We woke early to prepare our bottoms for another few k's (well 270km to be precise!) ahead - the longest day to come, aaah! To see the beautiful lake upon us from our balcony to start made it all worth while followed by hot Pho (noodle soup!) for breakfast (still can't get my head around no Weetabix!), a big New Years Hug from our guides and the sound of New Year Parties still going on over the lake....



We were both really looking forward to what would be in store today as we were going further into the mountains and without doubt every day has been in someway different to the one before which has made the trip even more amazing!



As we set off on the bikes, the wind was gale force on the back compared to yesterday and that was with our guides as wind breaks, you really knew you were heading higher! We stopped at what was called 'Elephant Rock' and then continued on along Highway 14 passing the minority villages of the E'De people. We reached Krong Buk and stopped at the 'Hero Monument' which was reflected by a minority village lady, military man and local minority male village statue standing together - I found it interesting that the woman statue was always put at the front- Sounds just about right eh! Whilst we were there a local army troop marched by so I waved and they all waved back to my surprise!


We then continued through the 'Gia La' province and joined the famous Ho Chi Minh trail.... obviously this has now been turned in most parts into a pretty good road but the scenery, the hills and the dirt tracks made it even more real as to what hardships the soldiers must have faced as they made their way through the highlands for battle..... . On passing one bridge we stopped at a church which had been bombed by the Americans, it was pretty amazing to see the shell still standing.






On route we stopped at a place called Ea Ran for a brew and dinner on the side of the road ala 'local' style! It is so cool to see the old kettles on the open fire to make a brew and to chill on a hammock at the same time! Again the food was amazing and very cheap! We had our first taste of 'sour melon' soup which was pretty weird to say the least....I made the mistake of asking what the fruit looked like as I had never seen one and the locals found it so funny that they gave me one to take with me..... I then spent the rest of that day wondering what I could say to Tien when he said 'shall I slice the melon for you to eat now' as one 1. I hate melon and 2.I don't like sour fruit! Anyway I did find an excuse in the end...




Our guides were great, stopped for more 'bum rests' and showed us amazing pepper plantations, melon(yuk) plant plantatations and the famous 'condom making tree's as they put it, or rubber plantations as we would say in England! It was interesting to hear how these are owned by the government and bascially locals are given 100 trees each to work on each day, migh that must be so tedious to say the least!



On stopping at one plantation a local villager came out of his house and asked me to take a photo of him and his friend....then kids on the side of the road were doing the same so I ended up taking even more pictures of local people, which of course I didn't mind! All the towns we passed through on the bike were pretty hairy at times as as it was New Years day, most people were out celebrating and as our guides said 'there were too many kids on the road riding drunk!', needless to say Tien and Phuoc were the safest of drivers in avoiding them thank god as we held on tightly on the back! It wsa hilarious though to see how many again they manage to pile on their bikes, family of four, five or even six and sometimes the driver is indeed only about 9 years old, just mad!



We headed towards the capital of the Highlands - Pleiku, and stopped at an emerald lake called Bien Ho Lake...again I think tourists are pretty minimal here as we became the fascination of the locals as we walked down to the lake! It was beautiful though.....well apart from a VERY dodgy old guy singing kareoke style local music at the lakeside who obviously thought he was really good...needless to say Ads and I had to leave as we couldn't keep straight faces any longer!!

After the lake we headed to our night stop - Kon Tum. It was just outside the main city and pretty closed due to New Year, so we ended up eating noodle soup on the roadside and as you will see in our next blogs, that started the start of many MORE noodle soups to come! Another fab day though and tomorrow we would be heading even higher (and colder!) as we followed the Ho Chin Minh trail further into the north.....