dom's not home...: day 265, Da Nang

Michael dropped me off at Mr Kim’s to pick up Martha, as usual Mr Kim greeted us with a huge smile, then as usual pointed to my bike and shook his head, proceeding to show me a bag of parts that had come out of my bike and telling me that he’s replaced them all and showing me where on the parts they are fucked. The bike was still being worked on so we went off to check out of our hostel and stow away our bags, then the sun came out! Craving a western fix we went to a restaurant and ate outside, had a cracking duck breast in a mushroom and cream sauce with mash, did the job, then back to pick up Martha. She was finally finished and Mr Kim went through all the pricing which took a while, for what was done it was still dirt cheap, almost two days solid labour and loads of parts and didn’t reach sixty quid. Plus it rides like a different beast, it’s ridiculously easy to ride. Went back to the hostel to load our bags and we made our way to Da Nang. We decided to take a smaller coast route rather then the highway 1, the reunification express which is a monster and it was fucking delightful. It was a narrow though semi decent road and we were going through little villages and passing by lakes and the sea, was fantastic. I don’t remember having so much fun and being happier in Vietnam thanks to the weather. At one stage it offered us magic views of a lagoon. Our old map didn’t show that the road we were on would join the highway 1, though google maps was unsure of it so we took the chance, and sure enough a massive bridge connected it to the mainland, and little road connecting QL49b to QL1 was sick, at times less then two metres away from the coast, good surface and really winding, loads of kids who waved and to wave at, I high fived with one ambitious kid in a head to toe Liverpool kit, then joined Highway 1. That road was insane and had the biggest width mountain pass I’ve ever seen, it was a complete u-turn but the road turned into being 6 metres wide on either lane! 52kms out from Da Nang we stopped off at Soi Voi, otherwise known as elephant springs which was really cool, had a dip in the fresh water and a chill out, unfortunately the sun just crept behind some clouds then the mountains. Carrying on, past Long Co, we hit the Hai Van Pass, a coastal road which Jeremy Clarkson described as a “ribbon of perfection”, and he won’t wrong. It was amazing, almost no traffic and the views were out of this world. Once that was finished it was a bit of a miserable traffic ride to Da Nang, we didn’t know where to stay and hadn’t prepped anything, Da Nang is huge and after aimlessly looking for one place found a nice place just off the beach. Both jumped on martin looking for food, had this spicy salad thing with duck which was really good, then moved onto another place for a rice plate with meat and veg of your choice, then some ice cream to finish it (which was a bit bizarre as they had topped it with salt (or salt masquerading as MSG), then back to the hotel completely knackered.