Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City Motorbike Trip: Day 11 - Kon Tum to Nha Trang

I woke up at 6am, showered, packed, and hit the road. I ate phở for breakfast.

By 8am I was on the highway. It wasn’t long before I reached Pleiku.

The road condition was not very good. There were potholes and lots of rough and bumpy parts. Some parts were under construction. However, the weather was good and riding conditions were good overall. For lunch I ate chicken, rice, and vegetables.

I rode south through the central highlands and eventually reached Buon Ho. There, I turned east toward the ocean. I rode on small roads through farmland and then I got onto some really rough dirt roads that lasted for about 45 minutes. Then I came to a scenic country road that was really fun to drive. That took me all the way to the costal city of Ninh Hoa, just north of Nha Trang.

It was like riding in heaven. The green fields and the lush jungle covered mountains and rolling hills in the late afternoon were paradise. The road was curvy enough to be fun to drive but wide enough that I could drive fast. There wasn’t much traffic and there was a fair amount of elevation change. I enjoyed that drive.

When I got to Nha Trang I ate phở and a sandwich. I called my friend Jerome, a Dutch guy, from Hanoi. Jerome had been in Nha Trang for 6 days already. He told me to go to Mojzo hostel. Serendipitously, when I got there, Jerome and another friend Alex were at the front desk talking to Tuyet, the receptionist.

Tuyet saw Jerome and Alex greet me and then said that there had been a cancellation of a reservation at the hostel so I could stay there. We decided to go out and have a drink. I took a shower and changed clothes and went to wait in the lobby. There I met some Austrailias including a guy named Tony and some girls named Barrie, Katie, Carly, and Kiersten, Kim, and Catherine.

Tony came with Jerome, Alex, and me to eat dinner. I had massaman curry. After we ate, we went back to the hostel to pick up the girls and then we went to Wave Bar. I had a mojito but I didn’t finish it.

Then we went to a bar called Booze Cruise. There was supposed to be a buy 1 get 1 free promotion but it was cancelled because there was live music. I talked to a guy in the band named Eric who was playing guitar and he asked if I wanted to play guitar. I said sure. He said he would call me up later.

We played pool and drinking games. It was fun to chat with the new friends. After a while, Eric called me up and I played 4 songs. Everyone in our group was impressed by that and people in the bar were clapping. After we finished at Booze Cruise we went to a club called Why Not?. We stayed there until 3am and then I went home.