Phố Châu, Hà Tĩnh, Vietnam
June 16, 2014
We were up early in the 80’s motel at Yen Cat. I guess we are always up early now trying to cover these miles down to Ho Chi Minh. As Dani packed up our few bits and bobs I headed into the village on the bike in search of someone who could take a look at the front brake. Half an hour later I had it sorted after a helpful chap had taken it apart, given it a good clean and rebuilt it for me. Your never far from anyone in Vietnam who knows how to fix a bike. Some tasty Pho for breakfast later and we were saddled up and ready to ride on.
The road was a little boring for the for the few hours. Pretty standard stuff, rolling along standard tarmac that disappeared off into the distance. Then as we hit a cross roads near a place called Thai Hoa we got quite a surprise. There were beautiful churches everywhere. We pulled up and looked around and could see four spires popping up tall from behind trees either side of the road. So we went to investigate and headed off down some farmers tracks between the rice fields. These churches were stunning. Not what you would expect in Vietnam. I had seen St Josephs in Hanoi and it was decent enough I guess but these were beautifully crafted and finely painted works of art. I did some reading later and discovered that it is the French influence that started these off. Christianity is not massive in Vietnam but then again Buddhism isn’t exactly on display much either. The government has given some serious hassle to the Christians that live here to the extent where members of the church including priests have been savagely beaten for practicing their faith. Very sad but it also seems as if they are free to do as they please now in these more remote areas.
We rode around a couple of these to take a good look. Nobody in sight anywhere at all and we were free to wander in and have a mosey round them. They were ever so pretty and almost a little surreal given the landscape here as their back drop. It was really something I was not expecting. Before we knew it we had spent an hour just ambling around and enjoying their beauty and it was time to get cracking again as we hoped to reach Pho Chau by sunset.
As the afternoon progressed we were treated to another change in scenery and some much better roads to enjoy. As we edged closer and closer towards the Laos border we climbed high up into the mountains for some stunning roads and views. The places we stopped at to grab more supplies of water were amazing. Such warm and friendly people wishing you well. No English spoken at all but entire families from Great Grandparents to tiny babies would suddenly appear once they had spotted you and come over to smile, shake your hand and wave you on your way. Everywhere we passed we were greeted with smiles and warmth, it was beautiful to experience.
As we eventually descended out of the mountains we hit a fork in the road and for some reason in my mind when checking the map earlier I thought we needed to hang a right so off we went climbing up into forested mountains again. We passed a barrier that was halfway down and a guard station with a dude in there asleep in his hammock but as we continued we passed some trucks parked up at the side and other bikes so we assumed all was ok. A good twenty minutes later we passed some kind of military type guy on his bike who was dressed in all black combats with no badges or markings at all. He waved at us frantically as he sped past pointing us back in the opposite direction. Hmmmm it may be time to check the map and get the old sat nav out on the phone I thought. Having checked I discovered we were heading back into Laos. we were on some road that doesn’t even exist on Google maps….oops! We must have been on some back road border crossing only used by either military or locals. About turn it was then and back to the fork in the road. Forty minutes wasted but an interesting forty minutes I guess.
About an hour before sunset the land leveled out completely flat into a big massive valley with high mountains off in the distance. Pho Chau appeared in front of us and looked to be a half decent sized village with quite a few buildings and some more church spires in sight. Hot and clammy we pulled into a café and grabbed a beer to chill out with before taking a quick cruise around the place to find some digs. There were two places to choose from so we grabbed the cleanest and threw the bags in before popping out for some more Pho and a couple more beers. At this point I realised that again we had not seen a single other westerner all day. To be fair Pho Chau is a bit of a ghost town. It seems like a half decent size but I suspect most folks are out during the day working the fields as you can look 200 yards down the street and not see a single soul at all. Weary and exhausted it’s an early night again ready to crack on again in the morning.
One thought on “Ho Chi Minh Trail : Day 3 : Pho Chau”
You were on the Ho Chi Minh Highway. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was in Laos