Hello everybody, here we are in the most touristy part of Vietnam, which in the end we are not enjoying so much. We started gloriously by leaving Kon Tum and staying overnight in a border town close to Laos, where we officially entered the old Ho Chi Minh road. This part was the most beautiful and wild ride so far, riding through scarcely inhabited mountains and reaching the highest peak for us which was at least a 1800 meters. After we passed the peak hell started with bad weather hitting and taking us unprepared from a gear point of view. We reached this isolated village half a way down from the mountain, called Kham Duc, and arrived soaking wet. We quickly found an accommodation hoping to get dry fast but the humidity levels were so high that clothes stayed wet until the morning after when we hit the road again. Thankfully we were in good company as we were joined for the ride by a German guy we met in Kon Tum and a Swedish guy we bumped into on the top of the mountain. Rain stopped for the day and we had a pleasant ride down the mountains to Hoi An where the next day started raining again. We stayed in Hoi An for two days but didn't like it at all. I mean, the city is amazing and it is a Unesco world heritage for a reason, however it's been spoiled to death by mass tourism and it feels like wandering around a Hollywood set with many western people.

We managed to escape Hoi An and hit the road under the rain to only be able to reach Danang, Vietnam 4th biggest city, 40 kms away. We stayed in Danang for one day, taking the opportunity to fix the bike properly and enjoy a surprisingly welcoming and friendly city, reason being not many tourists are there. We came to the conclusion that tourism corrupts countries from an emotional point of view. I mean, Vietnamese are genuine and truthful by heart but the smell of tourists' money turns them into greedy beings. It was all confirmed in Hue, where we got basically ripped off on a daily basis by greedy shop keepers and street food vendors. People do not smile at you, do not look at you, do not listen to you trying to thank them in Vietnamese, they just want your money and suck as much blood out of you. It is really sad to see what we are doing to these people with our money, but the reality is that what we come here for (nice people and authentic culture) is disappearing because of our own presence.

That's the reason why we look forward to hitting the road and get out of these touristy places and enter the Ho Chi Minh road again, where minority people and rural Vietnamese still live with the joy to encounter foreigners. We miss their smiles and are tired of being greeted by blood suckers that are only interested in our money and charge us double or triple the price. Anyway, these things happen everywhere but it seems from other travelers 'stories that in Vietnam this is the rule rather than the exception. The country is getting a bad reputation at the point that some travelers are saying " never again.
To top it all off, in Hue we got 200.000 Dong (10$) stolen during a massage session!