Day 9 (7th Feb 2013)

Day 9 / 7th feb 2013

Nha Trung to D Nhim

We knew it was going to be a long, tough day. So we started at 6 am sharp from our hotel. We had taken directions from a lady at our hotel desk the previous day. We followed her directions and could pass through the city without loosing track. It was a pleasant morning and we covered first 30 kms in no time. About an hour after starting we stopped for breakfast at road side. We ate a dish which was like idli with egg. We think the eggs were Quail eggs. It was tasty. This was the first time that a person sitting next to us paid for our breakfast and quietly went away without letting us know that he paid for us, he had asked if we were from the land of Mahatma Gandhi. It was a sweet gesture. At 40 kms we stopped for 'Cafe'- I have started loving this coffee which is served with fresh filter coffee and boiling water in filter kept on the glass. Drinking coffee is a ritual. You need to wait till coffee drains in glass and then drink it black, with milk and either hot or cold. So as per your wish you can add milk or ice and enjoy it.

Immediately after the coffee brake the road turned left and started climbing . We had started a long 30 km ascend towards 1st pass on way to Dalat which is 5400 ft high. The surroundings were very beautiful but Sun was beating down ferociously at 40 degrees and it was very humid. A group of 4-5 men offered us oranges and lychees :-) After every one hour we stopped for few minutes near some water and shade, trying to keep ourselves cool and hydrated as much as possible' we skipped the lunch as there was not a single food joint in that stretch but kept eating bananas which we carried. We reached the pass at 3.15pm. By the time it had become cloudy. There was no one except us at the pass. We clicked some photographs and started our descent. The climb was 30 kms but the descent lasted barely for 8 kms. We were very, very hungry by this time so we stopped at the 1st small family run restaurant that we came accross. There was no one else in the restaurant nor any food other than ready food such as biscuits, but when we said, rather acted out that we were very hungry the girl at the restaurant very kindly made noodles with eggs and supplemented it with some kind of rice cakes that they had prepared on the occasion of 'Tet'. Food tasted delicious. Two youngsters arrived with beer cans and offered us beer, which we declined. The landscape was all undulating now so there was series of climbs and slops . Dalat was further 45 kms away and it had started getting dark, so we decided to stay in first hotel available. We reached D Nhim at 6.30pm. There was only one hotel in D Nhim named KimYen which was closed but there was tel. no on the board so we called that number. A young careless looking man arrived in few minutes and opened a hotel for us. The room was in the basement and very basic but we had to make do with it & certainly it was cosier than staying open air which we were mentally prepared for.

It was the toughest day so far on this trip as we climbed from Sea level to 5300 Ft in hot and humid conditions and covered 115 kms with loaded bicycles. All three of us have done cycling at high altitudes and crossed passes such as Khardung La and Kunzum La, but looking at all odds this was surely one tough day and the satisfying one.

Ride -115 kms