Day 18 - 'Dak Glei' - 'Kon Tum'

After a mosquito ridden nights stay in the worst hotel we’ve stayed in yet, we were keen to get out on the road, even though we were aching from the massive day of climbing we had had the previous afternoon. Luckily, what lay ahead of us, was a simple 60 km day of small climbs and descents. This would give us a nice well earned long time to relax after our ride. However in true 'Ride4Education' fashion; expectation and reality were not one and the same.

Approximately half-way into the ride our driver hit us with the news that the place we had planned to stay at, which was 30 km away was as poor, if not worse, than the place we had stayed in last night. 

He suggested to us that we should cycle the next days ride of 70 km as well, for the end destination for the following day was a place called 'Kon Tum' which was apparently one hundred times better than our planned night stop.

This suggestion was met with skepticism from the group as we really wanted an easy day. However, the driver assured us it was ‘all downhill’. We decided to trust him, as we couldn’t face another night in what can only be described as a ‘hole’. What came next was not only the longest distance we’ve gone since the trip started, but also contained the most un-relenting hilly roads! The statement ‘all downhill’ could not have been further from the truth...... The ride contained undulating hills, as soon as we’d used all our energy to climb one hill we had to muster up speed and power on the down hill as it immediately fed into the next energy sapping ascent. It was a touch demoralizing.

Finally, 130 km after our starting position, we arrived in Kon Tum. Thankfully the driver (this time) was not lying and it was a much larger settlement and cetainly a better place to stay.

We were all truly knackered and since we’d ridden the equivalent of two days in one, we decided to take a well earned rest with the extra rest day we’d given ourselves.

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