Day 17! Late night out means a late post, but it also means I’ve found fun people to hang out with 😁 this is a fun one!!

My day started off nice and early with waking up at 5:30am!

My hostel front desk told me that I should head out around 6am to beat the sun and also rush hour (I’m so glad I listened to them)

While checking out it turned out I somehow stayed an extra day… even after asking a few days before what day I needed to check out.

Luckily that was just a minor inconvenience and I paid and got on the road!

The streets weren’t fully empty, but they were a lot less packed than during the day.

It took a few minutes to get used to the weight of the backpack on my bike too.

But soon enough I was cruising down the streets exiting Ho Chi Minh City!

I don’t have too many photos from my drive (I was much more focused on the road than anything else) so I thought I‘d share my routes of all my drives!

Google maps said the drive would be anywhere from 3.5 – 4.5 hours!

The start of the drive was very interesting.

I was in the beginning of some rush hour traffic and joining the locals on their daily commute.

People were dropping their kids off at school (full families of 5 on a bike), motorbikes carrying more cargo than seemingly possible, trucks and busses flying down the road blaring their horns, and I even saw someone carrying a baby cow while sitting behind their motorbike driver!

The city quickly turned into jam packed towns.

Since motorbikes aren’t allowed on the highway they have to take the roads next to it weaving bike riders in and out of neighboring towns.

A lot of these towns look the same with store front after storefront crammed next to each other, random street shops, bike shops, you name it.

My hostel desk also told me about “cafe vong” which are cafes along the side of the road (pretty much everywhere) where you can buy something and have a hammock to sit or sleep in for a bit before you keep driving!

I didn’t end up taking advantage of any of these, but I did end up stopping after my first hour.

I set a timer for every hour to pull over, stretch, and check my fuel level (since my fuel gauge is broken).

This also gave me the chance to practice taking off my bag for gas stations and adjusting it to a spot that lets it stay secure and gives me plenty of room to sit comfortably!

I then set back out on the road!

The ride itself was pretty relaxed. There were a few times where a bus or truck would try to pass a car and would all of a sudden be heading straight for me blaring its horn… but it was easy enough to get over into the bike only lane!

Along with that, traffic goes fairly slow compared to the US, so it was very manageable.

The only “major” problem that really occurred was during the second hour of my ride.

I was coming through a town and by this point recognized that when cars or bikes wanted to keep going they let out a few honks and everyone would respect that.

Well, a car was pulling out pretty slowly into traffic and I (and other riders) let out some honks telling the driver to stop and let us through first… but this driver apparently didn’t care.

So while I was breaking the car’s front bumper ended up clipping my foot!

It definitely rattled me a little bit, but my foot was fine and the car was fine so we just kept on going (I made sure to get my distance after that because I honestly wasn’t sure what the situation was).

After that I was a lot more proactive when someone was pulling out in front of me! Everything is a learning lesson and I’m glad I was not hurt.

It was then time to get gas so I pulled off at a nearby station

There were lots of friendly bikers along the way smiling and waving to me!

There was also one that came speeding up on me honking! I was pretty confused until she pointed at the back of my bike and one of my bungee cords was dangling from my bike!!

I quickly pulled over, secured it back in place and got back on the road!

After another hour it was time for another gas check! And I ended up topping up to make sure I could make it the rest of the way without getting gas again!

I ended up spending 30,000 (just over $1) the first fill up and 50,000 (just under $2) the second time.

My bike holds a gallon of gas, but of course since this isn’t the US it holds 3.7 liters 🤪

I continued on my journey and at this point I only had just around an hour left. So a half our later I got off for one last stop to stretch in a spot that had a nice view!

I’m sure there’ll be even better ones to come!

After another half hour I made it safe and sound to my hostel, Mui Ne Hills Backpackers!!

My room wasn’t ready yet but the pool was so I went to go cool off after a hot drive!

Before I move on to the pool, I have to say, I really enjoyed the motorbike ride!

I’m so excited to see where this journey takes me now and I’m sure I’m going to see so much more than originally and meet many more travelers doing the same thing (to hopefully bike alongside)!

Even if it comes at the cost of a sore butt and sore muscles I don’t normally use 😅

While at the pool I met a number of really nice solo travelers all escaping the sun.

There was a group from Ireland that was just leaving the hostel and then a group from all over that were just arriving!

Some were going on a tour of the nearby sand dunes with the hostel (which is why I came to this town) so I decided to push through my exhaustion and join them!

So after snacking on a bag of almonds I headed out!

We split into two groups of six and road in our jeeps to the first stop (I didn’t realize this was a 5 hour tour…)

Our jeep had myself, Lucas from Germany, Anna from Italy, Charlie from England, and two people from Australia (I can’t remember their names).

We arrived at the Fairy Stream. I’m not totally convinced this wasn’t just a sewer line… BUT it did lead to some cool views of rocks.

There is a small waterfall at the end of the stream but we didn’t have the time to make it all the way to see it unfortunately.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this, but if you have ample time in Vietnam it’s not the worst thing to do with your time!

After the stream we headed to the next stop on our excursion, a fishing “village.”

This was a very cool view! The sheer amount of boats was pretty incredible.

There wasn’t much to do at this spot so our group decided to head back to the jeep early to move on.

On our way to our next spot we drove by the picture spot of the excursion and our driver encouraged us to get onto the jeep for pictures!

The group I was with was super fun and all very kind people. We had a lot of great conversations on the way to all of the spots too!

We were all in agreement that this was a pretty touristy outing but we tried to make the most of it!

And I’m glad I was with this group, because we all had money saving in mind (which is important for this next stop).

We made it to our second to last stop, the one I was most looking forward to, the sand dunes!

But at the entrance they told us we HAD to pay to get on a 4-wheeler to ride to the sledding spot…

Our group was like, “can’t we just walk?” And the drivers were telling us no. But after asking multiple people multiple times they finally dropped their act in defeat since we caught on to their scam. So we walked up the sand dunes.

I’ve never been to any sand dunes that were this big before and they were quite impressive!

The only thing that I would say negatively about it is that sand gets EVERYWHERE and on everything. So just beware of that before you go.

Our crew didn’t end up using the sleds since we didn’t climb up to the tourist sand dune, but we did run down them which was a blast too!

I then realized I hadn’t had anything to eat all day… so I split off from my friends and went on the hunt for food.

I ended up getting a Banh Trang Da Lat and a Banh Trang Nuong Mam Ruoc for 45,000! I was honestly so hungry I could’ve had anything but these were really good and I had never heard of them before!

They are both different rice papers with fish sauce and a bunch of other ingredients. One is rolled and the other is folded over like a taco!

After enjoying my food our group went to our last stop, the red sand dunes for sunset!

Minus all the trash, this was very pretty!

Overall, I’m glad I did the outing! I met some wonderful people and had a nice time. Even with it being tourist trap central, if I were you I’d at least check out the sand dunes if you’ve never seen something like it before!

We were all very exhausted after the outing, especially for me since I had been driving all morning!

We all went and cleaned up and then met back up for a few beers in the hostel and then headed to dinner together!

We ended up having a squad of 10 of us who had almost all met that day!

A group of 3 from Denmark joined us and 2 others from our hostel did as well!

I even made a new little friend while we were waiting for our food 😅

We found the best spot to eat… it’s right next to our hostel and everything is 1/3 the price of the food/drinks at the hostel!

I ended up having a chicken curry with com (basically just rice) and 3 beers for only 65,000 Dong (under $3)!

After sitting at the restaurant for a few hours we decided to go to another bar for the rest of the night.

I ended up leaving at 1am and absolutely passed out when I got into my bed which is why this post is late!

I know this will happen again, but know that just means two blog posts in one day for you all to enjoy!

It was an amazing and super long day! I’m so glad the ride went well and that I’m off meeting more people (and I can’t complain about having a pool and being near a beach)!

I’ll stay in Mui Ne for one more day and then I’ll head out to Dalat on my motorbike!

See you tonight for another post!

– Elie