The Ho Chi Minh Highway East.  

From Phong Nha, it is possible to pick up the Ho Chi Minh Highway. This road was an ambitious project by Vietnam’s government to give the country a second major artery in addition to Highway One (AH1), with undoubted strategic benefits close to the Lao border in mind as well. The Highway has two branches, East and West, with the former running through the heart of the Central Highlands and the latter running closer to AH1.

Officially, you’re not supposed to be able to reach the Highway from Phong Nha, since it requires entry to the national park via an entrance which is not open to the public. It’s the same entrance through which we had entered the park on the tour, but this was due to a “special arrangement” between the Farmstay and the local government. I was told at the Farmstay that I wasn’t allowed to go but, if I wished to (wink, wink), maybe a present for the guards would secure my passage. I was also warned to have my bike checked before I left and to take spare fuel and water, for the road is very isolated.

On arrival at the guard post, I was pulled over by those posted there. They asked me a few questions about where I was going (“Khe Sanh,” I answered) and what I was doing in Vietnam. After about three minutes, I was allowed to progress, the only condition being that I took my camera off my helmet (presumably to avoid any valuable fauna being recorded and put on YouTube for Chinese medicinal practitioners to earmark). The bribe (a bottle of rum) in my bag was not needed, since the guards asked for nothing in return. This was, to an extent, a jump into the complete unknown, for guidebooks don’t cover this area in much detail at all.

This route is a straightforward one, with the isolation and scenery making it one of the most enjoyable routes I’ve taken. After the guard post, the road winds through the national park (past a number of the tour sights) and crosses a bridge, where Khe Sanh is clearly signposted. The road passes through lush, green jungle and steadily gains altitude; there are very few other vehichles. Until I had left the national park and headed down towards Xu Bien and Rinh Rinh, I counted two mopeds and a couple of logging trucks, in addition to the rangers at their outposts.

The people along this section of the road rarely see foreigners and are very pleased to see them. This was seen on my arrival at one village during school break time, when about forty children streamed from the playground to come to me at a nearby cafe, standing agape when they got there and running away excitedly whenever I moved!

Khe Sanh itself was a pleasant enough place, where the people were friendly and the food more than fine. Lonely Plant suggests that one would only stay there if one had to, but that is unfair. My hotel, the May Long, was cheap and comfortable, while some excellent chao ga could be had around five minutes’ walk from the hotel along the main strip.

The Combat Base was also well worth the visit, almost being the site of America’s Dien Bien Phu. In the summer of1967, the PAVN commenced a number of small attacks on the base, home to America’s III Marine Amphibious Force. This turned into a far greater attack in January 1968, when two PAVN divisions attacked the base, forcing desperate American and ARVN rearguard action, with Westmoreland increasing total American strength during the battle to 45,000, including the 6,000 Marines at the base. By the end of the battle in April 1968, the American and South Vietnamese forces had suffered 7,480 casualties and the PAVN between 10,000 and 15,000, with the result being American abandonment of the base despite repelling the PAVN.

All that remains now is the perimeter of the base, which contains some American vehicles and aircraft, along with recreated bunkers and a museum, which was closed at the time due to renovations.

Heading east towards Dong Ha, the Highway resumes at a suspension bridge fifteen kilometres outside Khe Sanh. The road climbs into the mountains and on this day I experienced both sun, rain and fog. The people along the route are again very friendly, with children waving and adults smiling and nodding as I passed. The road follows a river as far as Da Krong before coming to A Luoi, a town suitable for a lunch or coffee stop. Here I saw a couple of younger people missing limbs and assumed, rightly or wrongly, that they were victims of the Agent Orange sprays down here during the war. I was yet again humbled when they cheerily waved a stump, smiling, as I passed.

The Central Highlands are the domain of the Easy Riders, whom I spotted more and more as the day wore on. These motorcycle tour operators can be found in a number of cities, principally Dalat and Hoi An but also Danang, Hue and Nha Trang, and offer tours of any length around the country. They often ride Honda Masters, which are 125cc cruisers, though the less established use Chinese copies. I met one such man at a tunnel on the road to Pleiku, intending to stay there that evening. His name was Mr Chau and he was carrying a British couple with a Vietnamese colleague. Friendly, charismatic and amusing, Mr Chau enquired as to where I was going and, when I said that I was going to Thanh My, he immediately told me to go to Prao instead, it being more pleasant and closer. By this stage I was rather wet, so I said that I’d think about it.

On reaching Prao, Mr Chau was right; it was pleasant and the people were very friendly indeed. I spent around an hour and a half in a small cafe, discussing the world map with a number of young children and being offered someone’s daughter. The accusations/suggestions that I looked like Wayne Rooney again reared their head here, with them becoming a feature of my time with Mr Chau that evening at the Dung Thuy guesthouse ($10 private room), who reminded me every few minutes that he thought that I resembled the Manchester United striker: perhaps I was his brother or we had the same father. I’ve heard all of this before in Morocco and am certain that I look nothing like him, except that I have short hair and am white.

I spent the evening playing rummy with Juliet and Jonathan, Mr Chau’s guests. We were harassed by a little boy running around us, whispering things in our ears and running off. He calmed down when I gave him and his older sister a Choco-Pie (the food of the gods) and kissed me on the cheek when I departed. I felt guilty for having viewed him as a harasser rather than a little boy.

Kon Tum was in fact 275km (170 miles) away and the ride was very easy, aside from some unpleasant side winds and the increasing volume of traffic. In fact, this had been the first day on which I became expressively angry at other road users, principally open tour bus drivers, who threw their buses around bends as if they were rally drivers, the weight of the bus pressed firmly onto the outside wheel as they screamed past. Other malefactors included minibus drivers, no less psychopathic as they came around corners, overtaking in ludicrous places and behaving as if they’d been playing the computer game “Carmageddon” too much. There are many places to stop along the way, including Dak To, a city of decent size containing hotels, places to eat and a large Bahnar house beside a monument commemorating the town’s capture in 1975.

The city itself is pleasant, though there is not a huge amount to see. Kon Tum is the centre of the local Christian diocese and here churches become a regular feature of the landscape. It is also the convergence of a number of hill-tribes, mainly Bahnar, M’Nong, Ede and Lao, though traditional dress is seen nowhere nearly as frequently as in the north, mainly because, according to various organisations, the minorities here have suffered at the hands of the government, presumably due to their fighting alongside South Vietnam and America during the war in the CIDG.

Kon Tum is also a centre for eating goat meat, with a number of restaurants serving it (it’s delicious).

The ride to Buon Ma Thuot was punctuated by pockmarked roads, terrible driving, increased volume and my own levels of frustration rising to their highest so far. It was bad enough dodging potholes, almost sustaining concussion on some sections of road (particularly after Pleiku) and dodging swarms of wasps (yes, one hit me), but the hazardous driving here simply exacerbated the difficulty of my undertaking.

It was in this spirit that I passed through the various coffee plantations, with the farmers’ wives selling produce by the road. Today I had had enough, having ridden around two hundred miles per day for the past four days. Distance in itself is not an issue, but when each corner conceals a potential unsubtle assassin in the form of a psychopathic open tour bus driver or a gaping pothole, it begins to take its toll. I was desperate to reach Buon Ma Thuot and, finally hitting a six-lane, wide, smooth road, I was on the home straight. Imagine, therefore, how all that could have been brought to an abrupt halt.

Yes, I had an accident. Two girls on a moped deigned to pull out in front of me and, at fifty miles per hour, I had nowhere to go other than into their front wheel. I shall give a fuller account of this in my next post.

After recovering my senses and being patched up, I took the wounded Kim Jong-Il into Buon Ma Thuot, whose centrepiece is the “Victory Monument”, a statue erected to commemorate that city’s capture by PAVN and NLF troops in 1975. The Thanh Binh Hotel was comfortable and local restaurants fine despite Lonely Planet’s disparaging comments, while the Acoustic Café at 116 Ly Hoang Kiet made an enjoyable place to spend a couple of hours in the evening, with live music on most evenings.

Link:http://viatorintrepidus.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-ho-chi-minh-highway-east.html