Day 6 - Quy Dat to Dong Hoi

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We woke early at about 6.50 to the sound of rain on a metal roof below our room and quickly got ready for the days cycling. We put overshoes and rain jackets on and without any breakfast set off just after 7.30am. We stopped at a small shop after 1k and bought bottles of water as today's route would take us over the Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park and we didn't know what the situation would be for us to replenish our water.

It was 9ks before we got back on the HCM trail as we took a detour last night off the HCM over a mountain climb and through remote villages. The landscape for the first 15ks was pretty flat and we past through villages along the way with lots of people at the side of the road in groups selling vegetables and also pieces of meat on stainless steel tables. After we cleared the villages the road opened up and started to get very remote with virtually no traffic and spectacular scenery of ginormous limestone rock formations covered in trees and foligage with low cloud and mist sweeping through, the rain continued but we didn't care as the views and ride was just superb. Looking at the ride profile we knew we had some climbing to do, at approximately the 30k mark we hit a climb of about 4K with ramps of 10%, it was pretty tough but we were on a fresh pair of legs and we were soon at the top. The decent down the other side into a valley was superb, the sun was now shining and it was like a completely different climate zone from the start of the climb. We stopped for photos half way down and then continued on to a really long road which actually resembled an airstrip, it was so long we took some epic photos along that stretch and stopped for coffee just after.

We continued through villages with the sun beating down on us at 33 degrees and stopped at a large river crossing were we joined by Fabian & Hugo from Ontario Canada who had been in Vietnam travelling for a few weeks. We had a really good chat then said our good byes and carried on before stopping for a bunch of bananas outside an house a bit further up.We ate one each and also had a gel and carried on bearing down into Dong Hoi against a stiff headwind. We reached Dong Hoi around 2pm after clocking up over 100k again and just before we reached the Nam Long Hotel there was a shop on our right hand side with a small Doner Kebab stand. After clocking in over 107ks today I think we deserved one, in fact we had two each!!














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