I have officially lost all credibility … especially with Gerald.

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Ride 6: 24.6 km and 838 m Ascent

I had failed to really study the profile for the ride which was supposed to be a 56 km loop outside of Dien Bien Phu. In my mind it was a gentle climb up to the plateau for about 15 km then relatively flat, followed by a screaming descent.

We headed out from the hotel and toward the “gentle climb” up to where Ho Chi Minh’s army had set up a command quarters to execute their decisive attack on the French. We hit the climb and right away it was clear I had no idea what I was talking about. It was steep as all get out.

We got to the top of the climb and Gerald gave me a hard time for being so wrong. He accused me of being wrong the entire trip. I would have defended myself if I could, but, well … he was right. Doh.

One thing about the photography in Vietnam is that almost every shot is going to have a power line or 10 in it. You just can’t find an angle where they don’t show up. When I get home, I’ll be doing a lot of photoshop editing to remove them. Somehow, I have found a few without the requisite power lines.

At this point, I have pretty much abandoned carrying the good camera in the pack on my back … way too hot. I only pull it out when we have a stop and the van is there.

The plateau at the top of the climb was beautiful with ripening rice and, to Anne’s delight, lots of water buffalo. In Sapa, they can only get one rice harvest per year. In this area they can get two rice harvests. They were busy in some of the fields which made for a great visual.

We stopped at a small roadside restaurant for a snack. There was a lady there running the rice whiskey still. Thao was telling us it was good stuff. He had her get a little from the still and we smelled. Holy Cow! It was super strong-smelling. Not a chance in the world I was going try that.

We got to the area that was the headquarters for Ho Chi Minh’s army and is now a big historical stop for many tourists. It had a big parking lot, so there must be times when it is quite busy; for us there were just a few tourists. There were some shops selling various things, from mushrooms to Indochina coins theoretically from the 1900’s. At one store, where there was a couple working, we asked what some of the stuff was. Thao said it was special medicine that when one person took it, two people would be happy (aphrodisiac). That got a laugh out of us; like I said, Thao had a pretty quick wit.

We changed our shoes into our hikers and headed back to see the headquarters. A lot of it had been reconstructed to recreate the original headquarters, but it was interesting nonetheless. The Vietnamese general who directed the battle at Dien Bien Phu was Vo Nguyen Giap. He was quite young when he was selected but was clearly a brilliant military mind. He recognized that the original strategy of “quick attack, quick victory” would not work and changed to “steady attack, steady advance” which proved devastating for the French.

Thao told us that we were going to cut the ride short so that we would for sure be able to go the museum in town. I was a bit bummed, but there you have it. We piled into the van and headed back down to town, took a quick shower, had some lunch, and then headed to the museum.

It was reasonably interesting and highlighted the history of the battle and all that led up to it. It was mostly a display of different types of armaments and dioramas depicting various historical moments. The main event was to watch the movie in the theater. We piled in and watched the show. It was an interesting (if not one-sided) review of the history. I’m not a huge military history buff, but it’s pretty obvious this battle has gigantic historical significance. I was super tired though, so staying awake was a challenge at times.

Next up was Hill A1. This was the French stronghold and the battle for the hill was the decisive point for the Vietnamese. The battle raged for 39 days of brutal fighting. The Vietnamese disguised themselves as locals and secretly dug a tunnel under the French, loaded it full of 1000 kg of explosives and set it off. It created a gigantic crater, caught the French completely by surprise and signaled to the army to start the final assault. Shortly thereafter, the French surrendered.

That night we were on our own for dinner. I am sure Thao was happy to have a night off from us crazies. We walked down the street to what looked like a pretty decent restaurant. The food was nice but nothing special.

I was pretty tired, and was glad to be heading back to the hotel where I could hopefully get some shuteye and let my legs recover a bit from all the riding.