Places visited: Hatien, Long Xuen, Vinh Long and Mytho.
Costs of things: Beer (50 cents), Meals ($1 to $3), hotel ($12 breakfast included)
Roads travelled on by bike: 80, 91, 1, some quiet road sort-of parallel to the 1 (through fruit orchards).
The Mekong is everything they say it is, full of lush beauty and filled with fruit orchards; the pancake-flat rice bowl of southern Vietnam. What we weren't prepared for what was the bustling cities of Long Xuen and Vinh Long, the super cheap, diverse and tasty meals and the relaxed and very friendly Vietnamese. We took 4 days to cycle from the border, Ha Tien to the fast paced city of Ho Chi Minh.We cycled into Ha Tien from Cambodia - a nice 40 km ride from the sleepy colonial town of Kep - through lush rice fields on mostly a dirt road. The first thing we
noticed when crossing into Vietnam was that children could actually be children. Whereas kids as young as 3 start working in Cambodia, it's "richer" neighbour Vietnam afforded some parents to let their children be kids - playing, going to school, or just hanging out. Ha Tien is a famous town in Kien Giang Province, a seaside resort. Since it is a relatively new boarder crossing, there were barely any tourists there. We spent our first night in this town - basically gorging ourselves on the local street delicacies. Noodle soup, pastries, deep-fried somethings, fruit shakes and beer. Our first meal cost us less than $1.5 per person! Compared to the bland and simple meals of Cambodia - this was a culinary paradise!
The next day we cycled from Ha Tien to Long Xuyen. Luckily, while spending our last days in Kep, we met a couple who just cycled through Vietnam and very generously gave us their very good, very detailed Vietnam atlas. With this atlas, we found roads off the major highways to avoid the famous Vietnam traffic. We were going to take this one road out of Ha Tien but some locals told us it was mostly a bumpy dirt road. So we opted to take the 80 and take a chance with the traffic. Oh, what wonderful pavement! What a nice relief from Cambodia's dusty, bone jarring roads. We then took the 91 into Long Xuyen. The traffic was light, and the scenery full of rice paddies and slow moving Vietnamese. 125 km in total that day.We couldn't believe how big and cosmopolitan this city was. It's population is around 100 000 and we didn't see one other white person! As we were cycling in - we could believe our eyes - other road cyclists! So we stopped and had a drink with them and inspected their bikes. Full carbon fiber, campy and shimano components - sweeeet! Obviously very rich men - not something we would have seen in Cambodia. The best bike we saw in Cambodia was something you'd find at a garage sale. Again, we gorged on local food, especially the pastries and shared some of it with some local kids who followed us around for an hour hoping for some money.
The next day we cycled on the 80 to Vinh Long - a nice relaxing ride. Vinh Long is a nice city, very relaxed. There were cafes everywhere - full of locals simply enjoying themselves. Again, we gorged ourselves on street food and relaxed at the cafes enjoying yummy fruit smoothies and ice cream. There was even a nice amusement park for the kids, full of rides and games. What a nice town! Reluctantly we left early the next day for Mytho, a sleepy city of 100,000 and a popular hit-and-run destination with package tourists wanting to see the Mekong. Pff! Compared to our experience cycling the last three days, Mytho was nothing like the Mekong we saw. It was much more touristy: full of seedy motels, tourist offices all over the place and motto drivers hounding you on every corner. This was our introduction to the "Tourist Trail" or better named "tourist TRAP" of Vietnam.
Our last day was spent cycling to Ho Chi Minh City (former Saigon) - a short but diverse ride with lazy rice fields and lush fruit orchards to increasingly heavy traffic and a fast-paced feel. We first took the famous National Highway 1- very loud and very busy. Except for the loud traffic, it was find to ride on as cyclists and mopeds have their own lane away from the trucks and cars. We only had to dodge people and cyclists as we rode through little towns every 5 kms or so. We decided to take another route for a quieter ride parallel to the 1. A particularly memorable part of the ride occurred when we stopped for a break amongst the fruit orchards. A nice little old lady came to us with an armful of tasty lichee-like fruit - fresh from her garden! It nice cooling treat on a very hot dry day. Such nice people! Little did we know that we were to experience something very different once we reached Saigon and got on the tourist trail.
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