Day 4 - The long and winding road

Today we headed out of town, and thankfully away from the traffic, to start our ride to Danang along beaches and through rice paddies and tiny villages. This is more of what I had hoped the trip would be like. It was beautiful. We rode for 40 km and after lunch we hit the Hai Van Pass, otherwise known as the Sea Cloud pass. You get the idea. It was 10 km of 8-10% gradient. - up. I just really wanted to make it up and I am proud to say I did. By the end, I was particularly aware of where my bum was located.

The beauty of what goes up, means it must come down and down I came, tentatively testing my brakes the whole way!

At the bottom of the Pass I was taking some pics of a rice paddy. I was getting down close to my subject, being at one with my art, when one of the other girls asked for some picture-taking advice. I was so absorbed in being at one with my art that I wriggler back to show her how to get a better shot and landed on my arse in the middle of the paddy. Excellent!

With me smelling of paddy field, We then made our way to the beautiful UNESCO-listed village of Hoi An. The buildings and the city are beautiful, but unfortunately the city is now geared just for tourists.

We had a sobering incident while some of our group were being measured by Hoi An tailors. A guy came off a motorbike right in front of the shop we were in. One of our group is a doctor, who ran to help. While Virginia attended to the victim, we were directing traffic (with bolts of fabric still under our arms!)and fashioning a makeshift spine board from a shop sign. There are no ambulances here (eek!)so we loaded him onto a flatbed truck and to the hospital. Virginia was amazing and the image of that man's face will be burned into my brain forever. Virginia suspects that he had an epileptic fit, which caused him to fall off the bike and to be unconscious for close to 45 minutes, but I guess we will never know. Thank goodness tomorrow is a free day.