Motorbikes along the highway.....Phu Coc.

Having spoken to 3 Aussie girls at Dalat Airport about their stay in Phu Coc we were determined to see the other side of the island and the beautiful, undeveloped beach at Sao Bao. To do this we decided, in a rash moment, to hire a motorbike each for three pounds a day, complete with a full tank of petrol.


When the morning came we had a 5 minute practice in the drive, much to the amusement of the cycle taxi drivers. I kept mine in first but as soon as we set off and I went up the gears it was much better!! I had a pale pink helmet, Lee had pale blue. We looked like, 'Plonkers Are Us!'


It was a red dust road as we were heading away from town, to avoid traffic and junctions! We were soon flying along glimpsing the shoreline of sand and deep blue sea. The breeze created gave a welcome cooling as we drove along. There was very little traffic, just the occasional lorry that seemed to thunder by bringing with it a whiplash of gritty dust, one hell of an exfoliator!! It was hard to take your eyes off the road as it was quite uneven. I glanced up at two sea-eagles gliding just above me and looked down in just enough time to avoid, by 4cm, a huge pile of stones. There were grooves, holes and piles of loose grit in places too! We had to cross bridges with deep planks of wood laid down for car tyres but these were raised well above the general road surface, causing a different type of hazard. I wobbled my way across a few of these. It seems that when you have to keep straight it becomes very hard. I kept my eye on Lee in the rear mirror. He looked sweet with blonde curls around his pale blue helmet, his face set in a steely determination to stay on. Apart from the varying surface of the road there were the hazards of animals. Why did four chickens cross the road, especially when they were about one meter in front of me? The odd cow wandered off the grass and two dogs decided to have a tete-a-tete in the middle of the road.


We got off once or twice to look at the beach or have a drink.. At the first stop we watched the fishing boat hauling in its catch. They are keen to show you what they are doing. Half an hour later, the same fish were spread out on the side of the road and local people were selecting their dinners. How fresh was that? When we stopped at a local bar, we were joined by the family and our animated conversations would begin! They did not charge us local prices though! The land at the beach edges were being bought up and the fishermen were moving inland a little. It really is an Eden, but it will all change soon. Even while we were there the hotel next door were trying out two jet-ski's with their intrusive roar. I don't know what that will do for the fishermen, or, perhaps I just do not want to think about it!


We found our white beach, after a hair-raising drive on a pathway down to the shoreline. How I did not come off I will never know. We swerved all over the place because of the soft sand, and it was as white as the Goan beaches in southern India. This area was really undeveloped. There was one beach shack serving fruit and local dishes and a Vietnamese run compond with real dessert-island shacks, with fans that could be rented for seven pounds fifty a night! We had planned to spend a week on this side of the island but it was not our cup of tea.


As we left a guy walked past with a cockerll in his hands. My bike would not turn over so, he stuffed the struggling cockerel between his legs, which I considered a bit reckless, and helped me to coax the bike to a start. I had to quickly click it into second and I was off up the track again with Lee in pursuit. (Computer has just lost the other half of this so I am having to do it again. I am cheesed off.)
We were glad to get back as the bikes tip your body forward meaning that all the pressure is on your wrists, also, we were gripping the handlebars so tight we had grooves in our palms. When we got back we looked as though we had been down a mine but I felt that we had struck a blow for 'olds' as we had had a go. I have a healthy respect, of sorts, for the locals, as they tended to drift past with whole families on their bikes, babies in their mother's arms as they travelled on the back, and toddlers standing up between dad's arms, standing on the petrol tank. Young ladies went by weaving effortlessly inbetween the trucks, tuk-tuks and other traffic holding an umberella and looking demure. Ah well. We returned gloriously tired, tanned and grubby. Nothing that a hot shower would not cure.