Day 47 13th jan
We leave this hotel, glad to see the back of it.... It now rates as the second worst hotel so far... Its a little unfair, but the full sized construction site next door that doesn't seem to ever stop has made this stay very noisy..... We leave Nha Trang and travel 137 km south west on the DT652 or DT723 or QL20 to Dalat. The only reason we are going to Dalat is to go on these roads...
The DT652 or DT732 or QL20 are actually all the same road... Just depends what map you look at....
I'd noticed that "The road from Nha Trang to Dalat" was mentioned favourably newmourus times by people on line as being one of the highlights of there biking road trip in Vietnam so I thought is would be a shame not to use it.... The road starts off similar to the Ho Chi Minh trail... Reasonably flat, quiet and very scenic... We cover about 30km before the road changed.... And quickly began to resembled the Hai Van Pass..... Very steep hills that just weave there way untiringly up a mountain, tight hair pins and fantastic views... The road on a map looks a total mess... Like spaghetti on a plate... and probably covers a straight line distance of half the 137km it actually is....
We ride for an hour or more, deeper into isolation, higher up what feels like a deserted mountain road... Only a few locals that farm the roadside are seen, combined with the occasional passing vehicle.... The progress is slow....and we find ourselves down to second gear for long periods as we go up... Its during one of these second gear climbs a few days back that the bike did something odd... It just locked up... Like someone had put the rear brake on as hard as it would go.... And it actually stopped the engine, but once stopped it restarted fine straight away and on we continued without any further issue, so when this happened again today we just started it back up and continued.... Considering it strange, crossing our fingers, but continuing..... But then it happened again, and again, and again...... And all the time the engines sounding more and more unhealthy....then it happened again and there was more than normal resistance on the kick start...... It's getting to hot I thought.... It's pulling far to much weight up a continuos hill for mile after mile at a slow speed and high RPM... There's not enough air flow to cool the engine I figure so we leave it to cool down.... It certainly feels pretty hot !
After 15 mins it restarts fine and we continue..... Shiree on foot this time..... We have been going up for ages so we guess that the top is not far..... We'll just roll down the other side and this will cool everything down.... I pass a tree that casts some shade where I wait for Shiree to catch up... When she arrives, as its quiet and shaded we decided to break open our lunch and chill for 20 mins.... This should help the bike too.... 20 mins later we are on the bike, and decide its best to keep it in first gear and just creep up the hill slowly which we do for ages, but then it cuts out again, like what it was doing when in second gear.... And this gives us a real problem.... If it won't go up the hill in first gear then what do we do.... Shiree jumps off again and we progress in first without a problem, it's not the steepness of the hill that's causing us trouble, its a problem with the bike.. After a couple of mins we swap places... Shirees Vietnam riding days are just about to get another go.... She does really well, and keeps the bike going up the hill whilst i run.... It's totally knackering running continuously up hill so after 15 mins when a passing coach opens its door I don't hesitate to jump onboard, we slow when passing Shiree who does a double take at seeing me sat on the coach and she follows us up the hill on her own...... on the bike......
After what feels like ages on the coach which is not going that fast up the hill itself we reach what appears to be the top... I jump back off.... Thanking the driver as best I could for his generosity.... I'm a little concern about how Shiree's coping with the bike so I'm relieved to see her within 20 seconds of getting off the.... The girls done great again... But as the coach disappears from sight its clear to see that unfortunately it wasn't the top of the mountain after all, just a rare flat section of road which soon starts to climb again.... We both get on the bike again and start to climb ourself, but the bikes playing up all the time so after a sort while when it brings us to a stop once more we both get off to discus our options.... It's at this stage that I decide, having not gotten around to changing the oil in Nha Trang that I should check it..... And we very quickly discover the problem.... There's none on the dip stick and smoke is coming out the hole..... Oops ! Now we are proper stuck !! How this bike has gotten this far is beyond me. The only thing in sight for miles is a Honda Dream that's got no oil in its engine, mountains, Tarmac and trees....and nothing else.... We'd passed a occupied workman's shack a couple of minutes ago so we free wheel to them to see if they have any oil... But they don't.... They also inform us that the best direction to travel in is back the way we came.... This is not good.... Its a long long way back to a town, but there insistent that this is the only way to go, so we trust there local knowledge and quietly roll off.... I have to push with my feet to keep us going and soon we run out of forward momentum.... We roll into a layby pretty much ready to call it a day on the bike and flag down the next coach to Dalat and leave the bike behind, but in the mean time I flag down as many vehicles that pass as I can In a quest for oil... We stop a "Easy Rider" who is taking a group of westoners on the same trip we had planed to do today and he helps us a little.... We have also managed to stop a German guy on another little Honda and we decide in the end that its best for us to keep going down hill in the direction of where we were coming from, and the German guy who was heading that way will push us with his foot on the flat sections.... ( An easy rider is a native guy who makes a living on his bike from tourists.... He'll pretty much go anywhere you want to go and has a good local knowledge of the whole country... He shows us the "pushing technic" and off we go.... )
The German guys great and has said he'll help us get to where we need to be so we can breath a slight sigh of relief... Ironically our bike rolls faster than his so when we hit the proper down hill sections we start to leave him behind... I'm reluctant to slow for anything, so with no engine we become the fastest thing on the road, but when we approach an area of road that's getting extensive repairs we are forced to stop... And it's here our luck changes.... We find oil !!!! The engine screeches where metal rubs against unlubricated metal,as we try to start it, it sounds awful, but it starts.... And within a couple of seconds of having 0.8ltr's of nice clean new oil in the engine begins to sound normalish again.... It's not a healthy one, but it's a running one.....
We say our thanks and part company with the German guy and start to climb again, we soon pass the guys we'd spoken to earlier who told us to roll down the hill.... We gave them a toot and continued up.... The bikes now down on power and chucking out a fair amount of smoke but we press on.... The temperature drops as we climb and we are soon in the clouds.... Visibility is very poor so progress is doubly slow... But we just keep on going..... There is no turning back now... Eventually we reach the summit and switch the bike off..... It's not got its old performance anymore, but it's not seized once since putting oil in it.... It's amazing how much better engines perform when they have oil.....
We end up stopping off at an isolated village fuel stop which ironically Top Gear visited when Hammond's clutch cable broke.... We fill up with fuel and ride without issue for miles.... We are not even sure we are on the correct road anymore as the signs for Dalat have stopped and the sat nav can't locate us, but we just press on.... We end up passing thousands of huge green houses.... There at least ten meters wide and a hundred meters long.... There are so many of them the ground is not visible for miles.... As far as the eye can see its just green houses... There all full of flowers.
We then see a sign for Dalat.... So we follow it, we have almost made it.
On first impression Dalat looks lovely.... As does our hotel..... The cloud of smoke behind our bike does not look so lovely though, but it's got us here....
We dump our bags, pleased to have arrived in Dalat, still with our bike...
We just crash in the room for a while before showering and heading out to a restaurant recommended by the hotel.... The restaurant has got what westerners want absolutely spot on.... It's got an atmosphere and live music, with a good choice of local food and Weston food... We loved the place and had a really lovely evening before heading off to bed...
Restaurants like this are a rarity in Asia so we are lucky its so close to our hotel.
Once back at the hotel I decide to check the oil capacity of a Honda Dream... From empty Honda say it takes 0.8ltr to fill.... So we had completely run it out of oil.... Totally empty, and we rode it for miles like this..... Why it suddenly started to use oil is a mystery... I had checked the oil around Hue and it was fine.... But it's all gone by today..... The bikes in constant use for hours on end and the last two days prior to today had been longer than any before so I guess it worked up a thirst...