70km on a bike, with the sore legs to prove it

we rode our bikes from the central highlands to the coast today. this sounds more dramatic than it actually was (or would if you were looking at a map of vietnam), since the comfort van that followed us for the entire ride drove us 45 minutes out of da lat to the starting point, and then drove us another 30 minutes to the coast at the end. okay, so we rode from the the central highlands to the general vicinity of the coast today. it ended up being just the two of us on the trip, and our guide vien who does outdoor excursions up to seven days a week to make his living. this should give some indication of how in-shape vien was in comparison to us. we do not do outdoor excursions for a living. but we hung in there -- i whooped up on brendan on all of the uphill climbs, and he zoomed by me on all of the downhills, leaving me to follow clinging with a death grip on my brakes. they didn't get much of a rest on the 30km descent through vietnam's newest national park.

it was an awesome ride, passing through incredibly diverse terrain as we went from a 1500 meter elevation down to sea level. we also passed through a number of rural villages, which was a great treat since we have thus far seen much less remote parts of the country. by the end i was a little tired of responding to all of the hello's from the countless kids we saw a long the way, but brendan was in it for the long haul. i heard him singing out cheerful "sin chao"s (we added word #2 to our vocabulary today!) to all of the onlookers we passed until the bitter end. it did seem to be the event of the week to have the crazy bikers coming through... vien said that 99% of the tourists they get on their adventure tours are foreign, and when he tells vietnamese people what he does for a living it takes a lot of explaining. we were certainly a novelty act today.

we are spending the evening in the beach town of nha trang, and will head north tomorrow to hoi an. nha trang is not quite our cup of tea, so we don't feel much need to extend our stay. hoi an, on the other hand, has been at the top of our list, so we expect to settle in there for a bit longer. it's also where you can get any sort of clothes you could ever want custom made. so look for brendan in a three piece silk suit come january...