From Ho Chi Minh City we went to Vung Tau. It is a popular escape from the city for expats and locals. It's about 130 km from Saigon.

The thing to see in Vung Tau is a giant Jesus statue on top of a mountain, overlooking the sea. The Vietnamese claim this is the highest Jesus statue in the world at 32m, 6 meters taller than the one in Brazil. It was huge! I even went inside Jesus and there was amazing view from his arm.

From Vung Tau we rode to Muine, which was 200 km long ride. It was too long! We were exhausted when we arrived to Muine, and it took a long time to find a hotel, because all the cheap hotels were full. Muine was full of Russian tourists who come for the beach and for kite surfing.

Muine is famous for its red and white sand dunes. We visited the red ones and took some nice pictures. There wasn't really good beaches in Muine. There is a major problem of coastal erosion in the area. Many resorts have almost completely lost their beaches and put sandbags to keep the little they have left.

Road from Muine was amazing, between the sea, dunes and plains. We wanted to go directly to Dalat, but we never found the road, so we ended up in the highway, road to Phan Rang.

This place is well known for its chickens which are bigger than anywhere else. So we tasted the local specialty, Com Ga, rice with chicken. And it was pretty disgusting. Even the rice tasted weird.

From Phan Rang we went to Nha Trang, a city known as a party town. But it was very quiet, and again full of Russians. The beach was nice. We visited the Chum Towers of Po Nagar, which are built between the 7th and 12th centuries. The towers serve as the Holy See, honoring the goddess of the Dua clan, which ruled over the southern part of the Cham kingdom.

In Nha Trang we met Stefan, a German guy who was also travelling by bike. We decided to meet somewhere on the road towards the North.

From Nha Trang we went to Dalat. The road was beautiful. We were now in the Central highlands, full of small villages, valleys, waterfalls and winding roads. Our bike started to overheat in some point, but still lasted until Dalat.

In the Central Highlights there is a road called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The route was the major supply link for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong during the American war. Starting near Hanoi, the trail passes through some popular tourist destinations and former battlefields, including the Phong Nha cave, Kon Tum or Buon Ma Thuot on its way to Saigon. The most spectacular sections include the roller-coaster ride through the Phong Nha- Ke Bang National Park. Many travelers do a motorcycle tour in the Central Highlands with an Easy Rider.

The French were the first to come to Dalat, and they left behind their villas. Dalat is also the honeymoon capital of Vietnam for the domestic tourists. We visited The Valley of Love, a park surrounding a lake in a valley full of kitschy statues.

We arrived the night of Chinese New Year, TET. I was feeling very sick that day so when we finally arrived to Dalat and found a hotel, we just stayed in the hotel. And at 12 am a big fire work started near the lake in the center of Dalat. And we missed that!

We visited also the Hang Nga Crazy House. It was built by a Vietnamese woman, who studied architecture in Moscow. She wanted that the Crazy House brings people back to nature. There are nine rooms, each named by an animal or plant. You could also stay the night there in one of these rooms. Very Gaudi -type building!

After 2 nights in Dalat, we woke up late and headed to Lake Lak. It was a horrible road, but we saw some very beautiful landscapes. It was getting dark when we finally found the way to Lake Lak. When we were already in the town, I felt something falling from my finger, and when I checked what it was, I saw it was the stone of my ring I bought from India, that had fell off! I panicked and we stopped and started looking for the stone. I looked everywhere and in the end I found it on the road! There was one piece missing but at least I had it back!

After Lake Lak we went to Buon Ma Thuot, well-known for its coffee. The road was very beautiful but also very windy. We went to a café, or as in Vietnam sometimes they write it, Caphe. The Vietnamese drink their coffee usually with ice and consented milk, which is full of sugar. I have had many but sometimes the coffee is too bitter or with the milk it is just too sweet.

Everything was closed because of the New Year, it was hard even to find a restaurant.

We then went to Pleiku, where we met Stafan. We had very nice dinner in a place where they only serve fresh spring rolls. It is very nice type of restaurant, they gave you everything separately, the rice paper, vegetables, pork and sauce, and then you just wrap everything together and eat! It was very delicious and light too.

The next morning we left early, it was a beautiful road, but in bad condition.

We wanted to go through a national park, but we couldn't: we needed a permit and also the road was very bad. So we took another road, not touristy at all, in the middle of nowhere. In the end the road was very bad and it was getting late and we were wondering if we would find a hotel before dark. Finally we arrived in Plai Kan and spend the night there. We met an American couple who travelled also by bikes in the same hotel. The next day we rode to Khan Duc, nothing special, I don't even remember the place! Oh, except that the evening when we were looking for a restaurant, nobody wanted to serve us! We went to at least in 3 different restaurants and finally one accepted us. We had delicious rice with fried eggs (com Op La)! J

The next day we arrived to Hoi An and it took us 2 hours to find a hotel. Hoi An is Unesco's World Heritage site, which always means that it's expensive. We changed hotel after 2 nights, because the staff were really mean. The last night we went to see the reception because the plastic part of the key broke and without it we don't have electricity in the room. The reception was closed already, even though it's a hotel, so we tried to wake up the receptionist. It took a long time that he woke up, and he was very angry because we woke him up. Anyway, we explained the situation, and asked for a new key, but the guy started to yell at us and told me to Shut up, and that we have to pay extra 10 dollars for a new key, etc… I started to be very angry too and I told him that I 'm not going to give up, I stay here the whole night if I have to. So maybe he understood that he would go much faster back to bed if he would just give us the new key. So he gave it, and we left. No one have ever treated me that way and been so mean to me in our whole trip, so we decided to change hotels the next day.

This was maybe the only time in Vietnam that we experienced any hostility towards us. People have said that the Vietnamese can be very hostile towards tourists and try to scam you as much as possible. Even before going to Vietnam, when we read the Lonely Planet, it was written all the time that beware of scams, take care of your bag, check that the hotel where you want to go is really the one you booked, because in Vietnam they copied the name of the hotels and there can be 2 or 3 hotels with the same name, etc. But I think that because we were travelling by motorbike, we had to communicate less with the travel agencies or we didn't need to bargain all the time for a transport, etc, so we didn't experience scams.

Hoi An is a very nice town. The Old Town especially has a unique atmosphere with its old houses and restaurants and shops. It looks and feels like a European town, with a touch of Asia.

The city is full of tailors, and you can literally have everything you could wish for; shoes, clothes…I bought some nice leather shoes and a skirt that I designed myself! Stefan was with us the first few days and then he left one day before us to Hue, where we said we would meet him again.

After Hoi An we headed towards Hue. We passed through Danang, where started the Hai Van Pass. It crosses over the mountains of Truong Son, which goes along the sea. The road climbs to an elevation of 496 m, passing south of the Ai Van Son peak, 1172m. It is very mountainous stretch of highway with spectacular views. The railway track, with its many tunnels, goes around the peninsula.

The pass is like an invisible dividing line between the climates of the north and south, protecting Danang from the winds from China. It was so amazing. Little by little we climbed up the road until we could see the clouds. We drove through the clouds and when we were on the other side, we saw the clouds next to us like this big barbababa cloud… I have never in my life seen such a bizarre and unrealistic view. It's hard to explain…!

Hue is a Unesco World Heritage site, the capital of the Nguyen emperors full of tombs and temples. It's much quieter town than Hoi An. The city lies along either side of the Perfume River. There is a big Citadel on the north bank of the river. The walls of the citadel are 10 km long. Inside the Citadel is the Imperial Enclosure, a citadel within a citadel, with the emperor's residence. At the centre was the Forbidden Purple City, a citadel within a citadel within a citadel! It was almost entirely destroyed in the wars.

I think it all sounds good and interesting to see, but we were very disappointed of this Citadel. There wasn't much left to see, and it hasn't been taken care that well. We stayed few days in Hue, Stefan left earlier to go more north.

After Hue we stopped in Dong Ha for a night. A small town with nothing to do. There was a party in our hotel's restaurant, just next to our room, but it didn't last all night, fortunately! When Vietnamese drink and have a party, they seem to have so much fun! There is a lot of beer going down and people dance and sing karaoke. Usually they start very early, and stop before 8 pm.

From here it started to be colder and wet. When you're on a bike it's not that fun when you are freezing and wet the whole day!