Kevin was off riding with Michael at 5.30 with a sprint to Montgomery Golflinks. He said later that this was the hardest ride he has had, pushing himself all the way just trying to keep up. I told him he will kill himself. I met Jane and Nigel at 6am for our coastal ride. We headed up the big bridge and stopped at the top to take some photos. We then turned left into the fishing village, were we stopped occasionally to take more photos of the boats being unloaded. We then headed toward the sea and drove aimlessly looking for the coast road. Yes, we were a little lost and finally the locals are waving and directing us back to the main road. We travelled down the new road, looking for a turn to the left and the coastal road. We finally found a road going that direction and after a while we came to Binh Minh a small town. We went to the beach to see what it was like and it was certainly a nice wide beach with a few fishing boats, round boats. There was no infrastructure at all. We decide not to swim yet as it was still only 8am. We drove back into town to a local coffee place which turned out to be the pool hall with 4 tables of young people playing pool. I ordered a Noac Mia (sugarcane juice) while Nigel and Jane had the coffee. There was one customer who spoke a little English and he ordered for us. We decided to push on to Tam Ky, the capital of Quang Nam province. We enjoyed the ride through small fishing villages, we saw lots of fish farms and plenty of local kids riding their bikes. Once in Tam Ky we stopped for petrol and then went looking for something to eat as Janey wanted a snack. We drove up what we thought was the main road and really didn't see anything and so we turned back and finally stopped and went into a small local restaurant that advertised Com with meat. Turns out this is rice with pork rib meat, clear soup and small salad. Julian, Natalie's husband who Nigel plays tennis with had told Nigel about a small village Bai Tam Tan An that was on the coast and that was like AnBang beach was 20 years ago. We decided to ride back and try and find this beach for a swim. We headed out of Tam Ky at about 11.30 and rode for half an hour and decided to stop for a beer. We found a small restaurant on the beach in Bai Tam Tinh Thuy where we sat again on small chairs and had a Larue Beer. There was a group of teenage students at a table near us and there was one lad who thought he was impressing the girls by talking with us. They offered us some fruit, green mango, which was very bitter and guava, which was like a pear texture. They laughed when we screwed our faces up when eating the mango. We had been looking on google maps to find Tan An and worked out it was about 35min from where we were. We rode back to Binh Minh and past it to the coast and soon found Tan An. We parked our bikes for a cost of VND 10k and walked down to the beach. There were about three restaurants that had deck chairs lined up next to each other under their tin roofs. We walked past these straight to the waters edge where we quickly shed our clothes and went in. The water was very clear and there was a swell today, the same as has been at AnBang. We took some good action photos playing in the waves. It was a very enjoyable frolic. After half an hour we changed clothes and decided to head a little further down the beach to where we thought there was a similar set up. We went back to the main road and took many turns but all were dead ends running into people's homes. Finally we found one that let us not to restaurants but to a fish factory. They were blanching the fish in hot water and then laying them out in the sun to dry. There were trays and trays of fish drying in the sun. The smell got to me and I soon raced back to my bike to leave. We then said, let's go home so off we went. We were now on a road that we had not been on before and wasn't sure if or where we would join the main road again but after 20 min we found it. We came back to our house where we washed off the sand and sat with a nice refreshing G&T for the girls and a red wine for Nigel. After Jane and Nigel left Kevin came home from the beach where he had spent the day at La Plage. We still have no hot water so I went and asked Dung to come again and have a look. While I was out Vang had dropped in to bring Kevin some more pancake flour. I explained to Vang the problems we had with the hot water, the toilet in upstairs room, the air conditioning in upstairs room and the second wifi problems. She rattled of to Dung and it was decided that Dung will tell Tuh. We headed off for dinner at 6.15 to Cua Dai as we were meeting Jane and Nigel for pizza at what we call the hole in the wall. It is a store front with grill doors that are partially opened with no signage whatsoever. If you didn't know they made pizza you would not know what it was. We ordered and then went to the café a few doors down to have a drink while we waited. Jane and I picked them up and bought them back to the café where we ate them. They were yummy, with a nice crisp base and plenty of cheese. Nigel had even bought his own wine.
