Sunday, February 22, 2015

Beginning of something great, part 4 (finally arriving to Da Lat after all the problems but with the final trial)

I was driving through the most amazing sceneries again and had a big grin on my face. Stopped to take some pictures, drove a couple of kilometres and took some more pictures. Stopped on a bridge and met a group of "Easy Riders", aka tourists on bikes with a local motorbike guide. The tour guide asked me where I'm heading. I told him that I'm going to Da Lat and he wished me good luck and warned me about land mines (cow poo) and pot holes. I knew I still had about 100km to go and tried to keep a hasty speed because I only had 1 hour of day light left.
Darn! I need to hurry. That bastard is setting.
Rice patties.

In the middle of nowhere up in the mountains it happened again, yes AGAIN. I lost the fricking chain again and had still about 80km to Da Lat. I hadn't seen any villages for some time and didn't have any knowledge if there would be any in the direction I was heading to. Time was also getting to be a factor in my "adventure".
Tried to put the chain back on and even managed to do that but the chain was just too loose and this one part that was welded earlier was bended and made the chain more loose. Mega shit!

I was fiddling around with my bike when a car pulled over and the driver came to check what was the problem. I pointed him the problem and we both shook our heads because we both understood that was something we could not fix on the road. I had one phone number for whom to call. A Vietnamese guy from Hanoi gave me his number for emergencies and this was one. After some intense translating I found out that there was nothing for the next 15 kilometres. 15 kilometres is a long way to push a bike even without the mountains. My situation looked quite dire. The car was heading to Da Lat and that basically made my decision.

I decided to ditch the bike and just take the ride to Da Lat. With the help of the Vietnamese guy we hid the bike in to the grass so that It was not visible from the road and then I took some pictures from that place to recognise it later on when I would come back to rescue the bike.
to this corner i hid my bike
The Vietnamese guy dropped me at the outskirts of Da Lat and didn't accept any money when I tried to give some for the gasoline. The ride was btw really interesting since none of the people in the car spoke english. The "conversations" were being had with the google translator :)

I didn't have any booking done for the hostel but I remembered someone mentioning something about Wolfpack hostel so that was the place I was gonna go. I hailed a taxi and with my Vietnamese sim-card was also able to find a address.

I have heard the story about my entry to the Wolfpack hostel quite many times now since it has been named as the coolest entry to a hostel ever by the people who witnessed it that day. This is somewhat how it went down:

You have to imagine a guy who has been driving a motorbike for quite a few days already. He has seen good days and bad days and a few breakdowns. Then he gets the final blow and needs to ditch his bike. He needs to use a taxi in the end to get to his destination. He's carrying his backpack on the other hand and his helmet on the other hand and he arrives to the door of an hostel, drops the backpack on the floor and asks. "Do you got room?" He hears "yes, we got room." He asks: "Do you got any beer?". He sees the fridge full of beer even before he hears the answer and says: "I'm staying".

This happened on 30.12.2014

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