Northern Vietnam: Hanoi, Mai Chau, Dien Bien Phu, Sapa, Halong, Cat Ba

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Greetings once again from Bangkok,
I've been busy traveling through northern Vietnam the last two weeks. My preparations for this adventure left me apprehensive as to what I should expect. I had read in travel books and heard from friends that people who travel to Vietnam often have mixed experiences in the country. While I believe this is true traveling anywhere, it's certainly synonymous with my Vietnamese travel experience.

About two weeks ago I met a friend from high school at the Bangkok airport. We had booked the same flight to Vietnam's capitol city, Hanoi, and arranged to travel the northwest of Vietnam together. We arrived late at night and had quite a struggle finding accommodation due to flooding in central Vietnam which pushed many tourists north. We were surprised with how quiet the city was, but had no idea about the commotion we would wake up to. Hanoi is absolutely nuts. It's been notoriously coined as the city of a million motorbikes, and that is no lie. I've never been so terrified crossing a street before. Any space a motorbike could possibly fit in, I assure you, there was a motorbike, and the driver was most likely honking their horn. In Vietnam, honking is a thing of courtesy, in a non-courteous fashion. In other words, everyone is constantly honking, to let everyone else know they're coming through and to get out of the way in order to avoid an accident. Drivers honk at oncoming cars, passing cars, people on the streets and for any other reason that could possibly justify honking. The best word I could use to describe Hanoi would be "headache." All this commotion was amidst the peddlers constantly trying to sell us whatever it was they were selling. After all my travels in Southeast Asia, I will say the Vietnamese are the most persistent, and in an annoying way. That morning we toured a temple, but my friend and I both agreed we wanted to get out of the city as soon as possible. We decided to rent motobikes and drive to the northern mountain city Sapa. The first travel agency we visited to rent bikes the woman scoffed at us and said, "No, take the night train." We figured we had no choice but to bike after she told us this. After all, it wouldn't have been a proper journey unless someone told us not to do it. Finally we found bikes that afternoon. The struggle was followed by a bargaining frenzy. We ended up paying $8.50 per day for our brand new bikes. This is actually a bit on the steep side in Vietnam, but we didn't mind because we rented from mechanics, and we were confident the bikes would be reliable. Before we departed, we needed some food to sustain us for the first day of our journey. Friends back home will be happy to hear that we found a little Doner Kebap joint. It’s hard to believe I haven’t eaten a doner since July of 2006. I was long overdue. And I won't complain at the price of about 24,000 Vietnamese Dong ($1.40) for two!

Finally we were off! I will say that before we left, we didn't really grasp what we were getting ourselves into, but we fully understood this, and were excited to find out. Getting out of Hanoi turned out to be quite the predicament; Bumper to bumper motobikes the entire way, unlabeled streets, and we really had no idea where to go. We were so focused on not crashing our bikes that when we realized we were not sure where to go, we were completely disoriented. It took us about two hours, but finally we were on our way west to our first stop, Mai Chau. This small valley village is nestled into the mountains in Western Vietnam. We rode the rest of that day and into the night. The ride was fun in the mountains, smooth sweeping paved roads, two lanes wide. It even began to get a bit chili; reminded me of fall. I still think the descent to the valley we slept in was one of the best cruises of the journey. That entire night in fact turned out to be one of the most memorable of my adventure thus far. We stayed in Vietnamese wooden stilt houses. We paid a total of $8 for a traditionally cooked Vietnamese dinner and breakfast by the owner, beer and a place to sleep. There were a group of kids from Hanoi performing some Thai dance, singing show that night. We watched them for a while, and then they invited us out to this deserted field in the valley. They had a huge speaker system set up with two bonfires. It was a good party in the field. It really doesn't take much to entertain the Vietnamese. This group of 25 year olds was having the time of their lives playing kindergarten style ring-around-the-rosy games and singing along to BINGO type animal songs. We had a blast watching it. It was quite a sight.

The following morning we woke up and had a long day of riding ahead of us. We drove about 200km that day. The first half was great, again, long sweeping mountain roads. We stopped for lunch in a city named Son La. This is the point in the journey when we realized we were entering some uncharted territories as far as westerners are concerned. People looked at us like they had never seen a white person before, and this very likely could have been the case for many of them. Finally we found a restaurant. Nobody spoke English, anywhere. Ordering food turned in to a game of cross our fingers and point. We got mixed results. We ended up with some Melon Hiver syrup to drink (I still don't know what this is), and some sort of goat scrotum with rice and greens. This was one of those times when we left a bit of food on the plate. We had better luck with this game later in the trip.

The second half of the day was when we discovered the entire ride wasn't going to be as smooth as the first day and a half. The road turned into a dirt/mud one way mountain road, which I would better describe as a path. This definitely stunted our progress. My best description of this portion of the journey would be to explain massive trucks barreling at us, laying on their horn, but not moving over. Basically the only rule of the road is that the bigger vehicle has right-of-way. This left us with the option of getting smashed or pulling off to the side of the road. Besides the trucks, we were constantly dodging water buffalo, oxen, cows, goats, and suicidal dogs. We actually saw a chicken get hit by the motobiker ahead of us. Feathers Flew,! but I think it survived. By the end of the day we were completely dustified. We were covered in grime, the front half of our clothes were completely brown with dust. (I actually think my pants may have sold as brand new soiled, fatigued Abercrombie jeans. I think according to trendy fashion standards, my clothes actually increased in value.) It was a bumpy ride. This is where I began to have problems with flats. The tube in my back tire had some serious tendencies to pop. The first time I got a flat, luckily right across the road was a repair shack. A Vietnamese man patched the whole in the tube for 5000 Vietnamese Dong (about 35 cents). This patch didn't last long. I ended up with a total of four flats, two patches, and two new tubes. Thankfully the last one carried my through the remainder of our journey. My second flat slowed us down a bit. It took a while for us to find another repair shack. Unfortunately we had to ride into the night again. We finally descended from the mountains again and stayed the night in another Valley city named Tuan Giao.

We woke up and had a more relaxed ride on our third day. We didn't ride as long, but the road was treacherous once again. By mid-afternoon we arrived in the famous Vietnamese City of Tien Bien Phu. We saw a bit of history there. This is the city built on the battlegrounds from when the Vietnamese dispelled the French colonial power from their country. Our last day of riding was the longest day. Over 250KM. Fortunately the road improved. I've never been so excited for pavement!!! We cruised to our final destination high in the mountains: Sapa, situated deep into the Tonkinese Alps.

It wasn't until we reached this town that I was fully able to appreciate what we saw along the way during our mototrip. I'll do my best to explain, but please inquire if you are interested. We passed hundreds of different hill tribe villages. These mountain inhabitants live completely sustainable lives. They don't depend on the government for any funding whatsoever. It was almost impossible for us to interact with these people because not a word of English is spoken in their tribes. Therefore, the only way we could learn about their lives was through observation. I feel like I have a good grasp of their lifestyles after almost 900KM through the mountains in four days.

The reason I made the prior statement about appreciating the riding was because I realized what the majority of travelers are exposed to in the tourist cities. Sapa is a highly acclaimed city amongst tourists. But it's not Vietnam by any standards. It was a great quaint little city, but it belonged in the Rockies, or the Alps as a ski town, Not Vietnam! The hill tribes in this westernized area were completely exploited for their talents. By no means were they traditional Vietnamese hill tribes. These minorities lived with a complete dependency on the tourist dollar. It is a form of poverty, but not because of the lack of resources, but because of laziness due to their dependencies. The minorities fled their mountain village lives and sought the city as an opportunity for money. But travelers are reluctant to spend their pennies. Many ravaged old women resorted to selling drugs in the streets. Some of the hill tribe’s hand-made goods sold, but they didn't earn enough to support prosperous lives by any standard. This is why I say I really appreciated what I observed on the road, because Sapa just didn't to a justice as a representation to the decorated lives these minorities lead.

Both my friend and I didn't want to trek to the hill tribes for this reason. The interaction on these tours better resembles taking photos of animals in a zoo than observing their lifestyles. Instead we did some climbing in the mountains, explored dry river beds, and started a mountain top bonfire. All in all, our Northwest moto experience was good. Again, this adventure turned out to be more about the journey than the destination. The landscape was astounding. In one word, I would say, expansive: Massive mountains which seemed to roll through the land side forever. It was very impressive and I really appreciated seeing it on the snaky mountain roads. For me, the ride was enough. I realized there is no better way to observe village lives, and explore the landscape than by motobike.

Fortunately we were able to take the night train back to Hanoi, in order to salvage one more day in the mountains. There was a compartment reserved for bikes, so we brought our bikes back by train, instead of riding 300KM more on the highway. We returned our bikes that morning without problems. I think the company was surprised to see us back in one piece.

At this point my friend had to leave to fly back to Australia where he had been studying. I said farewell to him and I was on my way east to Halong Bay on the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin in the Pacific. I arranged a budget two-day, one-night boat tour through Halong with a travel agency. I met some great company on the boat. I befriended an Englishman who was absolutely fuming about England's loss to Croatia, especially considering Israel beat Russia. He was happy to see McClaren on his way out though, just thought it should have been done sooner. There were also a group of Americans on board who were teaching English in Beijing. It was good to see some other Americans traveling as they’re few and far between in Southeast Asia. We enjoyed a sunset swim amidst the thousands of granite islands shooting up out of the water in the bay. Halong is considered a world heritage site!! (This got a lot of publicity, but I don’t know what it means) On the boat tour we explored some caves, both on island by foot, and in the sea by kayak. We enjoyed delicious seafood meals on board. I can't get enough of how they catch fish, deep fry them alive until they're tender, and dead, and then feed them to us.

After the boat tour was finished, I departed the Hai Phong Port to go to the National Park Cat Ba Island. The ride was great, more islands, endless islands! The National Park itself was very nice. I did quite a bit of swimming, hiking, and some exploring in caves. It was nice to be immersed in the relaxed island mentality once again, especially considering the constant hustle and bustle of Hanoi so nearby. The nightlife was great once again. Because I was alone it's always nice being able to meet people. I watched Liverpool's thrashing over Newcastle with two Irish kids in a pub. It was good to see Gerrard get back on the score sheet with an absolute thumper, especially considering the boo's because of England's performance.

My return was slow but the scenery was great. It took me the better part of one day to get back to Hanoi, first by boat, then bus. I found a great Backpacker Hostel in the old quarter of the city. Again, great company, which definitely enhanced the Hanoi experience, along with the Doners once again.
Now that it's all said and done, I really enjoyed my Vietnam experience. I've thought much about aspects of the culture, but I've had a hard time putting my finger on many aspects of it. Vietnam is experiencing an economic boom, in fact one of the largest in the world. Citizens are basking at the opportunity of prosperity, but it's still just not quite there. Political freedom is scarce in the North. Some aspects of the communist north are definitely still apparent. Vietnamese citizens are not able to speak against the government, police corruption is rampant, and the media is much censored. It seems as if the city dwellers are in a sort of deadlock because they're soaking up the transition to economic growth, but are uncertain about their political situation, and aren’t able to voice any opinion about it. It is still questionable as to whether communism has taken the backseat to capitalism in the north. The gridlock of conservative politics and liberal economics has left much of society confused as to its’ current status.

We didn't experience extensive anxiety toward westerners; although I think it were preferred by the Vietnamese that we not be there. It seemed like they just wanted to go about they're normal lives without having to worry about tourism. This is understandable because it really has taken over some areas of the north. These themes tend to be the undercurrent in the cities, but the traditional life in the countryside seems virtually unaffected by social changes and still revolves around the fields and family.
All in all the Vietnamese experience was eye opening. I saw the best of the vibrant traditional cities, the tranquil coastline, as well as the extensive ethnic minority hill tribe lifestyle in the mountains. A thrilling ride to say the least; 887 miles in four days. I experienced the best of travel frustration but it only improved flexibility and patience, which really seems to be an underling aspect in SE Asian Travel. But for now I’m basking in the peace of no more honking horns!

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Photos

Stalladaggers
This is what a whales throat looks like

Comments

[Jori]

Great Morning Read
Now this is the sort of thing I enjoy reading with a hot cup of coffee as my day begins and a few snowflakes start to fall. Thanks for taking us there, Ben. Your writing is once again revealing and enlightening. May the repair shacks rise to meet you and the mud be always at your back. Jori