Day 60 - Kon Tum

Realised this morning that last night was the first time I've slept in a room alone since I reached Russia. Was nice to wake up at my own pace.

Today was our longest day of riding - 220km. Had a quick chat at breakfast with one of the groups we keep seeing along the route. Two of them are sisters from Norway. Hit the road after an ATM stop, first visit is a mushroom farm. Sinh describes how they put some rotting wood into a bag of damp sawdust (?) and let the fungus develop, slitting the bag open in spots to let the mushrooms sprout. The shed is like an alien nursery - so many containers hanging from the ceiling like IV bags in a blood bank, with black or white mushrooms bursting forth. Creepy.

Uncle Sinh also gives us a quick history/geography lesson on the HCM trail. BMT was the centre of a VC attack, and used as a staging base to invade the rest of the south. He has so much knowledge of Vietnamese flora, fauna, history, people.

Uncle Sinh

Next a war memorial, and Spencer relates the tale of his grandfather. Living at the border with two sons, he sends one north (Spencer's uncle) and one south (his father), not knowing which side is good or bad, or who will win, or if either son will survive. Both lived through the war, but his uncle had to arrest his father afterwards, whereby he spent 18 months in a re-education camp.

Spencer

I'm also surprised to learn that his father's south Vietnamese connections still prevent Spencer from doing things like becoming a policeman or politician. HCMC is still Saigon to southerners. He also confesses to teasing northerners at college, pissing on their army hats. He says the best thing HCM did was win over the hill tribes, who created the HCM trail, key to winning the war.

Seb & Nicci

Peter rapping

Me going vroom vroom!

Stopped at a pepper plantation then. Vietnam is such an industrious, productive nation - #2 exporter of coffee (after Brazil), #2 exporter of rice (after Thailand), rubber, tea, pepper, mushrooms, fruit... the list is endless when talking to Sinh and Spencer.

Pepper

Delicious fried chicken for lunch, meet the Norwegians again. Rubber plantation, scenic lake ("look at the whiteys!") and then tea, where we killed the atmosphere of some puppy love. Amazing sunset as we race into KT, dinner in a disgusting alley (but was actually yum!), and beers by the river.

Peter, Sinh, Spencer and chicken!

Field of tea!

Good night!