Mountains and Motorbikes

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After a relaxing end to our time in Laos we took a flight to Hanoi - contrary to lots of stories we had heard from various people on our travels we were pleasantly surprised. Horror stories abound of travellers being scammed from the moment they depart the aeroplane to their arrival at the wrong hotel because the one they wanted was 'fully booked'. We left the airport, climbed in the waiting Vietnam Airlines minibus and got taken to our hotel... for $4 each, no problems!

It was noisy, smoggy and hectic and in many ways similar to Bangkok - a city fine for a stop over for a few nights but any more than that would be too much. The roads have one rule, small yields to big, and pedestrians are well and trully at the bottom of the chain! The streets are a mass of motorbikes, lorries, cars all going when they want. Red lights mean nothing, giving way is unheard of. But there is no stress, everyone moves slowly and consistently in the direction they want to go, and everyone else manages to avoid them whilst going their own way. Its utterly amazing to stand at a junction and watch... like those military motorcycle shows when they all criss cross.

We both wanted to see a bit of the 'real' Vietnam so decided to hire motorbikes. After a morning searching for suitable hire companies we settled with a nice chap at Flamingo who let us have a couple of 125cc off road bikes. Fortunately in South East Asia, driving licenses are rarely necessary - or riding experience either. On the morning of our road trip we packed up the bikes and Dave promptly learnt how to ride a manual motorcycle - a quick whizz round the block for practice, then we were off. Into the chaos of Hanoi streets...

The bikes were somewhat temperamental to say the least - and after our first break down just down the road from the hire garage our roadtrip began with over an hour of negotiating the Hanoi traffic to get out on to Highway 6. Once we had left Hanoi, the roads quickly became lovley tarmac (most of the time) with sweeping bends and superb scenery. 162km of wonderful riding later, and shortly after another breakdown, we arrived in Mai Chai village. That evening we stayed in a somewhat basic guest house which happened to have a traditional Thai dance and music evening - we pottered upstairs to have a look and were promptly accosted by 20 or so Vietnamese chaps who arrived in the back of a lorry for the entertainment. Turned out to be a slightly surreal night, we had no choice but to get involved in the dancing, downing shots of rice whiskey etc - was a brilliant night!

On Saturday we drove 165km to Son La, again on really lovely roads, save for the odd maniacal bus driver on a time scale trying to overtake on blind bends! We lost the ignition keys to Gayle's bike (bounced out while driving!) then wasted an hour looking for the key and failed. Then Dave had a brainwave - it turns out the bikes both work perfectly well with any key, and as Dave had a spare on his keyring we were back in business! After we broke down again shortly before we arrived we checked in cold and wet and decided to stay for a couple of nights. Its not the kind of town you'd make a holiday of, but was nice enough for a day of pottering (and washing of our filthy biking clothes!).

On Monday we had a long 192km drive to Muong Lay - the longest day yet but one of the highlights - the 1st half was pretty much tarmac winding roads and the second half was proper all-terrain and a lot of fun! We got very muddy and apart from a low speed tumble for Gayle and a broken clutch (better than a broken arm we thought) no break downs. The clutch cost $3 and took 15 minutes to fix at a local garage. The mechanic didn't have one to fit so used the one he had, and with a bit of angle grinding got it to work perfectly! Muong Lay and a vast amount of surrounding land is going to be flooded in 2010 to make the biggest hydro-electric dam in South East Asia - we think that because of this the town (and hotel) really don't care because it is a very unfriendly place, where pretty much everything was too much trouble! We met an English couple (Ashley and Ella) there who were doing the same route as us to Sapa, on the back of a pair of Minsks with two Vietnamese guides.

Tuesday was a challenging day to say the least. After a night of heavy rain, the roads were wet and, for a good 30km at least, unfinished so we were absolutely filthy. There are no other roads to divert around when roadworks are being completed, so the road gangs stop all the traffic to do some digging, then fill in the big gaps and let the traffic through... onto the dirt road thay have just created and around the diggers (and sometimes ducking under their buckets!). We were delayed about an hour through four or five sets of roadworks, before hitting the good stuff. The remaining 150km was the most amazing mountain roads with scenery which is just out of this world - lots of pictures taken but difficult to do it justice with a camera. It was wall to wall switchbacks with occasional tarmac and lots of bumps... wow! Very glad we got the off road bikes with good suspension!

We arrived in Sapa, which is quite a touristy town, and were mobbed by guesthouses and touts trying to sell us rooms, we even had one lady tailing us on her moped like a paparazzi trying to give us her card -"you see room, you see room" - really not what we needed after a long day! We got checked in, had a couple of beers and dinner and then met the couple from the previous night for more beers! Sapa sees a huge amount of tourism so can be quite a stressful environment... people (and children) constantly trying to sell you something. Its a shame, as the local area is so stunning it should be the most wonderful relaxing place to be. We had a full day here to wander round town but were glad to get away.

After days of rural mountain roads, we were back to earth with a bump. After leaving Sapa and getting back down the mountain, we hit Highway 2, and nearly got hit several times by all the buses and lorries plying this main route! It was mile after mile of lovely smooth tarmac and gentle sweeping bends. Great for getting up a bit of speed, but we didn't do much over 60kph for fear of what might meet us round the next bend. We had a long drive (nearly 200km), but did it in record time due to the good roads. We spent the evening in Yen Binh... not much to do here but we found a small restaurant with a lady who spoke fairly good English who really helped us out with our ordering (no-one in the less touristy areas has a menu).

The following day we headed back up to the hills for a bit of cool air and a days rest in Tam Dao. The area is very lovely, but unfortunately we couldn't see the views for all the clouds. At least it was cool. The second evening we went back to a restaurant we had had a drink at the night before. The lady there was lovely. She spoke no English, but did have a menu so between our (not very helpful) guidebook and her disappearing off to the kitchen to show us the ingredients we had one of the best meals we've had in Vietnam, more so because the lady was so patient with us trying to help us decipher the menu. Its these little moments that show us not everyone in Vietnam is after ripping off the tourists (just most of them!).

We arrived back in Hanoi this morning, utterly exhausted but completely satisfied that we chose exactly the right thing to do - the touristy towns were too busy and stressful, and the not touristy towns had nothing to do, so we spent little time anywhere and most of our time enjoying the inbetween bits, which were stunning. We have seen some of the best that Vietnam has to offer, its just a shame that we had to miss a lot of contact with Vietnamese people by being on the bikes. They have not been the highlight of this land, that land itself has.

We're not sure yet what our next step will be... will let you know once its happened!

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