Viet Road Trip Day 22
Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Viet Nam. This is day 22. Days 20-21 can be found here.
I had been worried about the weather remaining cold, wet and foggy. Luckily, the weather cleared up as soon as I left Sapa. There was some light traffic on the highway, but after a few miles, I had the road mostly to myself.
Leaving Sapa (1:45)
Nice flat area (1:56)
After leaving the mountain on which Sapa is located, the road went down into a flat valley. The area was surrounded by jagged mountains, and it was a pleasure to ride through. The sun even began to peek out through the clouds.
More nice roads (0:54).
Climbing up another mountain (2:10).
Mountain climbing with the Godfather (1:33).
The roads keep getting smaller and smaller (1:04).
As I climbed the hill, the road kept getting more and more narrow, at the same time I was feeling more and more isolated. I was really feeling like I was way out in the back of nowhere.
The road ends, apologies for the music (1:30).
The road was just too rough to ride on with any speed. I was worried that my bike would just shake itself to pieces. The road was also treacherous, so I had to keep the bike in gear on downhills to keep from slipping off the side of the mountain.
Making friends on the road!
A sketchy part of the path (0:22).
When I stopped for photos and a break, a scooter with 2 men on it came up the road. One of them gave me my raincoat. Apparently, it had shaken loose and fell off my bike. At the time I was only focused on the road and didn't care about my rain gear. Later I would be grateful for those guys who returned it to me as they passed.
One nasty road to ride on.
Some sort of meeting happening on the mountainside. I had to stop and check my map at the fork in the road (1:09).
Screenshot showing the road going off into the horizon.
Thankfully, the road went back to pavement and gravel after about 2 hours on the small path.
Back on a normal road, on the mountain top (1:40).
I'm pretty sure that's China in the background.
Photo stop (0:40).
Getting close to town (01:32).
The town of Coc Pai was pretty small, but there were no problems finding a hotel room. After I parked my bike and got freshened up, I went out for some food and beer.
I ended up spending the evening at this restaurant (which was also hanging a new sign). A few groups of cute girls were there and the lady running the place was friendly. They also had cold beer and a BBQ grill in front of the restaurant.
What I really loved about this place was the hot sauce that they had. This place had some awesome home-made chili sauce that I loved. All of the tables had old plastic water bottles full of bright red hot sauce on them. I kept ordering food just to have something to put the sauce on.
I thought about asking the lady if I could buy a bottle, but I made a big mistake. My mistake was in assuming that the hot sauce was common for the region. I assumed that I could buy some hot sauce from the market in the morning. Unfortunately, I never saw anyone selling home made hot sauce at the market, or anywhere else in Vietnam.
I returned to my hotel room and fell asleep after spending some time on the internet. My next post will be about the ride to Ha Giang and the near miss that made my life flash before my eyes. Until then, ride safe!
Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Vietnam. Read about days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7.1, 8, 8.1, 9, 9.1, 10, 11,12, 13, 14, 15-17, 18, 19 and 20-21 here.