Cycling Into a Landslide

The rescue from Khánh Lê Pass

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Over the weekend I went on a three-day cycling trip that started in Mũi Né and was supposed to end in Đà Lạt, with support from two vans. As you’ll read below, we didn’t get anywhere near that final destination. This post is similar to my July story about another multi-cycling adventure, though that one wasn’t ended prematurely by disastrous weather.

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After two days of riding up the coast directly into a vicious headwind, Sunday was going to be tough: 130 kilometers from Nha Trang to Đà Lạt, with the 30-kilometer-long Khánh Lê Pass - running from roughly sea level to over 1,500 meters of elevation - presenting a formidable challenge.

We had no idea how challenging this would end up becoming.

We started shortly after 5:30 am, the dawn roads of Nha Trang soaked by rain that had just stopped. The sky was leaden as we rode west, the rising sun barely making a dent in the darkness.

Khánh Lê begins about 45 km outside of the city, and today there were no views of the surrounding landscape: visibility was limited, with a steady light rain falling.

Signs of potential trouble appeared as we ascended, with the occasional waterfall roaring off the mountain directly onto the road, sending water streaming across both lanes - in those instances, we had to push against both the gradient and the force of water flowing downhill into the swollen drainage ditch. (Video by Nam Do.)

The kilometers slipped away, meter by wet meter, with nothing to look at but a wall of fog and the soaked road.

Near the halfway mark an SUV with a blue government license plate pulled alongside - the man in the passenger seat rolled down his window and motioned to the side of the road. The driver carried on - I didn’t know what that meant, so I kept going too. A small police pickup truck had also passed, but I thought nothing of it.

I then realized there was no downhill traffic, and I turned another corner, shrouded in fog, to see our group stopped next to a row of waterfalls crashing down the mountain.

There was a landslide ahead, and the police said we had to turn around. We’d go back down the pass, stop at the town at the bottom, and re-assess from there.

Coasting downhill, however, meant no pedaling to keep your body warm, and I started shaking from the cold almost immediately: I’m not sure what the temperature was, but certainly colder than what we’re used to in Ho Chi Minh City, plus we were soaking wet with wind blowing into our faces.

A few minutes later, I rounded a corner (again with almost no visibility) and saw members of the group stopped: one of our riders had crashed, snapping his bike frame in half while somehow avoiding serious injury.

A small miracle, as no medical care would’ve been accessible thanks to another problem: there was now a major landslide below us.

We were stuck between landslides in drenched cycling clothing with no reachable shelter other than a small temple with a corrugated steel roof. I was shaking uncontrollably and - luckily - the support van with our bags (and dry clothing) was trapped with us.

We convened at the temple with about 40 other people now trapped with their cars and motorbikes - half of us in the van, half in the shrine, which was protected from the wind and rain but offered nothing else in the way of comfort. We all immediately changed into whatever clothes we had, as hypothermia was a real risk in our wet cycling kits.

It was 10 am, and the only option now was to wait, though we had no idea how long for - there was no way up, no way down, and nothing else between the landslide locations.

The two traffic police trapped with us became our line to what was happening on the pass beyond the landslides. Cell service was spotty.

The waiting game. That little police truck would play a key role later.

The driver of our second support van, who had been driving ahead to Đà Lạt, was stuck in between two additional landslides further uphill. The slide below us was apparently immense, so our hopes were pinned on the ones further up being cleared.

This development was already making domestic news, with outlets reporting that both Khánh Hòa Province and Lâm Đồng Province had deployed heavy machinery to try and clear the pass from their respective ends.

Six hours passed with no change as bands of heavy rain and strong wind strafed the mountain. The most exciting moment came when lunch was somehow delivered by the police - a filling serving of rice, pork, and egg.

Lunch time

At 4 pm, word came that the first landslide above us had been cleared enough to allow vehicles through. The police would lead a convoy up to a store where everyone could at least be indoors - though the way onward to Đà Lạt was still blocked.

With half of our bikes in the support van, we loaded the rest in the police truck (which now had a broken-down motorbike in it) and everyone piled into the van.

The convoy headed out and conditions quickly deteriorated: the limited visibility turned into almost no visibility, with torrents of water roaring down the mountain, chunks of rock on the road, and small landslides that hadn’t been there when we were climbing up on the bikes earlier.

After a few minutes, the police truck at the front stopped, and I could just make out an enormous waterfall directly ahead: no luck, a large tree had fallen across the road. Everyone slowly turned around, and the risk of further landslides was obvious.

We returned to the small temple, seemingly out of options. Sunset was about an hour away, and it seemed plausible that we’d end up spending the night on the pass, though nobody - including the police - had gear for that. The wait continued, and all we could was wonder what may come next.

The situation was now all over local media - a national highway being paralyzed is a big deal. Photos of the lunch delivery had made it to VnExpress International, with one member of our group simply being labeled ‘a foreign man’ in a photo caption. (All foreigners are considered tourists by default in Vietnamese media.) All told, about 260 people were stuck at various points on the pass.

With darkness nearing, the police shared an update: nearby residents from an ethnic minority group, along with firefighters, local militia members, and other government organizations, had hacked a path through the forest so we could get around the landslide below us on foot.

Once across the slide, police vans would take us down to the bottom of the pass and the town of Khánh Vĩnh. All of the motorbikes and cars would stay in place until the road was cleared.

There was no other solution, so we loaded our bikes in the support van, grabbed our bags, and started walking downhill.

The police truck picked some of us up for the last stretch to the improvised trailhead.

From there, we could see workers and equipment trying to clear the landslide. It was only the following day that photos made clear the magnitude of the slide, which left rocks in the road so large that the military had to use explosives to break them apart.

Gathering for the hike out.

It wasn’t entirely clear how long this ‘hike’ would take, though it quickly became clear that it would be slow going: the rain had mercifully stopped, but the ground and rocks were extremely slick. Turns out it was only about 150 meters, but going down a steep slope.

Rescuers had set up a system of ropes to hold on to, and men were stationed every few feet to help us down what was essentially a controlled fall. At times they had us stand directly on their feet just to keep our footing, and all this work came after they had hacked through dense forest in miserable conditions.

Despite all of that, they were in good spirits - smiling and occasionally laughing as we slid face-first toward the road without a hint of grace. One rescuer even had me stop so he could take my picture.

After plenty of slipping and sliding, we were out onto the road just below the gigantic landslide: freedom. I got into a police van just before 7:30 - 9.5 hours after learning that we were stuck.

From there it was a quick drive to Khánh Vĩnh down the pitch-black bottom of the pass, where we were greeted by smiling police officers and officials - including the chairman of Khánh Hòa.

Food was waiting for us - the same meal as lunch, with no complaints from me - before the group got into yet another van, one that we had hurriedly hired to take us back to Nha Trang for the night. And with that, the ordeal was over - we were in the city by 9:30, covered in mud but safe. We’d return to HCMC by van the following day.

The rescue center.

As I write this, the van with our bikes inside is still up on Khánh Lê Pass, along with the other vehicles stuck at the same time as us. It may reopen tonight (Tuesday evening), illustrating just how severe these landslides were.

While that was a very stressful - at times scary - day, the kindness and hard work of various state agencies and nearby residents was incredible. Our lunch, we later learned, had been hauled up that temporary trail on foot. The health and wellbeing of everyone stuck on the pass was the top priority for both the police officers trapped with us and those across the landslide working out a solution.

It reminded me at times of the largely excellent response to COVID-19 here (setting aside the glaring exception of HCMC’s hard lockdown): sometimes confusing in the moment, especially given the language barrier, but always with the best intention and ample determination in the face of daunting challenges.

I would rather not have spent half a day going through this, but it could’ve been so much worse in multiple ways. I know everyone who was stuck is immensely grateful for the people who got us out. I hope they all get a good night's sleep once Khánh Lê is back open.

Back in civilization looking rather uncivilized.