Post # 57 Dong Hoi

Day 69 1011 days to go. Distance today 95km total 3919km. It’s 7.40pm Tuesday 7/2/2012 Dong Hoi. I’m slowly getting some feeling back into the fingers they were a bit chilled after today’s ride drizzly fog and chilly headwind all day such a contrast to yesterday. More forecasted for tomorrow bugga. Despite that I’ve had a great day very very fun. The countryside was beautiful very rural lots of agriculture and farming friendly folk and villages to cycle through which i loved. The province is really healthy with allot of farm work evident in the quality of the agriculture. The word that came to mind was ‘orchestrated’ meaning how well orchestrated the farmed land appeared mostly rice fields intermittent with mixed greens. The villages and farmed land just looked so cared for and healthy it really stood out the synergy they have with the land working for them at best. What added to the harmony was singing frog croaks so loud echoing across the fields. This is the first time Ive heard this addition they must have been loving the weather so frog sex was on big time. 🙂 The villages also seemed to be doing allot of net fishing in the deeper water paddocks amongst the rice fields. I saw lots of men thigh deep dragging nets through these paddocks cross farming with fish amongst the paddies. The water must have been so cold the resilient folk. The farmers and herders don’t hesitate to flash me a smile and wave and big hello its really humbling how hard worker but happy and welcoming they appear. I passed lots of school children today cycling mostly to/from school. About 40km into the ride these 3 school children were heading home from their morning session. They were traveling the same direction as Rube and I and were so keen to have a chat. We cycled about 5km together chatting away their english was excellent. Their names were Thanh, Li and Phuong all 17 year olds in year 12 their last year of high school. Thanh is a young man the other young ladies. Thanh and Phuong want to study economics either in Danang or Ho Chi Minh next year and Li wants to be a police officer but says its very hard to be accepted. The told me lots about Vietnamese schooling. There’s primary, secondary and high school. High school students go to school 7 days from 7am to 11.15am and from 3.00pm to 9.00pm full on. They cycle to/from school in between to have lunch and a rest in between Li lives 6kms from school and Thanh and Phuong 9km. Li invited us all back to her home for lunch which I totally accepted how gorgeous. I met her sister who is 15 years old and goes to seconday school and wants to be a doctor. I also met her mum who is 42 years old and a seamstress selling her clothes in a stall in the village. Her dad is in the army and they gave me a army hat as a gift. Lunch was rice, fish, omelet and white bait and greens soup seated on a mat on the floor. It tasted so fabulous and they were fun and generous hosts. I stayed for about 2 hours and loved loved loved every interesting moment. We spoke further about their schooling and were very interested in my gadgets particularly the Ipod and camera. Thanh told me he really liked Mac computers but that they were very expensive in vietnam. He also loved the bike saying ‘I like Ruby’ to which I said ‘I like Ruby too mate.’ She’s gloating again tonight 🙂 They had a new puppies soo cute that they hadn’t named yet and asked me to name her. So their pup’s called Ruby and they love the name and so happy she’s named after our girl!!!! Another reason she’s gloating. They were all very bright young folk and very keen about their education and wanted me to explain about their schooling in my blog. They are very excited about being included in the story and photos for today’s post. We exchanged emails and they are going to email me to practice their English and keep in touch. They have one set of holidays during New Year just gone. Schooling costs $50 dollars for the year each and they said that university costs the same. I’ve heard it costs $200 so I’m unsure if this amount was per term. I wasn’t able to clarify this clearly with them. We got lots of visitors over lunch with neighbors popping in all curious and keen to join in on the lively chats and giggles. I had such a good time in their company it was fun fun and I was dragging the chain to get going. It was actually Thanh who got me going. He wanted me to go also to his house and Phuong to hers but I needed to do the rest of the kms for the day so gave my most sincere apologies and cycled with them back to their homes. Highlight highlight highlight 101 for the day and I was smiling despite the weather for the next 60kms. Probably not the last 10km 🙂 I was a bit bone chilled by then and looking forward to getting out of the weather. Dong Hoi is a large city and it took me a while to find a hotel ending up here about 5.30pm $10 for the night. There’s a rooftop terance where I enjoyed a coffee when I got here and was able to send my spot check. The hotel’s got wifi so I could check email and have some good suggestions for the sponsorship but more about that over the next days. For now it’s time for dinner and an early night. Talk soon x Great day yay warm and fuzzy now 🙂