A long day today – most of it through the former DMZ – both Dong Hoi and Dong Ha were pretty much flattened during the American war (as they call it here).
We wanted to cycle along the coast, and for about 5 km were on this new double wide empty road – they are planning a lot of coastal development here – the beach looked wonderful – kilometers of white sand (we just didn’t have much sun).
Then suddenly, the wonderful road came to an end, and we ended up on a dirt/clay road – it was still a major road or at least had the cement milestones/posts every kilometer stating road-name and distance to next major settlement.
It was an interesting cycle, lots of potholes, and washouts, and it certainly was entertaining with great views of the beach regularly, but we didn’t make to much progress, so we decided to head inland a bit on to a parallel highway to the HCM-Highway 1. On the way, we stumbled across a party of fairly drunk gentlemen, who insisted we drink some beer with them – quite amusing – they no doubt had good reason to celebrate so early in the morning. We suspect that it was some wedding pre-event. We ran across a number of village weddings today.
We ended up on this major highway, hardly any traffic, went on forever, and nothing around us – just sand dunes and lots of low shrubs/bushes – not even roadside stalls every 2-3km like we have seen everywhere up to now.
The countryside was certainly very desolate – we were not certain if was so desolate as a result of the American War in the 60s 70s or not. This part of Vietnam got some of the worst of the bombings with defoliation and fires, that it has taken decades to recover. But on this road, we made good progress as there was nothing to see and nowhere to take breaks. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a temple/shrine/memorial that was impressive, but really seemed out of place here in the middle of nowhere.
But this new highway came to an end as well, and about half-way through, we took a break where I wanted to get a little something to eat for lunch (a little soup, or a plate of fried rice) – Jörg was not hungry….
What I got was a regular feast – boiled chicken, soup rice, stew, fruit, salad….way more than I expected….but tasty…
After that, on the road again….we decided to visit the Vinh Moc Tunnels that were dug during the American War here – about a 15km diversion. The tunnels were dug in a 2-3 year period, and up to 3 levels deep up to 30m deep with exits going to the beach and within the village. a most fascinating and amazing feat.
(110km / 455m)