January 20, 2007
To Quc Tang: coffee fields but no coffee
After finding the boy at the security office asleep and difficult to wake up, he calls the woman to come give us our passports.
Our guidebook says today can be a fairly taxing ride, even though we are on the "flat" Bao Loc plateau...and the ride proves to be up and down, one stretch of an uphill climb is a 10% grade. The landscape is dominated by low ridges blanketed in coffee bushes...tarps are laid out along the road covered with drying coffee beans.
We reach Di Linh, the midway point for today and had trouble finding a roadside cafe. With all the coffee in various stages of growing the workers must not have time to drink it. We start to see different kind of baskets carried on their backs; Patrick thinks it is for the collection of tea leaves. The baskets are tall and skinny and have a platform like edge on the bottom to rest the basket on the ground.
Patrick again is not feeling well, still feels like he is getting a cold. We stop one more time for a sugar cane juice and make it into town about 1pm. We eat a chicken pho for dinner.
Tomorrow is a short day in distance, but an 8 km climb to Dalat.
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Today's ride: 81 km (50 miles)
Total: 4,490 km (2,788 miles)
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