The Beach

GXR A12-M, f8.0, 1/500, ISO 456, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.8 50mm LTM)

Fireworks over the Harbour

GXR A12-M, f8.0, 1 sec., ISO 200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Fire and Smoke

GXR A12-M, f8.0, 2 sec., ISO 200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Motorbike Tour

I spent the day taking photos and driving around Da Nang and all the way to Lang Co to check some routes for my upcoming motorbike tours.

I started off with a drive to Son Tra and around Monkey Mountain in the morning.

Monkey Mountain is great, it has some great roads, it feels like you're in the middle of nowhere at times and there are many different sights scattered around the mountain. You can spend the whole day (and more) exploring all the different roads and paths here.

After a lunch break, I continued to the Hai Van Pass. The Hai Van pass is the must-do for every visitor to Vietnam and especially for everyone renting or buying a motorbike here.

It's a great road (despite he fuel and pig trucks you'll encounter) with even better views, no matter if you get here on a sunny day, a rainy day, a cloudy or foggy day or even at night.

You'll also find some roads to explore here if you don't stick to the main road to go up and down the mountain only.

There are plenty of photo opportunities and it's worth taking your time and not rush too much.

Lang Co again provides great views over the sea, the lagoon and also over the local life if you explore a little bit.

While I usually take my Honda Wave around everywhere I go, I had a Honda PCX for the day to try it out. It's a bit more photogenic and it's good to have a different bike in my photos so they don't all feel the same.

My tours will start soon and there will be plenty of different routes to take and explore with some fully individual tours coming up, too.

Microphone

GXR A12-M, f2.8, 1/45, ISO 3200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Evening Street Food

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/200, ISO 3200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

More Street Food

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/125, ISO 2283, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Hangout Coffee - Pre-opening Night

When I decided to leave London and my job there to move to Vietnam without having a job or anything lined up, people thought I was crazy. Their opinion didn't improve when my only plan was to see how tings go and maybe open a coffee shop and teach some English.

Now just over 4 months later, I'm teaching English full time and this is the night before my coffee shop is officially opening.

Sometimes it's good to just go for something and do it even if people don't agree with your idea. It might turn out to be a bad idea or it might work out but you never know without trying.

There have been problems along the way and the small coffee shop idea has become a big 3 floor coffee shop, bar and live music venue. The result of all this is Hangout Coffee in Hue, Vietnam.

Now the question is how good or bad will it be once it's open but if you never go into anything with the intention of getting rich but of enjoying the experience and learn something in the process it will be difficult to be disappointed.

Construction Machine

GXR A12-M, f5.6, 1/3500, ISO 200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Father and Son

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/68, ISO 200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Rain by the Wheelbarrow

GXR A12-M, f2.8, 1/3200, ISO 3200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Sunlight

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/60, ISO 1405, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

400km to Hue

After getting up early and enjoying a local breakfast and coffee it was time to hit the road for the 400km to Hue.

I usually try to limit the daily drive in Vietnam to 100km to have time to do it comfortably and taking the scenic road. Doing 400km in one day sounded like a lot but I knew it wasn't too difficult to do with an earlier start and shorter breaks in between.

Despite having a long distance to go, I chose to go via the best route and take the Ho Chi Minh Road south. It's really the best way to travel in Vietnam.

While I didn't want to miss out on taking photos but didn't want to stop for this, I just took photos while driving.

The journey is great and very scenic but you need to watch your petrol since you can easily run very low and not have any town or petrol station around.

After a long drive, I made it back to Hue a bit earlier than even expected and without being too tired but in need of a cold beer.

Sunset on the Way South

GXR A12-M, f8.0, 1/440, ISO 200, RAW, 75mm (Jupiter-8 f2.0 50mm LTM)

Another day, another change of plans. After relaxing and going for a (very unusual for me) swim in the sea and relaxing having coffee till around lunch, I found out that they can't deliver my motorbike in Hue any faster either from here.
So I just decided that enough is enough and will just drive all the way to Hue. While it wasn't possible to do over 650km in a few hours of daylight left, I at least wanted to go as close to Hue as possible before getting dark.
Vinh would have been the obvious choice but I wanted to go a bit further still so decided for Tanh Hoa.
After changing the front tire on my bike (which set me back even more time), I decided to take the most direct but also worst route down south via AH1. This allowed me to drive fast enough and make it to Tanh Hoa just after it got dark.

Tam Coc to Sam Son

The day started a bit grey and overcast but the area around Tam Coc and Ninh Binh is still great and very scenic.

Since the plan was to take the late evening train back to Hue, I had more than enough time to just enjoy driving around the area, enjoy the landscape and take photos.

It was great and I spent the whole morning just taking in the landscape without visiting too many places around.

After lunch, when trying to buy the train tickets was when I had to change plans slightly. While I could get a train ticket for myself, they could only deliver my motorbike in Hue in 5 days.

While I don't need my motorbike on a daily basis and it would probably be good for me to start doing some more walking, having it standing around in Ninh Binh wasn't really what I wanted.

So instead of waiting around, I decided to try my luck in Tanh Hoa, around 60km south or 80km via the scenic route. As far as government employees go, the ones in Vietnam all go home at 4pm so I didn't make it in time to the train station so had to spend the night.
Sam Son is only 16km from Tanh Hoa by the seaside so I figured it's the nicer place to stay at for the night.