Scotts Blog

Waking to the sound of a thunder storm was not fun, and my wet weather bike gear consisted of jeans and a thermal jacket , I decided to scrap the climbing the mountain and start.

On this 16th of August was the day that I finally became sworn enemies with Nick Ray from Lonely Planet. He is a hoax, there is no problem not going to every attraction in Vietnam but don’t pretend you do. The maps are wrong (how hard is it to make a map that is right), they are a vague representation at best of reality and the creativity shown in making roads where there are none is just frustrating. The descriptions of where attractions are located are incorrect. It makes me think he sat in a cafe asking someone because the distances are all way out, and whenever i ask a Vietnamese person directions the directions are usually right but the distances are pretty much made up. He also uses sweeping statements, like Dalat and Buon Ma Thout are connected by roads (thanks for that, i never would have figured) 

The lady in the hotel pointed me to the road from Nha Trang, and i thought there could be a turn off, I went about 30kms out of town until i knew it was the wrong way. On the way back in it started pouring, I had no choice but to get soaked. This is where i realised when you ask a question never point a direction, they will agree with you, and they will point the way they are facing if they are not sure. It all started when looking at the map there is a road that leads north towards Buon Ma Thout, too easy, on the (map)road is the Lat Village which i wanted to see, Lak Lake and other things in between. This road does not exist, Then after motoring around Dalat looking for it for three hours I was pretty pissed off. When you reach the Lat village it is dead end, thanks Nick.

The next problem is that the pronunciations of towns, Lat (pronounced Lak), Lak (pronounced Lak), and Lac (pronounced Lak) were all frustrating. So after telling people Lak Lake they would say yeah Lat is that way. After the first time i would say no, i went that way it is not it. Then they would say go south which was towards Lac, and I was like no there is a road north I want this road. Eventually after figuring out that the the road i wanted to travel on was a hoax, i had to go south past Prenn Pass and then turn right. This was ok but instead of leaving at 9am it was about 1pm, and was a long ride. The ride was good and went through some great country. I don’t think tourists go along this road because everyone was yelling Hello, and when i stopped a procession of people came to say hello and ask me where i was from. It is pretty fun when all the kids are smiling and running towards you all excited.

I had to ride through several mud slides, when they build roads they just cut into the mountain and don’t reinforce it, hence mud slides all over the place. The ride was taking longer than i thought and no matter how far I came it felt like i was not getting any closer. After it became dark i continued for about an hour then stopped at Lak, about 50kms from Buon Ma Thout. There was only one guesthouse in town and i ate a few doors down. When i went to eat there were three older guys sitting at a table, so i went to sit with them. They were drinking rice wine from an old drink bottle, and started serving it up to me, we were doing shots and it went to my head pretty quickly. They were struggling though, looked like they had been there for a while. The two ladies that served me dinner were telling me how to eat it so it tasted better, they were dead right as well.

The next day i headed to Buon Ma Thout, it was not to far so that was good. On arrival I headed to a waterfall called Dray Nur, it was meant to be the best in Vietnam. It was a battle to get there, I had to ride down a goat track for about 10kms but it was fun. Before Dray Nur, i went to Gia Long Falls, up the river from Dray Nur, these were very impressive. Dray Nur falls were amazing, they were of Niagara proportions, really wide, about 150m and soo much water. I went on an old bridge that was falling down to go half way across the river to check them out, the sheer power of them was inspiring. At this point i was waterfalled out, so decided to head to back to Nha Trang. While asking directions in Buon Ma Thout I asked a police man, he said follow us, then they put the sirens on, so i was speeding behind this van for about 25kms at about 70kms/hour. It was great and pretty funny

Further along the road after a massive storm i saw something i wish i didn’t see. Everywhere i have been in Vietnam they heard their cattle along the road in the morning and evening. I was coming down to a bridge and saw a group of people. The closer i got i saw cattle strewn across the road and everywhere. A truck must have come around the corner and down the hill to fast and hit them. There would have been about 12 dead and in all states of disrepair. It reminds you of how a care free life style doesn’t always go to plan, and there can be consequences.

It was about 7 when i was getting back into Nha Trang, dark and tired. There was a little thing that I kept noticing, when i was going at low speed the front of the bike was starting to wobble pretty badly. I kept thinking to myself don’t break now. I managed to make it to a hotel and return it without any problems, thank god. Check out the dirt dust and bugs.

Well a few stats,

• I had the bike for 6 days 
• notched up 1100kms
• Ran out of petrol three times
• Went through four storms where you would normally run for the hills
• saw 5 major waterfalls
• had an awesome time
• Broke one key
• Cost me $18

Well today is the day where I really started to hate lonely planet, but more on that later. After deciding to ride towards Bao Loc, there was a lot to see along the way I headed out of town towards Prenn Pass. The first stop was the Quang Trung reservoir and Datanla waterfalls. This was a nice ride heading down a mountain, there were also absolutely awesome roads around the reservoir, was really good to go almost the whole way around with no other cars. At the waterfalls i bumped into three Italian guys that I met on the boat cruise in Nha Trang which was great, very funny guys. One good thing about the waterfalls was there was a huge Toboggan ride all the way down, (150 vertical meters) and then they pull you back up. When i first arrived i decided not to do it thinking it wasn’t very far, but at the bottom I went back up to do it. The only thing was there was a guy taking down heaps of spare carts that got in my way with about 200m to go  

Next was heading towards through Prenn Pass and towards Lang Dinh An (Chicken Village), it was a great ride through the pass but i could never find the village thanks to a great map and description on how to get there. The main goal of the day was to head to Dambri falls, some of the best in Vietnam. Along the way I ventured to Pongbur falls about 60kms from Dalat and met some cool French guys. The road to Pongbur was a great ride through a whole lot of farms and countryside, which made up for the lacking falls.

After meeting the French guys i decided to head to Dambri, apparently half way to Bao Loc, which wasn’t to much further, so i started hooning down the road, i wanted to get back before it was dark. According to the map it was close, very close. Everyone i asked kept pointing straight ahead so i kept going. The map could not have been further off, it was not half way to Bao Loc, it was 18km past Bao Loc. This was pretty frustrating, i had to ride about an extra 100kms at 50kms per hour that is a long way. This was time to punish the bike and i started to go a lot quicker. I remember when i first rode in Vietnam i thought 30 was pretty quick on dirt. Then in Cambodia i thought 50kms was quick. Then I thought 70-75 was quick. But when you are going 110 down a hill without very good breaks…only kidding this thing maxed out at 80km so that is as far as i got.

Dambri falls were pretty cool, a 90m drop and an amazing volume of water rushing over, it was a sight to be seen. The spray made everything wet and slippery. After spending all day heading there i spent 10mins then had to head home as riding in the dark is not fun from my previous two efforts. I got caught out again over 100kms to go, and it was hard. Only having my dark sunnies the dusk period was particularly punishing. When anything hits you at 60km/hour it hurts, but try dragon flies!! they are huge and really hurt. Then mossies in the eyes, dust from trucks and anything in the air. When you get off you look like a windscreen that has been driving in the country for a few hundred kms.

I ended up doing most of it in the dark getting slowly more impatient and cocky. I would be going 65-70 with a dodgy light then hit a rough piece of road, potholes that would swallow cars let alone a scooter. After a while i started treating it like a mountain bike, standing on the pegs and pulling up the front when the road was rough, this worked well. I arrived home at about 8:30 two hours after dark. I met up with the French guys and one guy from the UK, we had some great street food, then went to find a bar, ended up drinking outside a bottle shop for a few hours it was great.