Day 12 (10th Feb 2013)

Day 12  /  10th Feb 2010

Got up early and started, skipped our bath as the water was cold and our towels would not dry. The next 5 kms we passed through a lovely patch of forest, gave us an idea of how the area would have been once upon a time. The next village was 7km away, it was mostly a christian town with Sunday morning mass at the churches. Picked up Bunh Mi on our way,which has become our daily breakfast now, stopped at a nice place for coffee and then were on our way.

The road was mostly undulating, had coconut water at our next stop as it was getting hot. After a particularly steep climb, we saw Kedar's cycle at a roadside stall, he has a glass of beer in front of him and was lazing on a hammock under the shade of some Singapore cherry trees. I and Rajoo decided to follow suit, promptly took off our wet tops and helmets and picked out our hammocks :-)  Felt very nice in the cool shade. We decided to rest till 2.30pm since we had already covered 70kms and had decided to stop within 40km of Saigon. So only had about 40kms or so to go. Lunch was maggie like noodles and eggs. The place was beautiful and so were the hostesses - a mother daughter combination was on their toes to serve. We lazed in our hammocks till 2.00pm then had coffee and got going. Covered about 45 kms till 5.30 pm. Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon ) was just 42 kms now, so decided to stay there and go to HCMC the next day early morning to avoid rush hour traffic. Found one Nha Nghi ( Hotel ) at 160000 Dongs - Rs.400 which was reasonably ok and we were the only customers in the entire hotel. The young owner was friendly, spoke reasonably good English and was eager to chat. Almost all the restaurants were closed due to Tet- new year. We found one open and it turned out very clean and nice. We had rice, eggs and boiled vegetables for the dinner. Returned back to the hotel and tried to open the room door which did not budge. Finally the boy at the reception opened it with a screw driver :-)  so much for safety.:-) :-)