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Published: January 9th 2010
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Different kind of Ha Long Bay
After seeing the rocks and caves in Ha Long Bay, we decided to sell the bike. The weather became too cold and the roads were too dangerous, slippery and very hard to drive due to high traffic and few visibilitty.
Meeting local brothel owner in Ha Long
In my search of a buyer I was faced with many different kinds of people living in Ha Long. The most weird one was a local pimp: after four hours of discussion we started to talk about money, then a woman from the backroom arrived. Note: As we observed with my wife, women are in control in many families in Vietnam. Anyway in the end we could not agree on the price. So next day I drove to Hai Phong (75km away from Ha long) with one local guy. He said that he had a buyer for the bike there.
Hai Phong
After four hours spent in Hai Phong and no sight of any buyer, we started driving back to Ha Long. On the way in local Honda shop we met one nice guy (Tony) who spoke good English. We went to Tony's office and negoatiated about his interest of buying the bike. We did not come to the conclusion, but decided to find business for importing metals from Finland together. I enjoyed a lot talking business with civilized people again.
First crash
After my idiotic "friend" did not have a buyer, he led us to a wrong way to East instead of North. I got angry. I was driving in the traffic ca. 80km/h and out of nowhere (as always) came some scooter with two men and a load of bamboo sticks, trying to cross the highway. I could not brake on time, so I crashed them. It was purely their fault, but still maybe fifteen local men came and started to scream at me. One was hitting my back etc... I was so angry and my friend was only wining up. After 1 hour bla bla in Vietnamese, I payed the one guy (only one) who injured his leg 15usd (all what I had with me) to visit the doctor. I still think it was not my duty to do that but I was getting so angry and the men around me felt the same. It was time to leave.
Getting out
My "friend" let us now through a different route than the one we took before, and this rout made us phase the next challenge. It was already 8pm and dark as hell, when we arrived to some small harbour. There were boats which could never enter even a lake in my country, they did not have any lights or rescue vests. As I said, I paid all my money to the injured guy. Now we were told that we have to drive extra 150km (4 hours) because we can't pay the boat and go with that. I was lucky to find a young guy who was working in the harbour, I told him that he could drive the bike, if he buys us tickets for the boat. After 15 minutes we were in the small boat, bike and us three alone. Going to the Chinese sea, I thought that at this point this trip has turned into a survival game 😉.
Get rid of it!
I still tried to sell the bike next day, but as the afternoon came we decided to drive back to Ha Noi and sell it there.
Road to Ha Noi / The roads in North Vietnam
I don't have words to describe how roads change when it starts raining, but I will try. When the rain hits, the combination of cheap asphalt and concrete roads which are covered with dirt, dust and mud, all becomes like ice. When you put your feet down from the bike while driving you feel like ice skating. Because of the bad quality of helmets and people driving only with headlights on, it is almost impossible to see the pedestrians walking without any reflectors or trucks and small scooters driving wihouth any light. I have to say that the last ride from Ha Long to Ha Noi was the most dangerous one in my life. We were so happy to arrive in one piece Ha Noi, and find a good central hotel called Elisabeth. The roads in North Vietnam are freaking dangerous, I strongly advice not to drive if it rains.
Deal
Finally next morning I talked with one young man from the Hotel, and he found us a buyer in 15 minutes. We closed the deal at 10am and were loaded with dollars and ready to continue to Shanghai, China next morning 8am. In the evening we celebrated the deal with the hotel staff, they bought 5kg of snails and a lot of rice wine with the money I gave as a sales provision to this young man.
Corruption
During the evening we talked a lot about running business in Vietnam with the Hotel owner, who was a ex volleyball champion. He runs altogether six hotels arround Ha Noi, and he said that corruption is really bad. Income tax and VAT are low, but people still avoid taxes because they have to save money for corruption. It is everywhere and due to that you can achieve everything, but also loose everything. The problem is that it involves everybody, therefore sustainable economic growth through small and medium size company sector is very hard to gain.
Summary of Vietnam and the bike trip
Vietnam is a beautiful country with many different faces, South is very different from the North. South has much more energy and postiveness, East coast is filled with beautiful places and North is having it's four seasons and less energized atmosphere. Money is in the South and power is in the North. I don't recommend to do a bike trip through Vietnam to anybody, because roads are probably one the most dangerous in the world. Still we don't regret anything and we enjoyed our up's and down's. Challenge makes it all worth, and challenges will be remembered.
We travelled altogether 4100km from Bangkok to Ha Long Bay, from that 3300km on the bike and 800km by train. We felt ourselves welcomed everywhere partly because of the bike. We could not have experienced so much by traveling with bus or train. But now it is time to change to nice clothes, wipe off dust and dirt from our bodies and enjoy China and Hong Kong (which is a different story again 😉.
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jyrkit
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Happy landings!
Real adventure! It has been so nice to join your trip with you in this blog. Many thanks sharing it with others. Have a nice stay in HK and happy landings to Finland afterwards (here you´ll find -30 Celcius, bright and clear winter with a hell of a lot of a snow!!) Best greeting to you both jyrki and anneli