Hai An to Binh Son - The first step ... South East Asia - CycleBlaze

May 13, 2016

Hai An to Binh Son

Our plan for today was to hug the coast down to the resorts at Chu Lai using the ferry crossings between the island Tam Hai and the two peninsulas that embrace it. Open Street Maps, the basis for my phone's Navigator app, is a bit short on detail in this area so we would have to do a bit of intuitive navigation today.

We set off at about twenty past five and were soon over the bridge which leads south from east of the old town of Hoi An. Then it was a left turn onto the concrete road that leads down the peninsula to the north of Tam Hai. A bahn mi from the first village was to last until another bahn mi at one of the last villages on the peninsula.

The peninsula is possibly the largest cemetery on earth. It is littered with graves, some even between the houses in the villages and others squashed between the ponds of the fish farms.

The long cemetery.
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More by luck than design we managed to find the first ferry to cross to Tam Hai. We weren't sure where it would be so all we did was follow what looked liked the main road which was at times simply a rough track, particularly towards the south end of the peninsula.

Once on Tam Hai we followed was seems to be the only road to the south end of the island. It was also only about 1.5 meters wide at times, which made dodging oncoming motorcycles quite interesting.

The ferry on the south side is quite a bit bigger than the first ferry but the landing is more precarious. We took off down what looked a likely road but had to backtrack after a few kilometers. We eventually found the correct road leading down to Chu Lai and pulled into the first resort. There were two ladies sleeping in the reception area who, on waking up, told us that the resort was closed. No problem, we thought, there are a string of resorts down the road. Well, it turns out that many of them are only half built and the rest are all closed.

So we ended up cycling with one eye on the strom that was building and the other on signs for Nhai Nghi, the Vietnamese word for hotel or guesthouse. e stopped for a coffee in Binh Son and used the WiFi to check booking.com and Agoda to see if there were any hotels in the area but with no luck. The first three hotels we checked out in Binh Son were pretty dodgy and so was the fourth but at this stage the heavens opened so we took what we could get.

The Phuong Hoang Hotel is just north of the river in Binh Son and it isn't too grubby and does have hot water, WiFi and cable TV with a few English channels so we have are lying up for the afternoon with the plan to have an early start tomorrow.

Supper was a bit of a disaster. After the rain stopped, we cycled around and found what we felt was the best place to eat. We tried to order chicken and rice but ended up getting a whole chicken that looked more boiled anything else plus a big bowl of an unattractive broth. At least the beers and Coke were beers and Coke.

Today's ride: 100 km (62 miles)
Total: 2,730 km (1,695 miles)

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