Go fast when you can, slow down when you have to and stop whenever you want

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Go fast when you can, slow down when you have to and stop whenever you want.
Saturday, January 17th. We left Saigon around noon, our bag strapped to the petrol tank on our SYM Bonus 125cc motorbike. Noon in Saigon, Vietnam, ten degrees above the Equator and thirty degrees Celsius is not the optimal time to set out on a long distance bike ride but it’s our usual time after breakfast and last minute packing. The TET, or Lunar New Year traffic was in full swing and the roads in and out of Saigon were backed up for miles. Thirty kms out of Saigon lies the filthy town of Bien Hoa, from here the traffic thinned out and we were able to wipe the grit out of our eyes and throttle north east for a further sixty kms until we came to Highway 20, signposted DaLat. We’ve done this before within the confines of a bus but the vantage from a motorbike was exhilarating. We’d left behind the eye level exhaust pipes and were in the hills and heading up. We could smell Vietnam; a mixture of damp fecund earth, wood smoke and the omnipresent smell of cooking. It’s a fertile smell that lives with you always once inhaled: Flowery edible cow-shit.
Highway 20 climbs up and up into the Central Highlands, the backbone of this long and thin country. The air is cooler as you climb with occasional cold blasts coming down from the shaded escarpments on hairpin bends as we trailed behind the odd struggling truck that lumbered ahead of us causing mini jams of bikes in its wake. The locals roared past these black smoke belching behemoths oblivious to any oncoming vehicles around the blind bends, I held my breath and waited for the moment were I could see at least twenty metres in front of the obstruction. The peaks of the mountain like hills soar above the cloud line and the landscape is a mixture of banana trees, rice and tea and coffee plantations. After 179 kms we reached the small, tea dominated town of Boa Loc. It’s a small town on a western scale and is situated above the morning mist line that settles in for the evening at sunset. The sun doesn’t break through the clouds and mist until at least nine in the morning. Bao Loc seems to exist because of tea and this is its economic lifeline. We were tired and filthy from our ride and decided to spend the night here instead of punishing ourselves with further saddle sores. Highway 20 cuts a swathe through Bao Loc and this is lined with noisy yet in-expensive ‘mini-hotels.’ On the edge of a large pond in the centre of town is a modern and fairly in-expensive hotel with rooms not overlooking the pond starting at 20US$ which was double our budget for the trip; we found another place within our budget with clean and comfortable rooms away from the highway and more importantly, a hot shower to scrub away the grime. With the smell and within the confines of our room it was like being inside a tea-pot; we slowly cleaned and brewed in the shower. On the edge of town is the massive and petrol-station rest services like ‘TamChau’, a tea and coffee distributor with a strong emphasis on tea which it sells in a myriad of packaging and shops on the forecourt. The trendy locals hang out here wearing their best Nordic style jumpers and ski like jackets and woolly hats; it was around 18 degrees that night.
The long and winding road; route 27.
We were actually saddled up and ready to go before 9am., it must have been the bracing fresh air and a great night’s sleep. The hotel serves a decent breakfast and the coffee tastes better and fresher at this altitude, closer to where it’s grown. The bike was working well at this altitude and in this European like climate, sunny, breezy and no humidity, a jacket is required. Highway 20 is a beautiful road; it curls and sweeps and grinds up and through the tea plantations which are dotted at irregular intervals with the dazzling green of an emerald rice paddy and is studded throughout with the overpowering smell of jasmine. The occasional road-kill is seen and the odd awful sight of a truck wreck, the crush of steel and rip of brick juxtaposed against the soft backdrop and aromas. We headed up and on to Duc Trong, 60 odd kms north of Bao Loc and 30 kms south of the famous hill station of DaLat. This is where the road begins. It’s nothing at first except a sharp left (heading north) from HW20. The first 20 or so kms are nothing special as the road meanders along a plateau and through small villages and roadside stalls selling refreshing watermelon at pennies a chunk. They’re a welcome break as the sun heats up on the flatlands.
From Duc Trong to Ho Lak where the road ends, this section of route 27 is about 120 kms. After the last of the watermelon stalls the road turns Alpinic. It soars up into the surrounding mountains, switching back and forth into the clean cold air, the bike screaming in second gear up inclines of over 15%. It’s a solitary experience. Not a single other motorbike or walker or car was seen for hours. I rode in the central line, happy that the bike’s brakes had been changed and that the horn was still working, beeping at every switchback and straining my ears against the wind and the singing trees; no sounds of oncoming traffic, only the frigid blast of the wind as it rushed down the hills and over the sheer precipices. The land is too steep to be cultivated, only pine trees and a few wild banana trees inhabit this place. There are no petrol stations, no karaoke cafes, no watermelon stalls and there is no mineral water for sale. The few banana trees were bereft of their fruit. In a country of almost 90 million people, it was eerie to have such a large area to oneself. The milestones (they still use them in Vietnam) read, ‘K’Rong No 64km’. I was confused and pulled over to study the map which placed K’Rong No on a completely different road and in a different province altogether. I trusted my own instincts over the skills of the Vietnamese cartographers which are notoriously lacking. The milestones were right. 64 kms later we rode into the hot and dusty one cafe village of K’Rong No. The local men were already quite pissed and red faced in anticipation of Tet. The serious drinking was still to be done on this holiday of the year when the locals not only celebrate New Year but have a collective birthday to boot and more than enough time off work to recover. The cafe was quite full by the time our coffee had filtered through the small metal one cup filter system they use here. The local youth had come to check us out. A quick furtive glance and they were satisfied that indeed, the rumour was true, there were two long nosed foreigners drinking coffee in the village. In the lowlands it’s a given that everyone will say, “hello, what’s your name”? and smile as they pass you by, but here in the hills a shyness pervades the people. A drink, a refill of petrol and some bananas containing small black inedible stones which took me by surprise and we were out of there and on to Ho Lak, in Dak Lak province.
Ho Lak, or Lake Lak in English, is a small village situated on the banks of a pretty cultivated lake. The locals are the Ede minority and also the M’nong. They live in curious long houses, built on stilts near the lake and made of bamboo and planking with a thatched roof. Under the house is a storage area for pot bellied black pigs and scrawny chickens. Also in the village were two other Bonus motorbikes, ridden by local guides and carrying overloaded backpackers. We were no longer on the lone road as highway 27 ends at Ho Lak. Boa Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam, built a summer house here on top of the tallest hill overlooking the lake. It saw extensive fighting during the war in the 1960’s and apparently was now a bullet ridden place full of ghosts. A long trek up the hill and we found it’s now a modern building site. On another hill stands a smaller house which is full of bullet holes and slit trenches line the area, refusing the abundant growth of the land. Here we found empty cartridges of a more recent shootout, this time between man and animal. On the side of the lake is the tranquil and tastefully furnished ‘Floating restaurant.’ We spent the evening here eating grilled fish, salad, fries and beer for 60,000 VND or less than 3 Pounds. A room with fan and warm water costs about 6 pounds. The next morning we left when the mist had risen and the sun warmed our faces on the banks of the lake. We had a short 50 km hop to Boun Ma Tout (BMT) although the road is in extremely bad condition; full of man eating pot holes and it’s completely washed out in places by mud slides. As the pot holed country road nears town it turns into a six lane highway, smooth and fresh and lined on one side with sparkling new government buildings; each one housing the different branches of this bureaucratic communist land. Opposite, outlets for Nokia, Piaggio and Samsung compete for customers whilst the party competes for total control in this land of hill tribe rebellions.
In a country that is fixated on food, BMT is practically devoid of restaurants and has one street that is full of hotels; Ly Thuong Kiet, all of which offer decent rooms with balcony at an affordable four pounds sterling (100,000VND). We got wired to the gills on the super strong coffee and then ran around all night in a vain search for a half decent restaurant. BMT is the capital of Dak Lak province and the coffee capital of Vietnam. If the surrounding countryside gives no impression to what it yields then the local shops certainly do, as every other shop sells fresh beans at around 2 pounds sterling per kilo. Vietnam produces a disproportionate amount of coffee in the world and is mainly responsible for the global price slump in coffee prices as it continues its grow and dump practices. The specialist coffee here is fondly known as ‘weasel coffee’. A weasel like animal is allowed to eat the unripe beans from the bush which are then digested and hence ‘roasted’. They’re then summarily shat out and cleaned and sold as said coffee. Unfortunately, these animals have been hunted to near extinction and the coffee now just depicts a weasel on the label. The other main attraction of being in BMT is the close proximity of Yok Don National Park, a mere 40 kms north west of town and easily reached by Bonus or even a motorbike taxi if one is without wheels. A couple of kms outside the entrance to the park is the very low key DakLak tourist village which consists of four small longhouses with thatched roofs, a bamboo restaurant and an elephant chained to a robust tree. The houses can be rented for singles, couples and groups, the restaurant can rustle up a decent meal and the elephant is specifically for hire at fifteen pounds per hour for up to two people. The minuscule development sits on the banks of the Serepok River which by all accounts is crocodile infested although none were seen during my peaceful visit there. Again, this is an ethnic minority area and the local peoples include; Thai, Lao, Khmer, Jarai and the dominating M’nong. The M’nong practice a matriarchal system and all property is theirs as well as the family name. The beverage of choice is ‘Rou Can.’ A type of rice wine which is made of various types of herbs and fermented rice and is kept in an earthenware jar and drank through bamboo straws by groups of four or more people who sit in a circle around the jar. The job of drinking certainly isn’t matriarchal and the men suck on the bamboo straws with a fervour that dates back to the time before they were a minority. These people carry themselves with pride and live a very simple life that consists of growing rice and until very recently, hunting. All around the Central Highlands up until 2002 the men folk could be seen shouldering some ancient blunderbuss of a rifle and sauntering off into the woods in search of dinner: weasels, porcupines, squirrels and sometimes bear or deer if they were particularly successful. Unlike the majority Kinh People, the minorities are poorly shod and clad and appear to shun the lowlander’s taste for glitzy accruements. Hunting, drinking and copulating seemed to be satisfactory until early 2001, when there was an armed uprising against the local government which culminated in over 1500 minority people being deported from their own lands and into the arms of kitsch America where they just might be allowed to carry their guns again. So now they suck even harder on that bamboo straw in the knowledge that they must work for their meat or catch it barehanded. Tourism is helping to preserve their traditional lifestyle but who wants to live with preservatives when a more natural evolution of their lives would enhance not only these people but the very ideal of a communal life which the Communist Government promotes. But time is irrelevant here and in the future, whenever that may be, these disparate peoples may have a louder voice within government, or their guns back, to practise a lifestyle that is slowly being eaten away by outside influences.
As of 16th April 2004, the Central Highlands closed to all who aren’t residents. Reports abound but it appears the minority population have stopped sucking on their bamboo teats and are demonstrating for a better standard of living.
The Central Highlands were reopened to tourists by the end of May and are still shrouded in daily fog and even thicker rumours.

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