We left Vietnam shortly after 7 a.m. and cycled through no mans land to the Laos border post. It was so inconspicuously placed in a bend that it would have been easy to miss it. But of course, we needed the entry stamp, which allowed us a visa-free stay of 15 days.
Information: The original language of this blog is German. Any other language is translated using DEEPL's machine translation (www.deepl.com), without proofreading.
Rain break in Hanoi and a week in northern Vietnam
The flight, entering Vietnam and assembling the bikes went smoothly this time. In the drizzling rain, we cycled from the airport to our accommodation in a suburb of Hanoi.
All around Taiwan
In the light snowfall, we pedaled to Fukuoka airport with the bike boxes on the luggage rack. As if we had never undertaken a longer journey before, we realized there that the cardboard boxes were not stable enough for our bike bags. We had to reinforce them with foil, which tested the old man at the wrapping machine with his rheumatic joints to the limit. This was because the luggage was too heavy and we later had to pay for four sinfully expensive kilos of excess baggage. At least we had spent the last yen and didn’t need to change any money😉.
Farewell to Japan on Kyushu
Around midnight, we arrived by ferry in the city of Beppu on the island of Kyushu. In a park near the harbor, we easily found a public toilet with space to camp. It wasn’t until daybreak that we realized we had arrived in one of Japan’s most important spa towns: There was steam coming out of the ground everywhere and the smell of sulphur was in the air.
Shivering on Shikoku
Until now, longer ferry passages had always brought with them a major change of scenery. This time, after a three-hour crossing, we were still in Japan and that was a good thing… because there is so much more to see in this country, like the island of Shikoku, for example.