn’t taste it). I guess it must be something about good luck, but wether the good luck should be that the bridge doesn’t break or if there are some gods in the river below who like small presents, I don’t know.
The way was hilly like yesterday for the first 50 km and then flat until the end. I made my (now) usual break at km45 and ate my (now) usual muesli when a motorcycle stopped. A man talked to me in quite good English, asking the usual questions but then, he showed me the big load of tea that he was bringing to MongCai. The tea was cheap, and I made a deal: If he would take the small money I still had, I would take two packages (for Taiwanese friends). He agreed and we both moved on to Mong Cai. When I arrived there, I wanted to buy Vietnamese small cakes for a last time with my last smaller bank notes (50000 dong), but the shop had no. And when I looked on the other side of the street, I saw another French bakery ?

The shop assistant helped me to select food for exactly 50k and now I had only the bigger notes left and wanted to change them in China.
In front of the border, I changed my active fairphone with VPN etc to the “spare part fairphone”, because the German Alex that I had met in Cambodia had told me stories about spyware they want to install at the border. I didn’t believe it anyway and also didn’t find information about that, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to be a naïve fool, too. Then I went to the border, made a selfie movie from the distance, because I thought, I would not be allowed to use the camera later, went through the Vietnamese check point and was in a loud crowd of people coming from or going to China, making selfies and taking pictures of each other. So, I dared to do the same.

Then I went to the Chinese border control, filled in a form, where I would stay, scanned all 10 fingers, brought my luggage to the scanner and put it on the bike after that. No one checked the remaining small bags on the bike (one with first aid things, the other with my phone) and so, I smoothly landed in China!
Mr.G brought me directly to the hotel without any problem and the first problem was the check-in there. No one spoke English or tried to use a translator, mine didn’t work well without internet and they wanted 500Y from me. The room should be 268Y, what is enough so I didn’t understand that and normally, you can at least check in before you pay. So I left the bike there with all my luggage and tried to get money.
The first ATM said my PIN is wrong (you need 6 digits but I have only 4) and I was prepared for new complications, but the next one gave me the money. No bank and no money exchange wanted to change my Vietnamese dongs, but for the moment, I just wanted to check in the hotel and then care for a SIM card.
In the hotel, they confirmed that 268Y is the price for the room and then, they took 300Y without giving me change, but a paper to sign. And then I could guess it was for the key deposit. But why didn’t the try to tell me that? Even in sign language that would be possible!
An officer had become “nervous” because of my bike at the entrance and he even hardly could tolerate that I wanted to take down the luggage, before I bring it to the parking, but I did it.
Next: SIM card…
In Vietnam, I had prepared some locations for a shop on the map and saved with a screenshot, and one was near-by. I was there for nearly 2 hours and in the end, when I left, the settings changed to 2G what is not enough for most things I could need, eg.voice translation, that we had used in the shop intensively. I knew before that I could be hard to get a good SIM card but that’s why I had chosen that company (there are three).
I went back to the border, because I hoped someone could need the VND, but maybe it was too late for the day,I only saw people arriving. So, I went to a shop with Vietnamese writing on it, and they took the money. Then I bought some street food and wanted to find another shop for a SIM card. I only found another shop of the same brand and prepared the translator with questions when a woman on a motorcycle started talking to me. I went nearer and saw that it was the shop assistant of the first shop!
It was a little embarrassing that she saw that I tried to get something better and she even came to assist me again and asked if I could use the SIM card although it has only 2G. Meanwhile, we had changed to WeChat, because then we could use our two phones for typing and then get the translation. After a while it was clear that nothing could be done except buying Chinese phone, but I don’t want to do that.
Ann, so her name, asked me if I would like to have dinner and so we went on her electric motorcycle to a restaurant. We continued our strange, written conversation until we had finished eating and my phone was empty. Then Ann brought me back to my hotel and went home. On the way, I had seen a market and now, I bought bananas. They tasted great!
For the moment, I can say, my first day in China could have been much worse, although I at the moment again struggle with internet access for the PC, and the SIM card is not very helpful and I don’t know about the performance of Mr.G when it is not only 500m from the border.

Last complete day in Vietnam…
Today, I left Hailong after the longest stay in one place in Vietnam. This night, I was alone in the 4-bed-room, yesterday, Melchior had gone to Hanoi, like Alex the day before.

I remember how I felt when I entered Iran, the unknown country that became quite familiar. There are some things comparable to entering China now:
A special political system, unknown language and writing and some restriction, making life more complicated. Regarding the people I don’t expect something comparable to Iran, but maybe comparable to Vietnam or Cambodia?
I tried to be prepared. Today, I noticed, that I had booked two hotels for February instead of January. In one case, I could change the dates and the room was still available. In the other case, there is no option to change, to contact or anything. I will just go there and hope that a room is free and maybe the accept the payment for January. If not, 19$ are gone and I will have to find something else (or reactivate my tent).
The reminds me on todays weather. It was sometimes even dry sometimes wet without real rain and the wind was active 2x for 1-2hours. Regarding the road, it was a more difficult ride than the last weeks, because there were more climbs (still only 800m for 100km, what is much for Vietnam but not for Georgia or Armenia) and one long street was very mixed regarding surface, between good and not deserving the title “road” (I only have a photo taken out from a video of a “normal” mud road, when it was really bad I didn’t think about filming)

When I had done my 100km (so that only 60km are left for tomorrow, because I have to pass the border, get a SIM card and change money, each of that can be time consuming between 1-3 hours!), I looked for hotels, but not only for the English word, also for “Khách sạn” (hotel) and “nhà nghỉ” (motel). But two times, they said (or “signed”) that they don’t rent rooms. Still I had plan B, looking for the places I had found on google maps and maps me. No hotels there, three times. Finally, I found a place. The whole city Đầm Hà  looks special, with big roads and many beautiful houses, but nearly no shops and only a few restaurants and so, I was happy to find this house. In other situations, I would have gone, because the owner was very unfriendly.
In the evening, I went to a nearby restaurant with people sitting there, but they sent me somewhere else, I don’t know exactly why they didn’t want to sell me a dinner. But the other place was good. I came there, when the family also was about to eat and got what they also were eating (including an sausage that I didn’t like too much and ham) with a big bowl of rice, soup and fried spring rolls. And it was only 30k (1,2€). For my sweet tooth I wanted to go to a bakery shown on the map 1km away,  but 30m from the restaurant was a cake-shop and tea house. On the menu, they had three different “cake creams”, one with chocolate, one with matcha and one that I never heard before. I was in the mood to order all three and they were unsure about my order, wrote down the price on a paper and still it was what I wanted. And then they brought me 3 cups with bubble tea!

It was not a wrongly written cream cake, it was a  bubble tea with cake cream. This was a surprise. I showed them their advertisement for cakes and they showed me raw cakes (without topping or cream) they would prepare. But only whole cakes. I can eat and drink a lot, but after that big dinner and with 3 cups of bubble tea, I knew it could be hard to eat a complete cake alone and I gave up and went back to the hotel to complete my updated preparations of the China part.
Tomorrow, I will know more.
But maybe, I cannot post it, we will see if my access to internet will allow it!
I was about to go to bed when it knocked at the door. I put on some clothes and opened there to see the owner of the hotel with a policeman. Both were
awkwardly smiling, so it was obvious that they didn’t look for something bad. The policeman had my passport and compared the enchantingly beautiful image (© Mozart) with the sobering reality, but at least was satisfied to see the person registered in the books in the corresponding room. They went off and I went to bed.

This day was dedicated to preparing the China-part of my trip and this took me 8 or 9 hours (including eating and the like). The procedure was, to divide the tour from the Vietnamese border to Zhuhai (where I visit Conny) in parts that I can do in one day, then look for a place to stay, check if it is doable and adapt the tour to that. The same with the second part to Xiamen. If I would try to find hotels from 50-150$ per night, this part would have been done faster, but for 3 day-tours, I didn’t even find an expensive hotel. That doesn’t  mean there will not be any, but just not to find with my means. Some places, I had booked earlier, because I needed bookings to get my China visa easier, and now the dates didn’t fit anymore, because I must enter China 2 days earlier and leave 1 week earlier. And in three cases, these hostels had no free bed (at least on platforms like booking.com) on the new dates and I had to cancel and to find something new. (And to change the route that I also had planned in advance.) Then I bookmarked the accommodations in “maps.me” on my phone to have it offline and tried to find them in the route-planner. This was “interesting”, because the same places can have totally different names, e.g. Xangxi on the map of the booking is called Zhigong on maps.me.

The second problem was/is that the streets and the route don’t fit together in “google roads”, so you cannot mark the places where they seem to be on the map, you have to mark them, where the route runs – in most cases impossible.

You can use another map-option, but they are less precise and sometimes, they streets you need (and see on “google roads”) are not plotted. Again a problem, because for working properly, the route planner wants street.

I don’t know how the GPS will work in China, I just know that it is sometimes really hard to find places, even with good planning and correct material, as if the owner of hotels didn’t want to be found.
I hope, my preparation was not useless…
In the evening, I made a fast round to get dinner, to buy bananas for my muesli and to visit the night market. This was a depressing place, too far from everything except some empty hotels and too big to be filled with at least some life. I thought I would get food there, but you only could buy souvenirs. I made the mistake to look at a box with green bean cakes and the seller nearly  pleadingly told me a cheap price. And I took that box, although I would have enough of these green bean cakes now.
I had the camera with me, as always but there was nothing urging me to take a photo today.

Today, Alex (France), Melchior (Switzerland) and I (no, not Australia – Austria!) joined a day trip to the world heritage site, Vịnh Hạ Long, covering 775 of the nearly 2000 rocks/islands in the bay.
A bus came to our hostel and picked up tourists from other hotels on the way to the port. There, we had to follow a guide with a flag, I think, first time in my life!

He brought us to the boat and told us something about the first part of the tour. For me, such explanations are difficult to follow in any case, I don’t know exactly why (it is a similar phenomenon like my museum’s fatigue) But in this case, his special pronunciation made it even harder to remember anything later.

For a while, the boat drove through different rock formations, most of them with names related to some phantasies their shape provokes. So, our boat for example had to wait in front of the ““”Fighting Cocks Islet“, because other boats were in front of us and every tourist wants to take the same photos.

Another iconic rock formation is on the 200.000 dong note.

I didn’t manage to get a good photo

Our first stop was at the Sung Sot cave, which is interesting because of its very different structures from ceilings and walls, and everything set in scene effectively with light.

On the way to the next stop, we got lunch. Alex, Melchior and I seemed to be similar good eaters with the same preference not to waste food. So we ate up our food (different plates with raw and cooked vegetables, meat, fish and other seafood) and when the staff started to clear the tables, we caught some half full plates from other tables.
At the pearl farm, many chose the optional canoe round, but again we three were in the same way not interested just to sit in a canoe for some minutes. But first we got an introduction in the pearl-production and a tour through a show-room, with pearls priced around 100.000.000 dong.

For the first time since week, I saw the sun, not clear but strong enough to produce clear shadows and for a short time even a blue sky!

Our last stop was the Titop Island

(“named after Russian cosmonaut Gherman Stepanovich Titov, a hero of the former Soviet Union, to mark the historic visit of President Ho Chi Minh and G. Titov to Ti Top Island on November 22nd 1962.“)

It was not only our last stop, but of many boats with many people. So, the place was crowded, the stairs on the hill were crowded and the top of the hill was of course crowded, too. But you had a great view! It was not totally clear but the fog didn’t block the view. I couldn’t enjoy it for long, because it was to loud and busy there. Of course, it was even worse down at the beach where people also could buy something, sit down or go to the water, but there, I had no expectation for peace. It was strange to see some people wearing their masks, 30km away from traffic and pollution (except the boats). Maybe they are addicted to the lack of oxygen or other side-effects of those masks. Btw, they only have side-effects, and no effect…

We had to wait for our boat to come back, because only 10 boats could dock at the same time, so they let the tourists on land, waited outside and came back 45min later for 3-4min to take them on board again.
We had been looking forward to the fruits they would serve now, but it was only 3 thin slices of melon and pineapple for each person.
The boat went back to the harbor,

the bus went back to the hotels and we went to the French bakery, because Alex was about to leave one hour later to Hanoi and wanted to get something to eat for the bus. Then we went to the market to show the cut dogs to Melchior. He and I also bought some fruits and 1kg of Cashew nuts.
I went to another shop, because I always look for those small, heavy cakes and don’t know which shop has them. Yesterday, in one shop they said I could get it tomorrow and I was curious about it. It was not the same and it was awfully packed as I later saw, but it reminded me on Iranian halva, named banh dau xanh (=green bean cake)

Originally, Melchior and I wanted to go to the night market, but then we just ate those things we had from bakery, market and “my” shop and Alex left to Hanoi.
Then, I gave my clothes to the reception to bring it to a laundry and get them back on the next day, clean AND dry. Very convenient, because I had to wear wet clothes during the last weeks. It costs 40000 for 1kg, which is ~1,5€ or the price for a better lunch/dinner.
In the room, I started to write diary and select photos, but it was too much for the evening, so I had to finish it in the next morning.

My roommates, Alex from France and Robert from Germany, were better in sleeping, so I had more than 2 hours to stay in bed silently and by that managed to finish selecting the Angkor Wat photos for the blog and upload everything.
Breakfast was very simple, a glass of hot water (as I don’t drink coffee) and a sandwich with a fried egg. I am used to eat with little salt and normally add no spices to served food, but this was even boring for me. Robert and I went to the “French bakery” and I took something typical French, namely a pizza. But it didn’t taste to typical like pizza and it had a lot of (Vietnamese) vegetables on top, so I don’t regret this irregularity from the principle to eat only local food.
Then I washed my bike that didn’t show any signs of being washed 4 days before.
Robert went back to Hanoi to take a night bus to the South and I went to the barber. There were mainly young customers who came in with a stylish haircut that I never in my life had when I come out and I could be (grand)father of them. And so, for them in many regards I was a kind of curiosity. But I got a full treatment with hair wash before cutting, then cutting my hair, my beard, my hair in the nose, another hair wash and drying.
In my new – let’s also call it “styling” – on my clean bike I made a short tour to another part of Halong, separated by the bay and connected by a big bridge.

I wonder if this city with ~250.000 inhabitants has more hotel-capacity than Vienna with 1,8mio inhabitants. Maye some business men understand more of that than I and know how many hotels can be built until it is enough. To me, it is more than enough now, but I don’t know how it looks like in other seasons.
After that tour, I went back to my planning. Another tourist, Melchior from Switzerland, had arrived and we spend some time talking. For me, a good distraction and reason for procrastination as I was not motivated for some things (that had to be done, and I did them, but it took me a while). For dinner, I tried to find a Vegetarian restaurant, but the one that I found did not work in this season. So, I went to another, local, bakery to get something wrapped in banana leaves, but big and heavy. It was something between pudding and jelly with a mixture of beans and – as I suppose – minced meat.

Then, I went on to a normal Vietnamese Restaurant to get a soup with noodles and Vegetables (I just asked them to omit the chicken).
So, nothing special happened, it was a rest day and a day for catching up. Catching up didn’t work too good, but at least some things are done.

As I had only 75km left to Halong, I was in no hurry and could finish my diary from yesterday in the morning (I had fallen asleep while writing, making long lines of the letter my finger was pressing). It was wet with some rain for the first few hours and then dry enough to go on without rain-cover. After 40km, there was a ferry

and I decided to use the time on board for eating although I was not hungry. (Yesterday, I had made a new record, I had been going for 80km without eating, maybe because of the bigger breakfast and my stomach ache). Today, Mr.G and I agreed about the route al the time, but that was because of a trick:
In the evening, I had checked the route and when I saw a detour or the route diverging from the main road without good reason, I corrected it. In the end, “my” tour was only 100m longer. I think I will try this with the next route, too, although it costs some time, but I like to cycle without conflicts with Mr.G. and especially on rainy days, I prefer main roads. Nevertheless, I got very dirty today, because there were some construction works or other reasons to get mud on the road and in combination with the humidity, even my water bottle was to dirty to use it.

I arrived at the hostel and first gave my bags a shower before bringing them in the room, a 4-bed dormitory, that I shared with a French and a German guy. I had to wait with entering the room anyway, because 3x, there was a blackout and as in most cases, the room had no window and was too dark.
After checking in, I made a short walk to explore the near-by area. On the way, some cars and motorbikes stopped to offer a ride and one woman had an extended offer, including her hotel, a massage and a beautiful girl for something she called boom-boom. It took me a while to convince her that I just was walking and that I was ok with just walking.
I came to a “shopping mall”, or better a roofed traditional market with 3 floors. On the ground floor, you could get mainly vegetables, fruits and meat, including complete dogs or dog parts.
On the next level, you mainly could get dresses and shoes. There again was a blackout, but the traders all had small lights for such emergency cases.
I completed my round and began my usual bed-stay.

The night had been quite calm, because around the resort, there is not much traffic and finally it was only one other guy sleeping in the dorm and he was sleeping earlier and getting up later than me. Only a cat was sitting in front of the door and complaining that the door was closed, and it was cold outside (or whatever else was to complain about).
It was wet, and it was cold, and the toilet was outside, and raindrops found a way between roof and walls to hit you from time to time, mostly in the neck. So, I kept it short and this was a mistake that I don’t want to repeat.
But first, I got breakfast. That was a surprise, because the dorm was cheap and in the booking information, I read that there is no breakfast included, however, two persons had told me I can have breakfast. There were good things like fruits and juices, but I felt too cold, because it was outdoors (under a roof), so I only took toasted bread and tea. After breakfast, I felt that I should go back to that place with the raindrops in the neck, but I thought, I can do that when I arrive in the next hotel.
I took another way for leaving the resort and that was not only good because of better roads but I saw more of the great scenery of steep hills and lakes.

Half an our later, I had stomach cramps and could hardly cycle.
Because of the wet and cold weather and the pain, I was not able to find a better solution than to continue cycling, and when the pain was too bad, to stop pedaling and just roll. I felt very uncomfortable, but to stop and the idea to do something else was also too uncomfortable.
My inner monologue focused on ways to deal with that (in a humorous way), circling around words like “post-production” or “return to sender” and “re-compression” and other ways to paraphrase what was going on and what I suggested to my guts to do. And I tried to find appropriate wordings for my diary…
The complete distance to Ha Long was 175km and today, I wanted to do at least 50km to leave no too big portion for tomorrow. And when I had done that after more than 3 hours my stomach calmed down. So, I could extend my project to doing at least half of the kilometers today.
At km82, I should go right, but the road was under reconstruction and I had to make a big detour. So, finally the first hotel on my way was at km100.
Nothing new to say about the afternoon (bed…)
In the evening I crossed the street to take dinner in a restaurant and the owner asked a customer for translation. The young man was sitting with two others with many different dishes and with his help I could order some of them for me, too. Meanwhile, they invited me to join their dinner and the first man and I talked a bit (the others couldn’t speak English). He is from Hanoi and the others from other cities, but they work here for a construction company for a while. He wanted to know what I am doing here and where I am coming from. I know that nearly no one in Vietnam knows Austria (“Ah, Australia!” “No, Austria, in Europe, between Germany and Italy!” “?”) and so on my phone, I show it on mapsme, where I also have marked my route.
First, they shared their dishes with me, then we shared what I had ordered, but in the end, the young man invited all of us and they left to continue their work (it was 7pm).
“Dinner in a restaurant” means sitting outside, in this case at 12°C and some wind, but at least protected from the rain. Sometimes the tables are very low, and you sit on plastic chairs suitable for kindergarten, not knowing where to put your knees and how to reach from plate to mouth without losing everything on the way (you have chopsticks for rice and slippery noodles)
So, a bit freezing I hurried back to my bed in the hotel. Still I am busy planning the China-part which is harder than the other parts. I hope I will feel better when I am finally there!
In the last days, I saw some motorcycles with cages and dogs inside. I had seen some before, too, but thought the owner transports his dog… Now, I saw big tongs designed to catch dogs at the neck and I also think back on the big truck with dogs (see day 160).