23 April 2011
SpiceRoads Cycling Tour – Day 6
Phong Nha to Khe Sanh (80 Km)
I’ve never been very fond of caves; they bring out my claustrophobic fears. Because of this, I have some simple rules for my friends and family: don’t hold me under a blanket, don’t hold me under water, and certainly don’t hold me up in a cluster of people when traveling deep inside a cave. In fact, don’t make me go into a cave at all and you will have my undying loyalty. Of course it’s now that SpiceRoads chooses to deliver what the itinerary promised, boating us up the Son River and nearly a kilometer deep into one of the world’s largest and longest caves. Great. You can’t give me the quiet country roads you promised but you can give me a busy, touristy, claustrophobic-inducing cave.
In the end, I must grudgingly admit that the cave was actually quite nice, as far as caves go. Nothing like the last cave that nearly did me in, years ago in Costa Rica, walls, floors, and trembling hands covered in bat guano as 10 of us packed ourselves like sardines into a chamber the size of Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs before exiting, i.e., shimmying, slipping, pinching, contracting and wedging through a stovepipe tunnel to free ourselves from its clutches. Gratefully, not like that cave at all. In this cave, if you subtracted from the scene the hordes of tourists there were pretty, colorfully lit stalagmites and stalactites and high-ceilinged chambers giving ample room to breathe.
It was with deep breaths that we then endured the remainder of the day. Just as yesterday had gone from boring to beautiful, today went in the opposite direction. If there’s anything consistent about this SpiceRoads trip it’s that the scenery and itinerary have been completely inconsistent. Yesterday, stunning mountains and hillsides. Today, nothing to see but flat, wearisome highway and its parallel powerlines. It’s routes like this one that make us believe that SpiceRoads, at least on this trip, is not quite getting it – that cycle touring is not about clicking off the kilometers but instead about the scenery and vistas along the way. At least that is how we define cycle touring. Riding from Point A to Point B is getting one’s exercise or getting to the office or, on rare occasions, simply a necessity to move one’s self forward. But it’s not a cycle touring route, this Point A to Point B. We can do the kilometers, but give us something beautiful to look at it, something uniquely Vietnamese, like this country’s lovely people and stunningly green fields and mountains. We know that captivating countryside is out there beyond the powerlines. All we need is a right-hand turn.
