29-Apr-2007 -- 1st, 2nd, 3rd…and the successful 4th time! – Overcome rumor of obstacles to reach the confluence easily!

This is a great and full of surprised journey. We rode over 700km on 5 motorbikes and 1 car (13 members – unlucky number???) to reach Tuy Hoa during 2 days, that’s amazing street which you will dream about. We visited most the most beautiful and romantic Vietnam beaches from South to Central such as Long Hai, Ho Coc, Ke Ga, Ninh Chu, Nha Trang, Doc Let, and Tuy Hoa. We call this journey is “ Bath Journey” – “ Hanh trinh di tam”, because we experienced all kinds of weathers on the way: Sunny bath in Ba Ria, Wind bath in Ho Coc, Sand bath in Ke Ga, Rain bath in Ninh Chu, Dust bath in Ghenh Da Dia, Mud bath in Tuy Hoa, and then Fog bath in Da Lat.

We came Tuy Hoa at 9pm on 27 Apr (N Eve) as planned and waiting for some members taking bus to Tuy Hoa next morning to join with us. We had more 5 members in the morning but lacking cooky (key gps technician and experienced this confluence) because his car was broken on the way. We delayed Day N to DayN+1 to wait for cooky and hailinh and visited some famous places: Song Cau and dish rock bank, enjoyed special food in Tuy Hoa: Grilled Salamandar (Dong nuong) and Ocean tuna eye (mat ca ngu dai duong).

In the next morning, 18 members with 9 motorbikes were ready for climbing any mountains to reach the confluence, starting with the wining belief in mind. We rode 39 km beautiful rural and mountain-view streets to mountain foots, far the confluence 3 km, I thought that this street is really worthy to go for, even if we could not find out the confluence. We continued overcome a bad muddy road to reach the mountain foot, then guessed that it’s more difficult rather than the other way. Turning back to the other street and learned that this road is difficult too. We were confused to choose which path to go, then made decision to collect more information before climbing. We asked some local people how to reach “ Leaf Mountain – Nui La” and had a local guide to show us how to reach the mountain the easiest. People said that road to mountain is very easy(only take 45 minutes) because there are some Tay ethics families living there. We backed the muddy road difficultly, parked motorbikes, and followed path to the mountain top fast, distance of 2 km was shorten surprisedly, from 1.4 km to 0.6 km only after some walking, and then only far the confluence 20m. We took a short rest under big trees near some Tay ethics houses and look at some ripe papaya. We followed gps, used big knife to cut thorny trees to come closer the confluence, 7m, 5m, and then 0m, we reached the confluence already. Yes! Wining feeling of both the mountain and the confluence, and a bit surprised appearing on new joiners' eyes because we conquered this confluence so easily regardless failure and difficult rumors of 3 previous groups.

Some members still wonder “ Why could we reach the confluence such easily?” Join with us next confluence to get the answer!

Reported by matnau23