Our second ride was a less ambitious 63km down the road to Thanh Hoa. After a hearty fishcake noodle soup ('bun cha ca') breakfast to set us on our way, we joined the traffic on Highway 1 and rolled out of a cloudy Ninh Binh at 0930. The plan was to push on steadily with the hope that our cycling fitness would soon catch up with our aching bodies.
About an hour later we stopped at a small roadside drinks stall for a break and had a friendly chat with the lady owner about our trip. Further down the road we had a few gradients to go up as we headed through Bac Son ('Son' became an ominous word for us at it means mountain) which was a bit testing on my legs which were feeling the effects of our first big push. The usual blaring traffic streamed past us as we encountered locals on their way to market.
A few kilometres further on we were joined on the road by a fellow cyclist doing the Hanoi to Saigon run. Graham turned out to be from Manchester and was also heading for Thanh Hoa. We rode on together along patchy sections of road, but the going was noticeably better than the chaos caused by the roadworks around Phu Ly. Some sections of the road even became a proper dual carriageway with a central reservation but they were depressingly short.
The three of us reached Thanh Hoa and we set about trying to find a hotel. A quick internet search threw up a few choices and we headed to one. There, we spoke to a grumpy manager who told us that he didn't want the hassle of a western guest without giving any real reason! We promptly left and found another hotel which was much more welcoming (Duc Anh Hotel).
We left Graham to relax in his room as he planned to leave early in the morning and headed to the nearby beach resort at Sam Son. It was low season and the place had a downbeat feel to it as the clouds rolled in over the empty beachside seafood restaurants. We sat over some beers and grilled squid watching a group of local kids having a game of beach football.
As darkness fell, we found a small place for dinner. A lady was cooking fresh 'banh cuon' (steamed rice flour pancakes) and we sat down to a few plates. The family were curious about us and where we were from outside Vietnam. We chatted about our family and they told us about theirs. The lady was amazingly adept at steaming the pancakes, filling and rolling them quickly as locals came to eat.
It seemed that these 'binh dan' (common people) were left to their own devices by central g*vernment. Subsistence was the name of the game for them and generally they did what they could to make a living and put their children through school. Having spoken to others on the road about education, there was a belief it was key to a better life, but even then there was no guarantee that good students would graduate with the grades they deserved. Certain students would always come out on top as money and networking had greater weight.
They gave us friendly advice about the area (warning us of the inflated prices of the beachfront street hawkers) and even called a taxi to take us back to Thanh Hoa as the last local bus had long since departed.
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