The Top Gear Challenge Part 3 (281.4 - 817.2km)

We woke early the next day hoping to get a very full day of riding done but we had misjudged sunrise and so went back to sleep until it was light. When we woke we discovered that it had been raining in the night and the roads were wet. As we waited for it to dry up it started to drizzle again so we decided that it probably wasn’t going to happen and bit the bullet of setting off on wet roads.

The first couple of hours was not that much fun. My bike was missing two bits of plastic from the ends of the mudguards which hadn’t seemed all that important until this point. Soon I discovered these seemed to be the only bit of the mudguard that did anything and very quickly my feet and shins were soaked and covered in mud. Luckily not long after the roads suddenly became dry and we managed to pick up the pace for most of the day. This was until we turned off the HCM trail to head for the coast. The road we had picked was in the process of being resurfaced meaning we had a large section of travel to do through mountainous areas on dirt tracks (pictures below).

In the end we didn’t quite manage to get ourselves back on track but if we had a good day the next day (I.e. we weren’t being forced alcohol or driving on dirt tracks) then we would easily make it to Hue for lunch. After finding a hotel and being quizzed by some local kids we found a place to eat dinner and had our millionth bowl of Pho Bo despite ordering fried rice!

The trip into Hue was mostly an uneventful blast along the coastal road. Halfway through the morning we crossed the Vietnamese demilitarised zone; the old border between North and South Vietnam. There wasn’t much to see but the old bridge across the Ben Hai river still stands so we walked across to see the memorial on the South side.

Apart from the DMZ there wasn't much else to see bar one of many examples of the ridiculous way motorcycles are used in Asia. The picture below shows a man happily riding along with a large fridge freezer on the back of his scooter (what can you expect in a country that has to provide special speed limits for motorbikes towing trailers)! We made it into Hue not long after 1; in time to settle in and have a late lunch. It is impossible to describe how happy we were to see a menu and be able to eat something other than beef noodle soup or intestines for the first time in days! New years eve was a fairly relaxed night as Hue isn’t much of a party town; still we managed to get suitably drunk and danced on a few tables.

We didn’t do much on the next day in Hue apart from recover from new years. On the day we were due to leave we visited the citadel as the journey was only short to our next stop; Hoi An. The citadel wasn’t all that impressive though as the site of a fierce battle between the North and South forces it was interesting to see ancient walls shot up by relatively modern weapons (it would make a great Call of Duty map).