Tac Ba Lake to Lo River. My route continues around Thac Ba lake, continuing through the gentle green hills of team plantation country then straight down the Lo River.
Cycling Thac Ba Lake – part two
On a day where the rain fell all morning, I managed to enjoy a (relatively) dry cup of coffee right on the lake at the calm and pretty Son Huyen guesthouse.
Continuing down the eastern edge of Thac Ba lake, the water came in and out of view and the road crossed curling fingers of the lake at periodic intervals. The road went up hill and downhill but rarely stayed flat.
Instead of empty countryside I now travelled through more towns and villages. It was also a Saturday and swarming hordes of teenagers veered around corners on mopeds at alarming speeds. Very few were wearing helmets, even though they are compulsory in Vietnam. Perhaps school was out for the weekend, or was this some kind of self-driving excursion?
Lunch in Thac Ba town: go the fried rice
Cycling in to Thac Ba, it was time to look for lunch.
Unfortunately the vibe in town is more ‘truck stop’ than ‘garden décor’ (I’d hoped for pleasant riverside decks with hanging pot plants).
Stopping at a restaurant that looked pretty ok, I ducked inside just as it really started tipping down. A lady approached me and I asked her if they were serving lunch. Yes, ok she said, as I beamed in relief, peeling off sopping bike gloves.
Suddenly her teenage son stepped forward, a stricken look on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said in Vietnamese, “But we only have dog meat. Is that OK?”
I looked into his face for any sign he might be joking but it was very obvious there were no jokes here. And anyway dog meat restaurants were not exactly a rarity in this part of the world.
Backing out the door I braved the drenching rain once more and found another place two doors down. “I’m sorry, but you are only one person, it is very difficult,” the lady said. “But you can have fried rice down the road”.
Lunch recommendation: Quan Com Thang Tam
Soon the world’s most delicious plate of steaming fried rice (Com Rang) was sitting in front of me, and I polished it off as the heavy downpour passed.
Now a coffee was required, and typical for this part of Vietnam, where the famous filter coffee is rare, the shopkeeper handed me a sachet of three-in-one. She waved her hand vaguely at a cabinet full of glasses – indicating a self-serve situation.
I bumbled awkwardly around the shop before realising there was a large blue hot water thermos sitting next to the door next to a tea set, hidden behind a behind a group of office workers. Mystery solved.
Tea plantation country
The road took me through misty tea plantations in a really quite beautiful landscape which reminded me of Sri Lanka. Farms and orchards followed in an area which was pleasant if not as dramatic as the scenery of the past few days. I was leaving the far north behind.
Cycling the Lo River
Eventually I came to the focal point for this end of the route – the wide and fast-flowing Lo River, busy with docks and barges funnelling goods down to the capital. The Lo River runs in parallel with the better known Red River, merging to one mighty waterway just north of Hanoi.
An impressive bridge joins to the two banks, the approach a good place to take a breath and pat a puppy (luckily a pet one)
From here, two roads of roughly equal size hug the river on each bank. The eastern bank is quieter and more residential, while factories hug the western side.
Before too long, the busy town of Doan Hung mostly fades away, making way for some nicer farming landscapes and a concrete path that is flat and ideal for getting up a bit of speed.
It feels good after days of trundling along bumpy tracks and the day ends with a weirdly ornate but quite acceptable mini-hotel in the town of Kim Xuyen.
The following day brings more of the same with a route that continues to hug the Lo River tightly before cutting across the industrial city of Viet Tri (less said the better) and a flat, landscape of agricultural fields broken only by the hills of Ba Vi.
