So I have this elaborate and ambitious plan that I haven't really keyed Dad into as we approach the Ha Giang loop. See, it's true that I want to do the loop, but I'm also thinking that it might be a good opportunity to do just a prolonged ride through the entire Vietnamese countryside. I met someone in Nagano in Japan who had literally biked bottom to top on a motorbike and that idea sounds like a really good way to travel. I've also basically figured out the entire route, all the way through the countryside back up to Hanoi.
Anyway that plan died pretty quickly when we put Dad on a bike in Ho Chi Minh and he was like, "no, I will not ride through thousands of Vietnamese".
The first stop on that trip is a place called Mui Ne, which is a seaside location where a lot of people go to ride bikes along sand dunes. I thought maybe if we went somewhere that was a little bit more relaxed and less populated, we might get some good bike riding practice in and have the collective confidence to travel that way going forward. This is a perfect location since it's already popular for visiting riders. So anyway, we hopped on the train and pretty soon we were at Mui Ne.