Day 6: Ride from BMT to Pleiku. A day of construction

Day 6: Ride to Pleiku

Day 6 was a rough day of riding with lots of road work. I wish I could say it was my worst day of riding, but it wasn't. It did make it to my top 5 though.

I didn't take very many good pictures on day 6. The area between BMT and Pleiku isn't particularly beautiful and driving through traffic and construction makes me want to get to my destination as quickly as possible.

I can't figure how how to make time stamps work on embedded videos. Skip to 2:17 to see some traffic.

I started the day with some Janes Addiction and minor traffic. Getting out of the city wasn't too much of a problem, but there was construction along the whole route.

Driving through construction in Vietnam is nuts. My number one piece of advice I give to anyone planning on doing a scooter trip through Vietnam is this: Follow the people in front of you.

That's it really, just watch the locals, go when they go, slow when they slow, and stop when they stop.

There don't seem to be any formal laws when it comes to construction zones in Vietnam. In some areas they will lay down sticks and rocks to say "Hey! Don't drive here!". Other times, you can just drive through the active construction zone, just as long as you're able to dodge steamrollers, like in this video.

Start at 3:04 for a steamroller dodge.

Here are some of my pictures from Day 6.

I saw a bunch of these rest areas. Many of the buildings have hammocks hanging and drivers stop for food and naps.

A church with swastikas. The power lines look weird because of the HDR setting on my phone.

A random town

A construction area

Random driving

School getting out.

More driving

An overloaded bike

More Riding

Entering Pleiku

Random street scene in Pleiku.

Pleiku was an OK town. I found a hotel pretty easily. The hotel wasn't great, but there was a good chicken fast-food place next door. Other than drinking some beer, I don't think I did much else in Pleiku.

If you made it this far, I have some good news for you. I did do one cool thing while in Pleiku. I finally mounted my GoPro to my helmet. So in future posts the videos will have much less rattle and jitter. Unfortunately my taste in music didn't improve in Pleiku.