We were still making our way to Villiburi having not made it yesterday. It was not that far but the mud was getting worse. Forcing us to resort to pushing. There was no way you could ride this stuff.
Sometimes you just have to push.
Once when I was ahead of Bas I tried to cycle round a large puddle only to loose the front wheel and land in the muddy water much to the amusement of Bas. Bas said I had a look on my face which said “Don’t you dare bloody laugh.” After I had got over the shock of being half covered in mud I said “It’s ok Bas you can laugh now.” After this encounter with mud my money was wet and muddy. I even had trouble spending it!

Mud bath.

Even got mud in my pocket.
Sometimes there were side tracks leading into the jungle to avoid muddy stretches created by locals on their motorbikes. In the photo below it looks like we are in the jungle but really we are just emerging from one of these side tracks. Not to sure why we had strange looks on our faces.

Emerging from the jungle.
By now we had stopped a few times to clean the brakes which had a habit of refusing to work well in the muddy conditions. After one of these cleaning sessions I lost a part of one of my brakes. So was down to one brake when we finally arrived at Villiburi. Being tired,hungry and covered in mud our first priority was food. And had one of the best noodle soups I have ever had. Even Bas said it was good. Bas was literally fed up with noodle soup by this point.

Cleaning stubborn brakes.
We found a guesthouse for the night. Then went in search of a restaurant found on GPS with the name Best Place in Town. The food was good and we had a change from noodle soup. This was one of the better restaurants we used on our trip. The funniest was Jimmy’s Restaurant which we had used earlier in the trip. We had been looking forward to it all day maybe because it had a western name. When we walked in we spotted pizza boxes stacked against a wall. We were thinking a pizza would be good when the lights dimmed and coloured disco lights came on. Also a kareoke started up with “Hotel California.” Then two girls came over with beer. We declined their offer of sitting with us drank our beer and left in search of a real restaurant. So much for having a pizza!
We met the owner of Best Place in Town who worked as a translator at the Xepon mine. I mentioned about people running away from us. He explained to us why. He said that some of these people if not have rarely seen falangs and have heard stories about falang from their parents and grandparents. These stories being about falang(French in those days)coming and killing people and up to no good. This sounded quite plausible. After we went for a beer and managed to fall out over something trivial and did not speak to each other until the next day. I forget what we fell out over. But before that we had decided to stay in Villiburi for one day. So the next day was spent cleaning the bike’s working parts and replacing cables etc. I never clean my bike thoroughly only the important bits,it’s only going to get dirty again after all. Gave Bas a lesson in setting the gears. Did a bit of laundry and took it easy in the afternoon. Had early night to be ready for the ride to Ban Dong.
The ride to Ban Dong was uneventful. Riding on asphalt on Road 28A and then on Road 9 past Xepon Mine. At Ban Dong we decided to visit the war museum. Well it was raining anyway so we would be out of it for a while. The museum was really interesting. It was about the invasion of the Saigon Army with American support. This was obvious from the Huey helicopter on display outside.

M48 Tank. U.S. Army.

Huey helicopter.
Sometimes you just have to push.
Once when I was ahead of Bas I tried to cycle round a large puddle only to loose the front wheel and land in the muddy water much to the amusement of Bas. Bas said I had a look on my face which said “Don’t you dare bloody laugh.” After I had got over the shock of being half covered in mud I said “It’s ok Bas you can laugh now.” After this encounter with mud my money was wet and muddy. I even had trouble spending it!

Mud bath.

Even got mud in my pocket.
Sometimes there were side tracks leading into the jungle to avoid muddy stretches created by locals on their motorbikes. In the photo below it looks like we are in the jungle but really we are just emerging from one of these side tracks. Not to sure why we had strange looks on our faces.

Emerging from the jungle.
By now we had stopped a few times to clean the brakes which had a habit of refusing to work well in the muddy conditions. After one of these cleaning sessions I lost a part of one of my brakes. So was down to one brake when we finally arrived at Villiburi. Being tired,hungry and covered in mud our first priority was food. And had one of the best noodle soups I have ever had. Even Bas said it was good. Bas was literally fed up with noodle soup by this point.

Cleaning stubborn brakes.
We found a guesthouse for the night. Then went in search of a restaurant found on GPS with the name Best Place in Town. The food was good and we had a change from noodle soup. This was one of the better restaurants we used on our trip. The funniest was Jimmy’s Restaurant which we had used earlier in the trip. We had been looking forward to it all day maybe because it had a western name. When we walked in we spotted pizza boxes stacked against a wall. We were thinking a pizza would be good when the lights dimmed and coloured disco lights came on. Also a kareoke started up with “Hotel California.” Then two girls came over with beer. We declined their offer of sitting with us drank our beer and left in search of a real restaurant. So much for having a pizza!
We met the owner of Best Place in Town who worked as a translator at the Xepon mine. I mentioned about people running away from us. He explained to us why. He said that some of these people if not have rarely seen falangs and have heard stories about falang from their parents and grandparents. These stories being about falang(French in those days)coming and killing people and up to no good. This sounded quite plausible. After we went for a beer and managed to fall out over something trivial and did not speak to each other until the next day. I forget what we fell out over. But before that we had decided to stay in Villiburi for one day. So the next day was spent cleaning the bike’s working parts and replacing cables etc. I never clean my bike thoroughly only the important bits,it’s only going to get dirty again after all. Gave Bas a lesson in setting the gears. Did a bit of laundry and took it easy in the afternoon. Had early night to be ready for the ride to Ban Dong.
The ride to Ban Dong was uneventful. Riding on asphalt on Road 28A and then on Road 9 past Xepon Mine. At Ban Dong we decided to visit the war museum. Well it was raining anyway so we would be out of it for a while. The museum was really interesting. It was about the invasion of the Saigon Army with American support. This was obvious from the Huey helicopter on display outside.


Huey helicopter.
