What could possibly go wrong? The Bike - Hanoi to Laos Border

So I was back in Hanoi thinking of where and when to move to my next location. I had thought about Hue for a long time but it seemed a waste to take a train there and miss ¼ of the country. The only logical solution was a motorbike, I had also had the inspiration from the “Top Gear Vietnam Special”, but with no experience and no license I was very worried…

I had been doing the rounds in Hanoi visiting mechanics and shops, reading online and watching YouTube videos on “idiots guide to riding a motorbike”. I had picked out one I had seen a lot of, and bargained down a sweet deal.

It took me a week to finally decide to do it, and after talking to my parents and getting a “go for it”. I headed back to a bike shop I had found a few days earlier.

Today was the day.

The bike, a Honda Neo 125cc, Full face helmet, Side bags, Custom bag rack (design copied from a French guy), Jacket with padding, New breaks, Chain, Oil and spare tools and spark plug. Not to mention enough plastic bags to start my own convenience store. All for the small sum on $570 USD…  With a deal to buy back the bike if I return to Hanoi with it, for a reasonable amount.

Now with zero driving experience under my belt, I got a crash course from the shop owner, in how to start, stop, change gears, change the oil, unlock the wheels and all the other bobs. Then I took it for a test drive… yeap zero experience and I’m riding a motorbike in Vietnam.

After a overnight tune up at the shop I picked up my bike and gear and it was all mine. I took another 3 days in Hanoi to sort out some "personal things", and also to practice riding.

My test track was the west lake in Hanoi, it was quiet not very many bikes and it had loads of corners, bumps and a small dirt road section. Perfect place to do loops all day and build up confidence.

One morning it was time to leave, I was ready and I picked up my gear, kissed my girlfriend farewell and headed out of town.

So here’s what I learned in my time riding in Hanoi and the outskirts,

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Rules for driving in Vietnam...

1.... forget all the Road rules, they are not even guidelines here.

2. Dont be the one on the outside of the traffic (if someone next to you gets close they move, the person next to them moves, and so forth till the person on the outside hits the parked car.)

3. If you keep moving your safe, if you stop you will not move again... (one way or the other)

4. Indicator is a optional feature. Leaving it on for 3km while you drive is for decoration.

5. Cars will honk at you, it doesn't mean anything just ignore and they will stop... eventually… any time now..... See!

6. If you do nudge someone, just give him or her a nod and continue. If they hit you, expect a nod and ignore it... No one gives 2 cents about a nudge.

7. The police don’t care that its illegal for you to ride on the roads, they are sitting in a ½ beaten up ute and stuck in the traffic. Even if they could catch you (and they carn’t) the language barrier would be not worth there time.

8. Always give way to busses, they are the only exception to all things. They will hoke once then hit you… They have a deadline you know…

9. If a road has potholes go around them, even if it means going on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic at 40km a hour… just beep your horn and they will slow down. Trust me…. J

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I was finally out of Hanoi but it wasn’t so good, it had not rained in Vietnam (for me at least) since my first night when I landed. Today of all days it decided to open up.

It was bucketing down and it didn’t seem to slow the traffic, I was really glad I had taken the time to rap everything up in plastic before I left, the only thing I had forgotten was wet weather gear for my legs and shoes. Oh well… they were dripping.

I had ridden for hours, it sadly wasn’t worth stopping to take pictures as it was far to cloudy and raining. Besides my camera was sitting snug at the bottom of my side bag which I had not thought about when I packed it earlier in the morning.

After lunch I was ½ way up a hill when I was greeted by a cow and a carf. They had stopped in the middle of the road. It wasn’t a uncommon site, to see animals on the road but the carf was having lunch… while trucks narrowly missed the 2.

It was getting on dark and the weather was still cold and raining. I was now shivering and desperate to get off the road. I pulled in at a town called Moc Chau at a hotel. Took a nap and woke up at 8am the next morning… Guess I was tired?

The next morning the weather had semi cleared, and I worked out why it was so cold the evening before… I was up in the clouds. Moc Chau was a small town with a single main street. After breakfast (chicken noodle soup) I set off down the 1 main road. Its not like you can get lost in Vietnam, there is only 1 main road, if you double back it’s the wrong way… My goal was to get to Laos boarder today or close as possible.

The road I was taking was amazing, the weather had really cleared up and the road took me though loads of small villages up and down steep mountain passes and along riverbanks. With the dry weather the road also dried and I was able to get some speed up on my bike. It also meant my shoes were drying ;)

Along the road there seemed to be more and more statues and monuments to the people and the army. These were grand stone statues that would be placed at height and be seen for miles away. They have massive car parks which are deserted but never the less its impressing.

The countryside seemed to change at every corner, rice fields being harvested, villages and towns. It was amazing, I stopped a lot to look but it was painful at best to go digging for the camera. I had rapped everything in layers of plastic encase it rained. The best sights I did stop and take photos but I had to remember I needed to get to a town with a hotel before sunset; I had no intention of riding while dark.

I reached a small town called Tuan Giao just as the sun started to set. Pulled up to the intersection in down up to a jeep and asked the driver for the nearest place to sleep… he had a lovely uniform on, the local copper (police). Oh crap… here we go, I thought. He hopped out of his jeep and took a look and pointed at me, then pointed at himself and then up the road. Guess I should follow him then?

He pulled me up to a very official looking part of the town a big square with a orange building in middle and smaller buildings around the outside. The place we pulled into was a larger building with offices at the front and parking at the rear. Police cars were all parked at the bottom. A lady greeted me, “hello you stay here tonight, 200”. Ummm ok? What happened here? It’s the local police office but its also a hotel. The rooms were right next door. That night I had happy water and drinks with the local police officers. Neither of us knew what each other were saying but didn’t matter.

The next morning I had a early start, 6am… I wanted to get out of town and to the border asap as I was still a bit of a way away. I reached Dien Bien Phu at 10am the last major town before the boarder. 


It was quiet obvious it was the last place before the border as there was loads of police on the road, and in town there was loads of “official” looking buildings.

The road from here on in degraded to nothing more than a dirt track after what seemed like a eternity I finally hit the Vietnam border check point. It was smack on 12’ and the customs officers were on lunch break. 


After a lengthy 1 hour of paper work and bribes, I was through and in no mans land between Laos and Vietnam. The Border stone the only marker of the official middle point.

Next up Laos and the worst/best road ever.

Till next time have fun!

Steffen.

                         

Happy Water! Cheers! Remote North Vietnam. Part 2 or 2.

This is the 2^nd part to my trip to the North of Vietnams remote villages and towns. I have split this into 2 as it was to long to post on the website in 1 hit. Enjoy.

It was 4:30 in the morning… and the bloody roosters started crowing. I thought I might as well get up and go for a small walk.

30 minutes later, I ended up the top of the hill I visited last night, just in time for the sunrise over the mountains and to catch the moon setting over another mountain. What a beautiful sight, it was peaceful, not a single sound in the world apart from the bloody rooster crowing in the town below and the sound echoing in the valley.

After I descended the hill again I headed back to my hotel and packed, I still had a hour to kill before we were due to have breakfast so I headed to the local morning market place.

Please be aware this is a market in a country with no animal rights, and they use 100% of what they grow and product... Sorry if you dont like it.

The market place was only just starting up, but already there was pigs the size of dinner tables being freshly chopped up for sale. The vegies were in 1 part of the market, the meat in another. The chicken truck had just turned up with the bloody rooster still crowing *cheer* (more than likely a different but meh), and the fish market was just plugging the fish tank pump into there motorbike and they were ready to rock and roll.

I started my walk around the markets, starting off in the vegie section. The old ladies selling the vegies were all dressed in there traditional colors and cloths. This with there small blankets with herbs and fruits and vegies on was interesting. You could buy everything you needed for a nice dinner for less than $1…

Next up was the fish shops, I was very impressed that here we were 8+ hours via dirt road from the ocean or large body of water and they had fresh big fish swimming around in a small blow up swimming pool. Not only that but they had rigged up there motorbike to run and hot wired a pump to the tank to keep the fish water fresh and fish alive. Amazing…

Ok last but not least the meat shed. I’ve got a strong stomach and have accepted the fact that the pork chops we eat at night in AUS once came from a live pig… but for some people this seems to elude them.  To see a pig come into the shed alive, then 30 min later in all the prim cuts and being sold to request I found really strange and in a way nice. I say nice in a humble way because there is zero waste here, unlike Western countries where some parts may be cast away as offal (waste meat). 


Every piece of this pig was bargained and bought by the end. There was even the local clean up crew (dogs) cleaning up the off run of blood on the floor, and any pieces that may have fallen down. The meat was so fresh it was still steaming in the shed as they cut it up.

Finally the chickens. Ahhh yes that bloody rooster. They were pulled out like you would a fresh fish in a Chinese restaurant back home. I want that one! (points to the chicken at the very back of the truck). 
Once the guy had caught the chickens that had to be weighed. That’s easier said than done when the chickens are still alive, extremely funny to see this guy arguing with the man over the weight because we could all see the chickens where being pushed down to lift the weight.

After the markets it was time for breakfast, we had… Chicken noodle soup (bye bye rooster!). We went for a hike.

We headed out the back of Dong Van along a small trail, the hills had changed significantly since the last town. The limestone seemed to be forced out of the ground like it had pressure underneath it.  


The pits of the valleys had rice, corn and vegies growing in them as there was no possible way to farm the slopes as you can see.

After a hour of walking we came up to the local quarry, a boy not more than 14 was hammering away at rocks breaking them into smaller chunks, these would then be fed into a grinder to make gravel for the roads. 
In the back was his older brothers going the same but with larger rocks and 2 girls digging out the dirt and tipping it over the side of the hill. We stopped and had a go, it was a lot harder than it looked and the kid had some serious mussels.

As we continued around the hill we came up to a small village and a young girl (14) and a small boy (4 or 5) came up from the valley below. She was carrying a large load of sweat potatoes leaves, and the small boy was playing with a tire. Rolling it up and down the hill. They were shy at first but after a few minutes we followed them to they’re village and Sung (our guide) talked to the young girl.

As we got closer to the village the local school kids were outside playing and noticed us, before we knew what had happened we were swamped by kids. “hello” “hello” “money, money” “Bye, Bye”.

We played around a bit with the young boy with the tire. It turned out there mother died a few months ago and left them alone. The girl now has to support her younger brother till he is old enough to work and work the land. She cooks, cleans, works the land, mends the house, goes to markets… etc at 14. Her father is off working for weeks on end to try and support the family. Poor girl so young, sadly its not uncommon in this area as healthcare is far away and often to expensive.

We left the school and the young girls village and continued our walk around the side of a mountain. The young boy followed us for a little while before his sister called him back.

The view was now so far we could see into china. The hills seemed to roll on into the distant indefinitely.

It wasn’t long before we came up to the next village, this one was larger in side and perched on the side of a hill. The local village girls had been out in the morning gathering firewood and were returning with the loads strapped to their backs.

As we progressed down the hill we got stopped again by the local village kids.

It seemed the children would always be the first out and could smell or see you a mile away. Anyways before long the local villages had come out as well to say hello. They always seemed to V line for me and measure there height up against me. 


A old lady was interested in our cameras and a few photos and shows later we were invited back to her house for some happy water (corn wine, home brew moonshine, 50% stuff that tastes of nothing but has a strong kick afterwards).

Down the back of the of the village, past the local Cow, and chicken house. The old ladies house was a 3m x 7m building. It housed 4 men, there wife’s and kids.

She pored the “happy water” into these small Chinese tea cups and drank, never mind the mud and grim on the inside of the cup, the happy water would disinfect it. When we took a drink normally its from shot glasses so these were a bit more than the normal. But then something funny happened, she filled all the glasses immediately back up and cheers… and again. Then we took sips but this didn’t seem to matter as when she then cheers she would pore her cup into ours till it over flowed.

All this happened while the Men were sitting in the house smoking, and the children we had met earlier stood outside and watched us. I found a Yo-yo I had bought in china to pass time on the trains, and proceeded to try to teach the kids how to use it. This proved a hit, even though all the kids were to short to use the Yo-yo. We had one of them stand on a stool to boost his height to try ;)

30 min later we stumbled out of the farmhouse, but not before we had a nice picture with all the kids and the family. 


Next house down we were invited in for Tea, this was a more modern and the owner was young guy. He wanted to show off his house to us all and it was impressive. A concrete house with a fireplace inside and 2 floors. He forgot to build the chimney though, not that you can complain when its super modern compared to the other houses ;)

We could hear the driver of our minibus honking his horn on the hill above us, we had taken over 1 hour longer than normal but it was worth it.

The way out of the village was filled with more locals and more corn wine, although we didn’t stop. We couldn’t say no, that would be rude ;)

After we had some lunch we headed out of Dong van on the road to Meo Vac. This road is meant to be the most scenic and best kept secret in the world. It didn’t disappoint.

Cliffs larger than any I have ever seen, villages perched on the side on mountains and a river cutting its way though limestone hills. It was like something off a post card, we stopped at almost every corner of the road. It was only 36km long but it took us 2 hours with all the stops we did. I didn’t really mind it was AMAZING, and guess what not a single other tourist in sight.

We arrived in Meo Vac just on sunset and had a wonder around the town. This was a larger town than the others we had stopped at, it had a high school and boarding school and hospital.

The next morning we were off early, we had a entire days drive from Meo Vac to Ba Be lake some 8 hours drive away over unfinished roads and pot holes the size of land rovers. It was seriously fun!

All Sung's fault,
she "made" me do it.
hehehe (kidding)

After 3 hours of dirt road we came up to a small village, which had a suspension bridge. It was the only bridge in and out of this river island village, and I had to “test” it, in true Duelund style. The dude on the motorbike said something, which I think meant “thank you for testing our lovely bridge, tall man” im sure… as he crossed it and it rocked side to side. Ahhh one must play sometimes… sorry dude!

Back on the road we stopped only 45 min later. 


The road was completely blocked by a market. 


All the villages in the area had picked today to converge on this section of the road and sell everything they had. Pigs, Cows, Chickens, Cloths, Medicine Traditional and none Traditional, Batteries, Vegies, herbs and everything else that could possibly be carried was being sold. 


But the truly great thing was they were all wearing there traditional cloths, well most. You could really see how many different minority groups were her, and they all took pride in their colors, especially the younger teens which was nice to see.

After about 1 hour wondering the market there was suddenly a flurry of activity, the bulls at the top of the market were not for sale they were being bet on for a fight that would take place now! 
People were all rushing down the hill to see the fight, and before we could get there it was all over. The other bull had retreated unhurt and the crowd headed back up the hill to collect their winnings. We caught a glimpse of the bulls as they were paraded though the market.

On the road again, it was a long drive to Ba Be lake and we arrived after dark. Checked into our guesthouse and had a quiet night watching the “Top Gear Vietnam special” on my laptop.

The next morning there was another bloody rooster crowing this one must be jet lagged or something as it started at 2:30am….

So I did the logical thing any sleep deprived person would do… I found my earplugs and passed out again, till they fell out and I ended up getting up at 5:30 am. “Son of a Chicken” as a friend uses to say…

That day we went for a long walk through the hills to see the small villages around the place, after seeing the villages in Dong Van these didn’t seem as great sadly. The walk took some 5 hours and it was very beautiful. It took us to the edge of rice fields where the locals were in the process of harvesting the rice. Some used the sickle but there was a new faster way. 
A customised edge trimmer with a disk blade was the new thing this year. They had worked out a way to cut, collect and bundle the rice in 1 sweep of the edge trimmer. Making the work of many into a 1 person job.

On the way back to the guesthouse we still had loads of time as we were all fast walkers, so we popped into a bat cave to visit batman. Ok so maybe not, but the cave was full of noisy and smelly bats and it was massive.

That evening for dinner we had snails, another tour group had been collecting them and it was a local delicacy, so I had to try them… they didn’t really taste of much. L

Come out stupid snail!!

The next morning I was up again at the rooster crow, 12:30am… and it didn’t stop.

We headed to a small boat today and boarded it; we were to cruse down the river to a pool and a cave system before returning to the car and heading back to Hanoi.

It was still early and the mist hadn’t cleared from the lake and the mountain. We arrived at the fairy pool, it was a large perfect round pool which was linked by underwater caves to the main lake. There was a log hanging out over the water and I snapped a nice photo of Sung looking out over the water. The reflection on the water was perfect.

Back in the boat we sailed down river and past people fishing and through large canyons. We eventually reached a large opening in a wall of rock which was the cave. The cave had many bats in it like the one that we visited the other day and it was clear it had been visited by many tourist as the cave walls were all damaged. Very sad, but it was still nice to see. The rest of the trip back to Hanoi was long and eventless. It was some 5 hours along the “main” roads and it was nice to get to Hanoi.

As before this tour was very worthwhile as you can tell, the culture and people that we visited was unique and special. You can not fake the type of lifestyle and visiting tourist parks where you see the same/similar buildings just isn’t the same… I traveled with Ethnic Travels again and they really do a great job.

Till next time, Enjoy and Have Fun!

Steffen