The next day we set off to explore the region around Lak Lake. First stop was the giant lake.
The people in this area are incredibly friendly and relaxed. They all turned to wave at us as we passed and always had beaming smiles, yelling “Hello!”
We stopped near a rice field to get up close and personal with some rice plants and Xuan explained to us how they plant and harvest the rice, which is very hard work.
Our next stop was a brick factory. The workers there get the clay from nearby construction sites and mix it by hand before feeding it into the machine that shapes the brick profile before cutting them. The wet clay bricks are then dried in the sun before being fired in a kiln, where they harden and change their colour to orange.
The landscape around Lak Lake, like almost all of Vietnam, is beautiful. There are mountains as far as the eye can see and rice fields in the lower, flatter parts of the land.
Xuan stopped for us to be able to see this man making a living by selling chunks of granite rock. They can obtain a license from the government which gives them permission to chip away at the giant granite rock protruding from the ground. By hand, he chips away at it carefully until he can get large square blocks, which he then breaks down further into smaller square blocks that he can sell on. Very cool to see.
After lunch, a quick workout at the jungle gym in the mid day heat, then off to see some of the very cool waterfalls in the area.
Our Easy Rider stayed with the bikes while we explored the many different waterfalls.
We didn’t have our bathing suits and were in two minds about dipping in the mystery water anyway. Putting our feet in the cold water was a nice relief from the heat though. On the way back, Emma was fighting with the humidity and decided to just take a quick nap on the hanging bridge.
Then, we rode through some more beautiful country side and over the giant dam road below, which was very cool.
At night, we settled in Buon Ma Thout, which wasn’t geographically much closer to our end destination Hoi An, but we had seen a lot of fascinating sights all day and still broke some ground in this huge country. Riding it, you really get a feel for its size.
