Today is the queen stage of the trip. For those of you who do not follow bike racing, that means it’s the hardest stage of the tour.

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Ride 5: 97.36 km and 1985 m of ascent

There were two categorized climbs on this stage and a bunch of short-sharpies. We said goodbye to all the other guests at the hotel (which meant nobody) and after an easy 15 km of flat riding out of Muong Lay, we started to climb.

There was a brutal 15% section of road just before the top of the first saddle. The support van was waiting at the top, so I stopped my relentless attack to stay ahead of Tadej (Anne) and opted for a drink and snack instead. I have become accustomed to showing up at these little spots that are people’s houses and shops where people, kids, dogs, cats, chickens, and whatnots are wandering around and just settling myself in to the flow. We usually cause a commotion for a few minutes and then life just goes back to normal. Some foreigners in bike kits, meh. Whatever.

I headed out for the final push up the climb. There was a split in the road with the new/under construction part closed, so I headed down the rougher, older section. As I rode I could see the newer section rising steadily above me and being the math wiz that I am I could tell that there was trouble ahead for me on the old route. It came in the form of some crazy steep section that would bring the roads back together. Yep. Another brutal 15% to the top.

The van, of course, was there waiting. I am so used to doing long, unsupported rides on my own that the constant availability of support is a bit odd. That, and the constant stopping and starting is hard on the system. But hey, sure, I’ll take another one of those tasty crackers.

There were some ladies at the top selling veggies and other produce. Thao got all excited because they had these small plum-like things. He said they were awesome. He gave me one. They were terrible. You got a nice little sour taste when you first bit into them, but then it just turned into a dry, fibrous, chalky wad in your mouth. He bought a bunch and offered me more. I declined.

We started the descent down the first big climb. Thao pulled over and said we were going to go visit another local home. There was a tied-up dog barking pretty aggressively, so Thao shouted out and the man came out of the house. They chatted for a while and then he motioned for us to come with him.

It was a pretty typical house, similar to others we’d seen before. One area for cooking and storage, another for sleeping and prayers. The smoke in the cooking room was pretty bad and burned your eyes almost immediately. This just appears to be something they accept and they don’t seem to put chimneys on the cooking fires.

We continued on down the gentle descent into the valley. It was mostly easy riding with lovely views. There were some steep little climbs to get up and over, but mostly it was cruising.

We were going through one small little town and Thao pulled over and excitedly said “It’s a wedding, go take some pictures!” There were probably 30 or 40 people in a covered area that were having some kind of big celebration. I grabbed the camera and went inside and started taking pictures of everyone. There was one woman in a beautiful dress of traditional clothes that was happy to have her picture taken.

It turns out it wasn’t a wedding after all. Some community celebration about something. I wasn’t totally clear, but a blog title of “The Queen and some party about something” really didn’t seem to have a lot of marketing punch.

Anne commented to me that she was amazed that I would just run into a random party with my camera and start taking pictures of people. I told her that a week ago I would have never had the courage to do that, but between Son in Hanoi and Thao it had totally transformed how I approached this type of photography. I am really grateful as some of the images have been awesome. The trick of always showing people the image is amazing. Outside of a couple of missteps, the response from people has been great.

It was incredibly hot by the time we hit the last climb of the day. Again, it didn’t look that bad on paper but proved to be harder than expected with a number of 12% ramps. It wasn’t a particularly scenic climb either which didn’t help my mindset on the climb. At the top, there was a huge construction zone that was loud and dusty. Anne, and I were waiting for the others there. Roland showed up and said “this place is schite, let’s move down past the construction zone.” So we did. Good call.

We all regrouped and had a few snacks. There were a lot of bikers coming up the climb on what looked to be pretty nice bikes. They were clearly out for a ride. I waved at one guy going by and after he passed, he must have thought about it and come back to us and asked if he could get our picture. Turn about is fair play!

The rest of the ride was an easy descent into Dien Bien Phu. It was a Saturday and there was a parade of bikes up the hill, some of them pretty high-end. Clearly, Dien Bien Phu has a big cycling community of hammerheads. Outside of navigating a bit of traffic in the town we arrived at the hotel all in one piece. This hotel was not empty. It was pretty busy with tour buses. It looked lovely and had a gorgeous pool.

We checked in, I put my swim suit on and headed down for a dip. We had finished the Queen stage and I felt pretty good considering all the climbing over the last 5 days.