Day 14 & 15 - 'Hai Van Pass' & 'Hoi An'

After Hue we chose to stay at 'Lang Co' due to the fact that we thought it would give us about 10 km of cyling in order to stretch off our very stiff legs from the previous days, before attempting to climb  the 'Hai Van Pass'. However, as we set off, our driver told us that we only had 2 km until the climb was to due to start - this wasn’t great news, as Callum was suffering from knee pains from, believe it or not, a bouncy castle accident from the day before, and Sam and Jamie were feeling particularly stiff (George being in tip-top shape as usual!).

We eased our way through the first few km in the shadow of the 'Hai Van pass' before the road started to move up quite steeply. Over the 10km the road hugged the mountain side, and as we arduously climbed, we were greeted with stunning views over the South China Sea.

We were met with the stunned faces of motorcyclists and drivers as we ascended the mountain, as it is not a climb for the faint hearted. As signs indicating a steepening in gradient came into view round every bend we all let out a muttering of discontent as we cranked into yet another gear to prepare ourselves for what was to come.

Fortunately the tour photographers (Sam and George) were on hand to capture every moment of the climb as Jamie was in too much pain to stop and get his camera out! After about an hour we all converged on top, to be greated with sensational views over the sea to our left and 'Da Nan'g to our right.

What followed was a glorious decent which we managed to prolong by taking yet more photos and admiring the incredible views. Although the pass was finally behind us, we still had about 45 km left to 'Hoi An', which although not far, was into a very strong headwind, and combined with the fact that we had missed breakfast, made for a tough few hours in the saddle along an extremely irritating and boring road as it was lined with 5 star hotels that we knew we would never have the pleasure of staying at, and no doubt would be in the B&B down the road which would be missing the last ‘B’ and have a questionable first ‘B’!

 Having arrived in 'Hoi An', we had two things on our mind, firstly to stock up on western food, and secondly to get to the tailors to be fitted for suits, jackets, blazers and shirts!

Having had a busy afternoon, we settled down for what would be Jamie's last meal with the other guys on the trip. It was certainly a fitting evening to what had been a very eventful and enjoyable few weeks, and I wish the guys the best of luck for the last stage down to HCMC!

If you haven’t donated already please do, the boys have a gruelling 2 weeks through the Annamite Mountains and could use your support:

www.justgiving.com/ride4education