Day 11: Sat 9 Nov - Tuy Hoa to Quang Ngai

- November 09, 2024

23-29 degC

Ride: 38km

"After breakfast at the hotel, we transfer about 30km, Cycle through back roads Qui Nhon where we have lunch at a local restaurant; transfer the rest way to Quang Ngai. Overnight in Quang Ngai city. Hotel: The Harmonia Hotel. Cycle: 60km+"

Hooray, Wendy was well enough to get back on the bike today. After a fairly good breakfast we rode away from the hotel at 7:30am. It was Bob and Carmel’s turn to do the bus thing today. It will be great when we are all free of the dreaded lurgy!

Within a few km we were pulling over for our first photo opportunity at “The Tower”. A much more specy edifice at night when it’s lit with a series of bright lights continually changing colour. Northward we pushed, into one of the many rice bowls of the country. But not everyone grows the staple, with plenty of cattle, duck farms, fish farms, Australian hardwood plantations and a stack of tropical crops and market gardens in full swing. However the further north we ventured the more the countryside became a monoculture of rice.

It was great to get off the sealed roads and into the back blocks where there wasn’t a single tourist to be seen anywhere. One of the many highlights was a very rickety wooden bridge built by the local community in order to form a shortcut. It’s 700m long and has many broken deck planks which are mostly uneven. It makes for an interesting ride. At the other side there was a man with his hand out collecting a toll. Talk about enterprising.

Lunch, as usual was whipped up in no time of our arrival and again it proved to be far too much, despite us telling the guide to cut back on the quantity. We don’t feel too wasteful as we were told that the restaurant staff get to eat the leftovers.

After lunch it was a good four hour transfer to our overnight stop. Thank goodness we all have two seats each enabling us to stretch out a little and get some shuteye. We arrived at our hotel, Central Hotel (different to the one listed in the itinerary) about 5:30pm, and took forever to get checked in. Finally got room #403 allocated. Unpacked, showered and got ready for a 7pm meet for dinner.

At our hotel this morning

All ready and waiting

Nghinh Phong (wind welcoming) Tower

The steps are staggered from 7 to 9 steps. The tower body consists of twin towers with 30m and 35m high. Each part consists of 50 adjacent stone blocks, arranged next to each other from low to high, gradually moving inside. The "Nghinh Phong" wind opening is 2m wide and 15m long. On the two walls between the two towers are bas-reliefs about the legend of Lac - Hong, telling in images the historical story of the Vietnamese people.

We wonder who was the first person to decide that eating birds nest in soup (made from the spit of swiftlets) was a good idea and then start selling it? It’s now worth up to US$14,000 a kg! So a lot of people here have added one to four specially designed extra floors on their houses and play the calls of the swiftlet over loud speakers to attract them.