Tet Road Trip - The 619km from Sam Son to Hue

Because I didn't quite do the distance I meant to do yesterday, I had a much longer drive in front of me for today.

The journey ended up being 619km in total from Sam Son to Hue via the scenic Ho Chi Minh Road.

I've been driving from Hanoi to Hue a few times so I knew some of the journey but some was new and things always change.

Despite driving mostly at 80km/h for the whole day the bike held up well and ran smooth no matter the roads or weather.

Lucky for me it was mostly dry, although the rain caught me up again around Phong Nha.

I ended up stopping for quite a few photo breaks but now many coffee breaks despite the long drive, I just enjoyed driving that I forgot about stopping.

Driving past all the small villages where people were out working in the rice fields was great and if I didn't plan on doing such a long drive in the day I would have stopped more often to take photos and just watch them working.

I did make it to Hue at 8pm so the whole journey took me 12h today. It was definitely fun but I think I'll keep my average driving to 300km a day and try not to go much further than that.

Tet Road Trip - Hanoi to Sam Son

After taking a bit of time in the morning it was time to leave Hanoi and head back.

This time it was only me for the journey home and without using Google Maps for any further navigation purposes but strictly only for showing the map.

Getting in and out of Hanoi always takes quite a long time, despite the light traffic around Tet it wasn't any faster.

Still, the outskirts of Hanoi are pretty scenic and once you do get out there are some great roads and views to take in.

The plan was to make it all the way to Vinh but it soon became clear that I left too late for this to work so I changed my destination for the night to Sam Son.

Sam Son is much nicer than Cua Lo out of season and it's a good spot to stop for the night. I went to visit the temple and met some of the locals there for a nice chat.

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.

Day 142 - Hoa Lu, Tam Coc and Sam Son

The morning and early afternoon were spent on sightseeing around Ninh Binh. First on the list was the Hoa Lu area with the many temples around there.

The first and biggest temple was the Chua Bai Dinh temple. It was also the furthest away so it seemed best to cover it early before the tourists get here and leave the other places for the way back.

It is a very new but quite nice temple built on a hill so you have to climb up quite a few steps. The downside to it is that they built the parking area miles away so you have to pay for the electric shuttle to take you there on a very roundabout way.Quite a lot is till under construction so the facilities there could change by the time they finish.

On the way back I covered some other temples briefly and some places only from the road due to the time.
The next stop after having some brunch was Tam Coc for another quick look around there but again not spending too long in the different places.

After Tam Coc, I decided to head to Sam Son and spend the night in a hotel by the beach for a change. The place was deserted as expected in the winter months and most places were shut but I did like it better this way.