Day 18
Country
Mr Cam had arranged a car for us to go to the national park in. I had called him the night before to confirm and we were to meet the driver at the entrance to the park. We took all our bags with us to save paying another day's rent at the guesthouse. As we had the exclusive use of a car we could chuck the luggage in the boot.
It was 18 kms of constant climbing and we could see why they did not allow bikes up there. The drops were sheer and sometimes there was no barrier between road and ravine.
The driver dropped us off at the summit, gave us a map and told us to follow the trails which would take us 4 hours and bring us out at the car park at the 16th km point where he'd be waiting for us. We were at an altitude of 1450 m and the summit was used as a helicopter base during the Vietnam war and now has a little pagoda and a war museum. We walked through the jungle paths but couldn't see anything as it was so thick. Heard some birds and monkeys but didn't see much other than butterflies, until we got to the 5 lakes and Rhododendron falls that is. We took the more challenging 'adventure trail' and saw all 5 lakes/pools formed at the bottom of waterfalls rather than taking the easy shortcut straight to lake 5. Health & Safety would have a field day if that adventure trail were in the UK. There were no safety measures - just a rope/cable tied to trees for us to hold on to. The path was treacherous but challenging and exciting and the reward of standing on top of the Rhododendron falls and the views made up for it.
On the way down the driver stopped suddenly as there was a big black cobra by the side of the road. We jumped out to take photos but it slithered away.
We rode to Hue that afternoon and went out in the evening. Another 'party town'. So busy and noisy. We were heading back to the hotel when we ran into Ryan from Seattle whom we had met at the Light Hotel a few days back. Had a chat and found out he was heading the same way as us but preferred to ride alone. Back at the hotel the beds were two wooden pallets placed end to end with a mattress on top. It worked great was cheap, clean and breakfast was thrown in.
