Breakfast included again this morning, the most fruit we have seen on any buffet, I did not leave much mango on the platter. No pho which was a huge disappointment, but the did get us some ice for us to make our own Vietnamese ice coffee.
Ready for our pick up at 830 for our first day with Toan. Not overly surprised when it isn't him that shows up but his cousin An, I'm spelling that like it sounded to me. Toan's kids are sick but he plans on joining us tomorrow.
He has switched up our itinerary a bit and we start off with what was supposed to be a 1.5 hour bike ride along Van Long nature reserve. It is an absolutely beautiful bike ride, we are pretty much the only ones here. At about 8km we venture off and visit a pagoda that lots of preparations are going on. It is the first time we have seen some of the offerings for burning , most impressive were the horses that were over 3 feet tall, there was a row of them outside the Pagoda. As we were leaving lunch was being served but our guide said no thank you, wish he would have told us what they were talking about! We were also offered tea while our guide made a WC stop outside the pagoda, such friendly people.
Back to the main road and this is the point things went a little sideways. We were taking a different route back to our car but An obviously did not know the route. Our 1.5 our bike ride turned into 3 hours, and it was hot! We stopped for directions a couple of times, said hello 50 times to school kids on their bikes , even stopped to let 2 kids practice their English. So our detour did not make us the happiest of tourists, getting a little lost in a car is OK, on a bike in the heat not so much fun.
Next we drove on to Hia Lu for lunch. This is definitely a stop for guides to bring their tours. The specialty here is Goat, so Goat it is, but I asked for a little chicken on the side too. The Goat was actually really good, you wrap it in rice paper with veggies and greens. They also served us what he called fried rice, it was like a rice cake that you dunked in something like soup, very yummy, once again we have to be shown how to eat. We actually ran into a couple from France from our Ha Long Bay cruise here.
Back on the road and next stop is for a boat ride leaving from Linh Coc. This spot is more ran by locals, not all the fancy set up like we had yesterday. The scenery not as spectacular here as the boat ride yesterday, but the caves were amazing. Our Lady rower also sang when we were in the caves. Also nice not to have anyone try to sell us anything. It was so hot, I borrowed an umbrella from our car driver, and we had brought 2 bottles of water with us so we were able to give one to our rower.
Next we did a 3km walk around some rice fields. This is a popular bicycle tour route, I would have hated it, lots of mud and ruts.
Tour day is now over. It is nearly 430pm we are hot and tired. We had hoped to hit up another bank stop today but for whatever reason it didn't happen. It was a good day, just the extra biking first thing really was so hot and not needed, if we had seen something spectacular would have made us happier.
We are both in bad need for a shower but first we run across the street to ask our laundry lady if she could was only the clothes we are wearing now and have them ready tonight. So happy she said yes , We are really disgusting and sweaty.
Out for supper and feel like pasta. Found a place called Little Italy, must be Italian. Sat inside for AC, but quickly needed to move outside, wood burning oven is smoking terribly. Both of us ordered spaghetti, first time in over 6 weeks. Both had different kinds of spaghetti but they both had something in it we didn't recognize, Google translate with waitress, it is a mushroom, no mushroom we have ever seen before.
A word about our hotel. It must have been a covid hotel. There is a piece of paper taped to our door that says "do not disturb", and light switches have like saran wrap over them. Are they preparing for the next wave. Personally I don't think it is a great selling point.
Todays Pictures:
On the drive to biking
Jackfruit
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