day 251, Dong Van

Had the most amazing sleep on the first spring mattress since I can remember and set off early to Lung Cu. It was pretty cold and foggy though what views were offered to us were amazing. We got to Yen Minh about two hours later and looked for a place to eat. The only place in the whole village had all the cops there so we gave it a miss and headed on northward, stumbling upon a little place that did Pho and it was pretty good. We carried on and the views were amazing, though it was bitterly cold. We stopped every 45 minutes to run around to get some feeling back into our legs, feet and hands. A section of the road followed the river and it was just perfect. Carrying on northward to Lung Cu and the roads were pretty challenging, and the fog was increasing and the temperature dropping. Also Martha started spluttering, randomly loosing drive when going uphill and cutting out, though we soon work out due to the sheer steepness of the road it’s not getting petrol even though it is probably a third full, so we top up. We reached Lung Cu and drove up to the Flag tower, where this little bloke tells us no and we have to go back down to the bottom of the hill to get a ticket. One of the good things about doing this was they had a line of kids in traditional dress waiting for some reason and they waved super enthusiastically which was heart warming. When we are down at the bottom we are told that they have a VIP diplomat visiting, and he takes our permit to the army for them to verify it, before letting us climb the steps to the National Flag tower, also known as Dragon Mountain. The point of coming to Lung Cu was to go the flag tower, it is the northern-most part of Vietnam and overlooks China, only thanks to the fog you can’t see anything whatsoever, grr. The flag tower is pretty impressive and we walk back down, hop on our bikes and head to Dong Van. About 5 km out Michael gets a puncture, so I drive back into town to see if we can get it sorted, we can though we have to get the bike there, so I drive back through the fog (which at times is down to 5m visibility, resulting in us really slowing the bikes down for most of the day as they are cliff roads with sheer drop-offs) and me and Michael walk the bikes back the 5km (which isn’t easy, especially going uphill) to the mechanic who replaces the tube and off we go again. It was getting really fucking cold, the hands were like ice and we would stop for our run and put our hands (inside our gloves) on the engine or exhaust to try and warm them up. We reach Dung Van about sixish, our latest finish so far, found a hotel, filled up with petrol ready for the morning and had dinner with a Canadian bloke who is a newspaper photographer, a interesting bloke though a little strange. We go to a café which has been going for 100years which is very cool, really cool architecture, brick arches, and open middle courtyard, have a hot chocolate (cacao nong in Vietnamese!) and head back to the hotel to go to bed, after a sneaky bit of cake.

me, wearing a giant blue condom,  next to one of the frontier signs, to mark it's a military zone. 

waving to china (through the 'chinese secrecy fog')