This section about Luang Namtha is the forty-fourth instalment of my bicycle loop through South-East Asia from Yunnan – if all goes according to plan. Titled “Slap the Belgian!”, it is simultaneously published on Crazyguyonabike.com, where you’ll find a map with the itinerary and many other bicycle diaries by me and others. I hope you’ll enjoy.

Stunning views as the morning sun peeks through the fog.
Well spotted, this is yesterday’s pic. I didn’t take any today.

Spent most of my morning on one of the Belgian guys’ scooter riding back to Vieng Phou Kha to retrieve my sponge-bag. The petrol for the 120 km end up costing around 38000 kip which is well worth the contents of the bag (a shaver, the bag itself, and all kinds of medicine).

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This section about Saigon is the twenty-eighth instalment of my bicycle ride from Yunnan to Cambodia – if all goes according to plan. Titled “Slap the Belgian!”, it is simultaneously published on Crazyguyonabike.com, where you’ll find a map with the itinerary and many other bicycle diaries by me and others. I hope you’ll enjoy.

Let’s make this one a photo blog, because we really didn’t do that much in Saigon. What we did do, is meet up with Rene, a long-time Belgian expat in Vietnam with a wife, kids and a travel company. We also met Carl-Ingvar, a Swedish friend from my time in Berlin and with Ai Huynh, one of the first Vietnamese people I became acquainted with during my warmup trip in the Mekong delta in March 2011.

Boat in Saigon's harbour
Boat in Saigon’s harbour

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This section from Da Nang to Hoi An is the fifteenth instalment of my bicycle ride from Yunnan to Cambodia – if all goes according to plan. Titled “Slap the Belgian!”, it is simultaneously published on Crazyguyonabike.com, where you’ll find a map with the itinerary and many other bicycle diaries by me and others. I hope you’ll enjoy.

Da Nang Panorama
Panorama from the bridge

We wake from our nasty Da Nang hotel beds moody and tired. The night had been noisy and the beds seriously the worst I’d slept in since I slept in a corn field on my very first bike trip. After a slow morning ritual including a mediocre bún (rice noodles, thin wiry kind), we say good-bye to Linh and head towards Hoi An.

Having done pretty much every Da Nang bridge during yesterday’s food binge, I decide I want to retrace my steps over the northernmost San Francisco-like bridge. I know it gives some spectacular views over the harbour and the sea on the other side, but it isn’t much to the liking of Tu, whose mental and physical energy levels still seem exhausted.

Boats at Da Nang harbour
Boats at Da Nang harbour

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