Last weekend Sieu and I took Grasshopper Adventures up on another of their excellent local bicycle tours around Ho Chi Minh City, and it completely rocked!
This one was a serious step up from our previous Saigon bike tour to the Cambodian Market. While that was a nice 20km (11.whatever miles), this tour to District 12 was a relatively hefty 42 km (26.1 miles) spread over about 5.5 hours, with several stops.
In all seriousness, I'm pretty proud that I didn't stroke out from heat and I completed the whole damn thing. *pats self on sweaty back*
Click through for our epic route, pictures, and details!
Grasshopper Adventures operates in a lot of countries, but as I mentioned in my last post they've been really doing a great job of catering to the domestic market in the midst of this mental breakdown we're calling the Covid pandemic. Every week, late Monday or early Tuesday, they post a new set of tours for that week on Faebook, and you just have to reply (with your height, if you're renting a bike from them) to reserve a spot for whatever tour you want.
This is the schedule for last week, and they change all the time, both in style, distance, sights seen, and purpose.
You can see that this week there are a few tours to the Lantern street in District 5 - it's Mid-Autumn Festival season, so this is a great time to visit there (although I'd rather die than be caught getting stuck in that morass of evening tourists... it's a VERY popular destination).
They have long-haul tour/hike combinations (for example, this week they're going to Cat Tien National Park for a bike/hike combo!!) and short little morning rides, and everything in between. The demand has been huge and each tour fills up quickly - people are itching to explore and get active in any way they can. Bravo to the guides for meeting this challenging business environment so effectively!
We had to buy a few things for this longer trip, the most important of which were some sleeves, which were insanely cheap at only 20k each:
So far, I've been the only foreigner on the two tours I've participated in. If you know how to operate a bike with gears, you shouldn't need any additional help or information - just follow the group. If you have a problem, there's probably someone in the group with English skills to help you out. If not, Google Translate still works fine.
Here's our route for this trek, helpfully animated through the Relive app:
Super cool app, I highly recommend it if you want to track your long runs or cycling.
We started, as last time, in Tan Dinh (my home ward!), this time gathering about 6:10 and taking off at 6:30am.
From there we headed north through Go Vap District. I have to say, I have much, MUCH more respect for the hardcore people, especially the olds, that take bicycles in motorbike/car traffic. It is absolutely nerve-wracking and a major anxiety producer for me. The roads in Go Vap tend to be a bit more narrow, and the traffic is subsequently worse, especially in rush hours.
Fortunately we were out of the worst of it by 7:30, and about 7:45, about 12 km into our tour, we stopped at a restaurant to have some pho bo (beef pho), which cheered both Sieu and me up considerably.
After breakfast we quickly moved into the rural areas of Ho Chi Minh City.
Green, everywhere!!
It's astounding to think that these fields, dirt paths, and narrow concrete bridges going over tiny canals and streams are still part of the bustling city that I know and love, but they are. Butterflies and birds were everywhere. We passed farmers taking care of fields full of morning glory, melons, flowers, and so many things I couldn't identify. The air was so fresh and clean we dropped our masks and just reveled in it.
We spent several hours going around from field to field, through giant puddles in the tracks (there was a MASSIVE thunderstorm the previous night and everything was still pretty soaked). We saw workers making some thatched huts in the middle of fields, and a ton of men just hanging out in hammocks, napping, fishing, or both.
We eventually started making our way back to the city proper, with its street names, building addresses, and actual paved roads (that part was nice). We stopped once on the way back because our guide's bike had a problem - quickly taken care of a local repair guy - and then again for a break with some sugarcane and orange juice.
By now I was pretty soaked with sweat, but we were thankfully getting to the last parts of our trek.
We took the Mieu Noi ferry (where the wild alligators have been reported, but we didn't see any, sad face) across the Saigon River back to Go Vap district, headed south past Pham Van Dong street, and followed the alleyways next to the train tracks west back to Phu Nhuan. From there it was a hop and a skip back to our starting point in Tan Dinh ward, District 1.
All in all, another fantastic Saturday morning and I didn't die! Super fun, and highly recommended!
Again, if you're looking for a great time, visit Grasshopper Vietnam's facebook page, check out their upcoming tours, and choose one that's right for you. They are high quality and a great way to keep active and see more of this fascinating region of Vietnam. :)
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