Author: bethstapleton0201@gmail.com

Almost 6 years since our last Camino. We decided it’s time to try the Camino Portuguese from Lisbon, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Hopefully, our older bodies can handle this. We are a little undertrained right now and will be going slow the first week.

We’ve decided to go lighter than we did 6 years ago. Our backpacks are 15 an 14 pounds with water as opposed to 19 and 16 pounds that we carried on the Camino Frances.

Wish us luck. We start walking Sunday after spending a couple days in Lisbon.

We shuttled to Da Nang airport and flew into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). This was a big bustling city (reminded me of Kuala Lumpur back in 1979). We did a short walking tour and finished at a pub for a flight of craft beers.

Since we are leaving early, we all decided to go out to dinner together on our final night. Surprisingly, table for 14 is not so easy.

Crossing the street here is a bit unnerving as most times you need to walk into traffic to cross.

Afterward Beth and I visited “Little Malaysia” for some “roti canai”. At this point we found out our return flight out of Hong Kong no longer exists. United Airlines never notified us either. So now we need to return from Hong Kong with a 2 hour layover in Tokyo on our way back to Newark (ugh).

Today we went to the Hoi An Eco Cooking Class. They took us to the market and then we shuttled over the river by a circle bamboo boat. There were a bunch of tourists doing this class with us as well.

We spent a lot of time there cooking many dishes. Each of us got a chance to make the rice paper used for the spring rolls which was interesting.

Today we make another big climb up the famous (really, I’m not kidding) Hai Van Pass. Six miles up and six miles down.

Although we’ve done bigger climbs, we all knew this would be our last big day and yes it rained again today.

After the climb we continued onto backroads to the Elephant Valley to finish the day (35 miles 2800 ft of elevation)

We shuttled to Hoi An which is a small walkable city but unfortunately very touristy.

Our fight to Hong Kong was cancelled by Vietnam Airlines. They only fly every other day now to Hong Kong so we need to leave a day early now (ugh).

As we were checking in to our rooms at the Vinh Hung Emerald resort, our Aussie friends shouted out to the guy showing us our rooms “Hey there is a rat in our room”, Elena (CA) said her room had mosquitos in her bathroom ….I’ll be sleeping with one eye open tonight.

Tomorrow will be a rest day in Hoi An.

Today was another 45 mile day on the bike. It rained most of the ride which wasn’t much fun but most of us got through it. We are all a bit water logged now after 2 days of rain. Our clothes are starting to ferment.

We visited a local temple and then went to a remote area where there seem to be hundreds of huge ornate temples that are built by families for burial sites.

We got to the Lang Co resort early in the afternoon so we could finally relax a bit. It’s a pretty hectic pace and we constantly need to pack up and move on the next day.

Today we visited the Citadel (Emperor’s place) in Hue. Afterwards,we cycled to our next resort stop. It rained most of the day but was only supposed to be a flat 28 mile day. Then we got lost. Luckily, it only cost us a few more miles.

On the way we took a somewhat unseaworthy boat across the bay. Should there be water in the hull of the boat? It was like the “African Queen” boat.

We are both tired and looking forward to a good night sleep. Happy airport day Matt.

We have a two day riding break now as we are shuttled to our ship “AU CO” below. We spent an overnight on board with a quick kayaking the next morning. At night, we shared a dinner on board with Graham and Chris from Australia.

The next day, we were shuttled back to Hanoi to catch the overnight train to Hue . We had dinner in Hanoi first in a hot restaurant on the third floor. We had “Bun Cha” (soup with meatball & beef” )and “Nam” (spring rolls). Loved it.

On the overight train, we shared Cabin 10 with Graham and Chris. We were joined by Elena (CA) and John (UK) as we polished off 3 bottles of wine and some Tiger beer. Everyone kept poking their heads in our doorway as we were quite loud. A couple guys from New Zealand stopped by and gave us some moonshine (29%) they got at one of their homestays. Beth and Elena tasted it and after that it was time for bed.

Today our guide decided to scale back on our miles. We only did 45K. Although there were no big climbs, we did do 1500 feet in elevation but it wasn’t hard compared to the last 3 days.

We arrived at the Emeralda resort which was a pretty cool place with a huge pool, etc. Before dinner, we did a quick boat ride to see limestone cast cave. We are all pretty beat up at this point. Tomorrow, no riding. We head to Ha Long bay.

Today started with a hour long boat ride across the reservoir to our next starting point. We did another 68K. The steep climbs continued today just not as many as yesterday. We did travel through some nice backroads. The rice paddy field below with the mountains behind it was spectacular.

We took a quick stop to see a chopstick factory where they make them out of bamboo. The amount of manual labor used, the incredible speed and the mind numbing monotony was unbelievable.

The day ended with another insanely long steep climb.

Our day ended at the Pu Luong retreat where we enjoyed a nice dinner and rewarded ourselves with many glasses of wine.

Fun fact: every where we ride we are greeted with little kids smiling at us from the side of the road or from inside their house and saying “hello”. If I was to count, I would say this has happened about 600 times already…….and we are still not tired of it.

Today was the hardest day I’be ever had cycling. It was one “long” “steep” climb after another. Although this group looks old, half the group are very strong cyclists. Not everyone was able to ride the whole way this day and used the van for some relief. I did well until the final steep climb of the day broke me and I had to walk my bike up (the walk of shame). I think it was around 68K. I don’t know what the elevation gain was but it was brutal.

We all stayed in a Muong long house for the night along the reservoir. All of us slept on mats on the floor in the same room.

Hopefully tomorrow won’t be so hard.