RTG Hanoi Daily Dispatch - for website 2 - Flipbook - Page 11
27 January to
23 February 2024
Day 5
Đà Nẵng to Măng Đen
(343km)
1 February 2024
We’d had a great few days along the coast but this morning it was time to leave the seaside behind us
and strike into the hills on a path which was much less trodden.
miles of bright green paddy fields, leafy coffee and rubber
plantations and villages packed with sacks of produce.
the First regularity from Ðặk Krong was a long one and
took in just about every surface from a steel Bailey bridge,
loose gravel, broken concrete and good quality tarmac.
With barely an inch of straight or level road for almost
15km, this choppy and wooded section boasted multiple
timing points and several speed changes to keep both crew
members fully engaged.
the second regularity from Kon rẫy, some 20km along
the road, was short and sweet. it also had the advantage
of delivering the crews almost to the door of the golden
Boutique hotel in the sleepy little town of mặng Ðen where
we were to bed down for the night.
most of the rally enjoyed a trouble-free run through
both of these sections, but richard everingham and Judy
Becker’s Bentley found it all just a bit too hot and ground
to a halt with fuel vaporisation problems mid-way through
the first of them. once the old lump had cooled a little
Mid-1970s Porsche 911’s of Graham and Marina Goodwin...
...and Bob Harrod and Dana Hradecká
Photos: gerardbrown.co.uk
it was going to be a long day and, thanks to the early start,
a mist still hung in the trees and over the high-rise hotels
of the da nang strip as we once again threw ourselves
headlong into another vietnamese rush hour and over the
river han on the famous dragon Bridge. a time Control
and two regularities had to be tackled along the way, but
it was perhaps the wild landscapes of the old ho Chi minh
trail which really grabbed everyone’s attention.
after 60km we’d left the city behind and, from our
sea-level breakfast, we followed the song vu gia river
and began climbing towards our lunch at 813m via some
rugged mountain passes and reached almost 1200m. By
mid-morning the sun had burned away the clouds and, in
the corrugated iron shade of a well-appointed truck-stop,
a hot rally sat down to a picnic just outside the town of
Ðẳk glei.
the temperature was hovering around 30°C as we
cleared away the sandwich bags and climbed aboard for
the rural run to two timed sections which passed through
www.rallytheglobe.com
