Yesterday was trial by water, today was by land. The Swedes and I took a 65km mountain bike trip from Dalat, way up in the highlands, down to Nah Trang along the coast. My camera battery died toward the end so I don't have as many photos as I'd like, but I've put them in a gallery that's posted in the links on the right as per usual if you want to see more, but here's one of us just starting out:
It was a roughly 1.8km descent, but that doesn't mean it wasn't challenging: there was about 10k of climbing in several stages to start the day. Our guide nicknamed the hills baby hill, lady hill, ladyboy hill and man hill, and I was the only one in the group to manage both the ladyboy and the man hills without needing to walk the bike, stitch a ride, or be taken up in the support van that followed us (sorry guys, gotta brag here). To say that making it up those hills was rewarding is an understatement, especially given how bruised up I was from the day before. My right knee in particular required a steady diet of aspirin and ibuprofen to keep from forcing me off the road. I did come pretty close to quitting shortly after lunch when we tackled the man hill, as my legs cramped up in a way I'd never experienced. I was the last one to set off after the break and within a few minutes everyone was around a corner and far ahead in the van, which is of course exactly when my legs decided to betray me. I could feel them tightening so I stepped off the bike to stretch them out a bit and they seized completely, locking up perfectly straight in a brutally painful way. I actually had to bend down at the waist and hit the back of my left knee with my fist to bend it and break the seizing, then I sat by the side of road massaging my muscles until the cramping stopped. After that I got back on and slowly completed the man hill, trucking along in first gear until the ordeal was over. Gotta say, I felt genuinely proud, but my god were my legs in bad shape by the time the climbing was done. Also felt very much like throwing up because I had unwisely pounded water while massaging my quads in an effort to help combat the cramping. You'd think I would have learned my lesson back in Algonquin Park, huh dad? Apparently no so much. Luckily that's when the fun started. Before I get to that though, here's a picture of where we ate lunch:
After the climbing was over, we started a stretch that was nearly entirely downhill for about 30km. The speeds we hit were amazing and terrifying as we wound our way down through the mountains on excellent new roads with barely any traffic. The fun and exhilaration took me back to biking down the hill near Donegan Park as a kid, only without the climb back up: this was like a ski run that just went on and on without needing the lifts. It's hard to say which I enjoyed more though, the adrenaline rush or the insanely beautiful scenery we passed along the way. Here's a few samples hat don't even come close to doing it justice:
In a way the scenery was more dangerous than the roads or the sporadic traffic, as it was impossible not to rubberbeck constantly. If I had've been on my own I could easily have stopped every 100m to snap more photos, as the views were probably the best I've ever seen. Really wish my camera was up to the challenge, but it wasn't as you can see from that last one where the farmland just went on and on into the horizon. Anyway we reached the bottom of he descent without incident and loaded into the support van for the ride into the city and right to our hostel's doorstep. I miss the cool air of the highlands already though, the difference in temperature between departure and arrival was and is drastic.
All in all an amazing day and one of the best things I've ever done. I'm completely exhausted now and bed is calling me as I write this, but I have to throw in one more quick thing just for Hoz: Guled and I both have colds from the air conditioning in Saigon, and do you know what he said to me when he heard me blow my nose in my particularly distinct way? That it sounds funny, but effective. Redemption!
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