Up Vietnam's Highway 1

[A few statistics: this is my 70th post! And, allegedly, there's been 5,226 page views in total. But many of those may be alien robots, so that count may be a bit enlarged]

Greetings from Nha Trang, the biggest, most touristy city we've been in since Saigon. A beach town, with an immensely long stretch of sand, dotted with Russians in Bikinis. In Thailand there were the French, in Cambodia the Chinese, and in Vietnam it's the Russians. Oh, tourists!

So here we are, bicycling north up Vietnam's coastal Highway 1. One of the top 10 most scenic highways, according to some reviewers. We'd heard complaints from bicyclers about the traffic on this road, but after Cambodia, riding this is a dream. Also, whenever we can manage to dip off the main highway for a bit onto one of those "little red roads" (anonymous but still on our map) we are all in glee. Stretches of white sand and painted fishing boats on our right, scraggy tall mountains to our left. So much to look at.

Yesterday we rode through church. Down the aisle between two sets of rocky mountains, outcrops all jutty.  To be that small and under your own power, pushing along in the sunshine through such glorious earth features all looming: wow. With bicycling there is such an awareness of movement and progress across the land. Approaching the mountains, riding through the mountains, finally with them falling away behind you.

Another noteworthy part of the day was finding 15,000 dong! This felt like an Easter egg hunt, in a way; we'd stopped along our deserted road--yet still with exquisitely tended medians all flowery bushes--to eat bananas and "see a man about a horse" and there ah-HA! was a little curl of money lying lonesome in the grass. 15,000 sounds so impressive doesn't it?  But really, this is about 75 cents.

Stretching my legs out in a hammock for a coffee break: I'd eaten a sweet potato, 3 cookies, a handful of charming crackers like pinwheels, and jack-fruit chips. Lady Elise offers me more to eat, and following is a characteristic example of me when I'm a little loopy from riding so much:
"No thanks. I'm filling, fulling...erm, becoming full!"