The Motorcycle Diaries

Day One

We're loving the coolness of the mountain air here in Da Lat, a welcome break (because life is tough, right) from the heat. We have employed the services of two of the town's "Easyriders", the regional motorbike guides that Da Lat is famous for, to take us round some of the more inaccessible sites. Buddha and Noodle (we're not making this up) pick us up at 9am and are immediately tickled by Steve's effort to cultivate four weeks' facial growth into his self-titled "Badass Biker Beard", though thankfully not literally. We are delighted to find that our guides are probably the two most sensible men on two wheels in Vietnam and they whisk us through the busy town traffic without instilling terror in their passengers. This is some feat, we can tell you. Throughout the day, we visit some fantastic places, well off the beaten track, including some cracking temples and padogas, an incredibly serene hilltop monastery, and a gushing waterfall that you access via rollercoaster. Buddha (small and fat) and Noodle (tall and thin) turn out to be wonderful guides and it takes very little to persuade us to sign them up for the longer haul. The next day they will take us on a 2-day trip to Nha Trang, the long way round, and we can't wait.

Day Two

It's an early start for us but Buddha and Noodle are there early and leave us to eat breakfast while they find room on their bikes for our backpacks. "Don't worry, be happy" is Buddha's mantra and 20 minutes later we find our packs wrapped in plastic and secured to the back of the two "Vietnamese Harley Davidsons". Our tour starts with a visit to a museum of hill-tribe life which also contains some of the oddest taxidermy efforts we've ever seen. It seems that this fella only had part-animals to deal with and just glued what bits he could to make a whole. As a result, we are amazed by the spiny demeanor of the porcu-beaver and baffled by the bandy-legged badger fox. It's like a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong!

Over the day we work our way up one side of the mountains and then coast down the other (engines off natch) round jungle-lined hairpins with no noise but that of the wildlife (and the incessant and seemingly pointless warning tones eminating from Noodle's bike whenever it points downhill). We make numerous stops on the way, watching a family of basket-weavers roll out an impressive production-line, and visiting tea and coffee plantations. Whenever we stop for food, we invite Buddha and Noodle to order for us and they never disappoint. Tonight's main meal consisted of deep-fried frog and it was absolutely delish! We stop overnight in a roadside truckers' guest house in a town that apparently has never seen Westerners before, judging by the looks we get. Nonetheless the people, as always, are warm and welcoming and always armed with a smile. Where are the poor folk now, eh?

Day Three

We have some distance to cover today and it's a lot of buttock-aching bike travel to get to the seaside resort of Nha Trang. That said, we still manage a sensational seafood lunch and take in the process of rice-harvesting, as well as visiting a hill-tribe family who live a very simple life. We are sad to say goodbye to Buddha and Noodle in Nha Trang, they are two wonderful, attentive guides and great ambassadors for their country.

In the evening we met up with Amers and Kelly, some fellow travellers from our time in Kanchanaburi in Thailand. They are going the opposite way through Nam and we exchange some pointers and tips over a few beers. It's good to catch up and hopefully our paths will cross in Laos next month.

Blackpool of The East

As the title suggests, we're not over-enamoured with Nha Trang. The beach isn't great and some of the bars are downright pricey ($2 for a beer!!!) But we manage to find a couple of days in our hectic schedule to chill beside the pool before catching the nightbus to Hoi An, some 500km away. The night sleeper is a state of the art coach with fully-reclining seat-bunks. This turns out to be a bit of a mare if you're on the top bunk over a wheel, as you catch every bump and sway as the bus rumbles over some pretty makeshift roads. It turns out to be even more of a mare if you're prone to motion sickness, as Anne is, and it turns into a hellishly long night.

Hoi An

Arriving in Hoi An at 6:30am, it is bucketing it down outside, so we join forces with Irish couple Gary and Sue, to hunt down some suitable digs (girls drinking coffee, boys trudging through the rain). An hour or so and several buckets of rain later, the fellas find the perfect place, just over the road from the cafe the girls are in. Murphy's Law. Serves us right for mixing with the Irish... The rain, uncharacteristically, lasts all day and we manage a quick look at Hoi An's historic old town before retiring, knackered. The next day the rain has cleared and we explore this magnificent wee town at leisure. It's a magical place, with a great riverside location and ambience. We are in no hurry to leave...

Hope all is well, keep the comments and messages coming, miss you all.

Awra best

S & A

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