In case you missed the last chapter, I just finished racing to the border with an Israeli girl who's Laotian visa expired the previous day and a Canadian who still had 2 days before her Vietnam visa was valid and not a cent on her in any currency. The border crossing was ludicrously complicated - there were a series of 5 thatch huts set up and we were directed to each of them one or more times in no particular order; they seemed a bit wary of my passport which was now more waterlogged than ever but I was the first one through. As I sat nearby and waited for the other two, I was repeatedly pulled back by the bored guards (this isn't one of the more popular crossings) for further tests. We were fairly certain that the Canadian, without a cent in any currency to offer up as a bribe, would be spending a day and 2 nights in the neutral zone, but after some 20 minutes of questioning, they realized she could drive them nuts if she hung out there for 36 hours and opted to send her on with 2 free days.
From the very first moment I stepped across the border, I was faced with the grim reality that all the languages I had learned up to this point were virtually useless - I was once more one of those stupid tourists who waltzes around, speaking only English, and expecting everyone to understand. No one spoke a bit of Lao and since tourists didn't typically use this particular access points, we were a few hundred kilometers from the nearest English-speaking person. We thus began an ultra-intensive 24-hour course in Vietnamese that ran the gamut from transport, to times, to avoiding restaurants which serve dog.
The consensus was that all the buses for that day had already left so we could either stay in the ever-exciting border village overnight or hire motorbikes to a town where we could presumably find a way to Hanoi. The Canadian, who was still many leagues from the nearest bank that would change travellers cheques and was still using my money, opted for the more expensive latter option. I attempted to use my rapidly developing language skills to get transport in the back of a wood truck that was potentially heading for Hanoi, but I think hitching a ride atop a pile of wood is a difficult idea to convey even if fluent. We didn't remember the name of the town we needed to go to but some helpful motorcycle drivers said they would take us to the bus stop in Quan Son for $7 a person.
We had an extremely terrifying, yet scenic ride along a mountain road following the course of the river. After about 30km, the drivers stopped in some random village and insisted that we had arrived at our destination; they pointed to an unmarked van and said that the bus to Hanoi would cost $150. This seemed a little suspect and we held off on snatching out our wallets to pay them for their valuable service. They were greatly preturbed by this but eventually said that they would take us to the real Quan Son; infuriated by our unwillingness to be ripped off, they drove the remaining 20km even more recklessly than they had the previous stretch. When we reached the town, we found that the last bus of the day had apparently left some time before; not a single person in town spoke a word of English, so it was impossible to decide where we had ended up and whether this was the place we had intended to go; the drivers grew impatient and kidnapped the girls' luggage - with only my usual tiny bag, I was tempted to just start hitching, but in the end I paid the bill and the crooks went racing back to whence they came.
After asking around, we found that this wasn't exactly a hot tourist spot and there wasn't a single hotel in town. A local woman who seemed friendly enough but later turned out to be an evil witch invited us to stay at her house - this was a boarded up shack on the main strip of town and we were to stay in the backroom where a couple of wooden boards sat on top of old automotive parts. We didn't know enough Vietnamese to politely reject this, so we just went along with it; we also didn't know how to say we wanted to walk around town, so I said we wanted to go to a restaurant - she responded to this by insisting that we eat her home-cooking instead and she brought us three microwaveable bowls of instant noodle soup (with vegetable flavour packets!) - thus our first experience in Vietnamese cuisine was truly memorable.
We wandered around and talked to random villagers; the younger children were the only ones who knew even a trace of English, but everyone cheerfully chatted with us in speedy Vietnamese as if we could understand a word they said. For dinner we went to a random restaurant and pointed to some dish listed in the guidebook. The whole family came to sit and chat with us as we ate - the father was a drunken pervert who for the most part rambled away without the least concern for our linguistic tendencies, but did use graphic hand symbols to first congratulate me on having two hot girlfriends simultaneously and then to ask if I wanted to hook up with his daughter.
The girls took their showers using a bucket in a store across from our shack and we settled in our cozy lodging around 8 for a long, painful night with the sounds of car horns and scurrying rats always in good supply. At 4 in the morning, our host put us on a bus going in precisely the opposite direction from where we wanted to go; there was apparently a bus that left half an hour later and went directly to Hanoi but she didn't get a cut from this and no one was around at the time to point us in the right direction.
The bus sped through the mountain villages, blaring its horn the whole way, waking up anyone foolish enough to be sleeping in the last few hours before dawn. When we were about 10km from the endpoint of Thanh Hoa, the operators demanded a fare of 100,000 ($1US=15900VND) from each of us; we discussed this with our fellow passengers and found that the actual fare was 40,000. When we said we would pay no more than the real price, the driver stopped the bus and told us we would have to walk; we went along with this, but seeing that we weren't jumping to pay him for getting us that far, he followed us out with his cronies, and, while the rest of the bus waited, they argued with us for 15 minutes about why we weren't willing to pay three times the normal price. For some reason, the Israeli reboarded the bus and we had no choice but to follow her back into the fire.
When we reached the bus station all the other passengers disembarked and the 4 operators sealed the door, held the girls' bag hostage and demanded that we pay the full amount (their newest argument was that the extra 180000 was for our excellent accomodation). I tried shouting the words for "police" and "help" out the windows but no one came to our aid. At one point, the Israeli and I both had our stuff and were ready to jump out open windows - they probably would have let the Canadian go once they realized just how worthless she was. The final solution was become physically violent - the Canadian grabbed her bag and I cleared the door; intimidated by our superior size, the thieves immediately cowered away.
Our next task was to find a bank that would take a $100 American Express cheque; we found a strip of about six banks with two ATMs, but each one just looked at the bizarre document suspiciously and refused to give her a penny. I had a wrinkled US$20 bill which the first two banks rejected but a third grudgingly accepted after subjecting it to various ultraviolet and chemical tests. We ate lunch at a restaurant which just gave us random, uncooked things they had sitting around the shop, and with only a few dong to spare, got a first class bus 2 hours north to the capitol city.
Hanoi
Arriving in Hanoi, we set out looking for a guesthouse; when we were nearly to the cheap section, a tout stopped us and offered us a plush room with TV and AC for only $6 a night; as she had apparently done on several previous occasions, the Canadian insisted that we immediately follow the guy clear across town to the advertised property. Amazingly, it turned out not to be the room or price advertised and so we ended up marching a few kilometers back to find a place in the main tourist sector with unlimited internet and lemon juice for the staggering price of $12/night.
Hanoi is a great city, with tasty food, lots of cultural attractions, and a few really big turtles. The girls were desperate to get back to western food (having been cruelly deprived of it in eastern Laos), but I sampled such scrumptious snacks as eel soup, shrimp cheese rice, and many other things I couldn't really identify. It's a fun town to walk through as there are virtually no cars, only mighty swarms of motorbikes and bicycles; there is never an interval without traffic, so rather than darting across the road at an opportune time, you simply walk deliberately across whenever you feel like and pray that the drivers will successfully swerve to avoid you. One night I visited the famous Water Puppet Theatre which featured the puppet versions of fire-breathing dragons, bong-smoking fisherman and peacock sex all performed in a swimming pool to the beat of traditional folk music.
On the second morning, the girls decided to jump on a trip to Halong Bay to sail around the islands and trek through the national park. It was all too tempting for me to jump on this as well and enjoy a few leisurely days of sailing, swimming, and caving, but in the end, it all seemed to easy, and I instead opted to rent a bike for a week-long northern circuit.
I read somewhere that the best bike for tackling the mountains was the Russian Minsk. So I went to a booking agency and requested just that. This turned out to be a beast of a machine which stood half a meter higher than the standard scooter, took mixed fuel, belted out huge clouds of greenish smoke and came with a frightening bundle of spare parts; another interesting aspect was the fact that it didn't use any sort of key - this was a bit troubling given the "Pay $600 if stolen" clause. After filling out all the paperwork, I determined that there was no possible way I could safely drive this thing and tried to back out; rather than return my money, the shop owner did some quick thinking and ran out and stole some little girl's 100cc bike. This thing had large, colorful decals and made bird noises whenever you used the turn signal, but seemed easy enough to use.
I wrestled through the streets of Hanoi and was soon on the highway east to Halong City. The way was mostly flat farmland but there were also the typically Asian random cliffs jumping out of the earth. Along the way I had the extremely fortunate opportunity to observe a duck farmer hearding a crowd of 50 ducks down the road. About 50km into the trip, I began to take notice that the gas needle wasn't moving at all; at the time I figured I had really excellent gas mileage; at 100km, I began to think that I had infinite gas mileage, but shortly after the engine sputtered and died and I drifted to a stop in front of a roadside snackstand; the owners were overjoyed to see me and immediately volunteered to get me a liter of gas for only double the usual price.
Halong
My naive line of thinking was that I could show up at Halong City and hordes of tourists would be jumping on boats at all hours of the day to see the bay. Unfortunately, Lonely Planet had published a statement in their recent editions that there was no reason to come to this town, and when I arrived, it was virtually empty. I had believed myself to be relatively secure from touts when perched on my motorbike but here they simply rode after me, shouting back descriptions of their tours and flinging business cards toward my face; despite my attempts to evade him, one hotel worker chased me for half an hour down a maze of narrow alleys and over a few mountains - in the end, I conceded to look at his $5 room. Though the hotel was completely empty (and judging by the rust in the toilet, had been that way for a few months now), the room was decent enough. I wandered around town and found that there was nothing like the tour infrastructure I had expected - it almost looked as if I would need to organize one through a Hanoi agency and meet up with them when they arrived in town.
I went to the harbour in the morning and looked for the first boat going to Cat Ba. There happened to be one hired by a Vietnamese women's group leaving at 7. Without finding any other alternatives going before noon, I hopped on this one; I couldn't tell whether the other passengers cared or not, but the captain seemed content to let me ride along for the exorbitant one-way fare of 100,000 dong. I left my motorbike sitting in the parking lot next to a guy who was vigorously protesting my doing so - I was not altogether confident that it would be there when I returned.
The boat went directly to the island, passing through a plethora of monolithic stones along the way. We arrived at the port some 3 hours later and I set about finding a way to occupy my time. A guy agreed to rent me a motorbike for the day for $3 and oddly, he let me go without getting my passport, name, or money - he just said "have it back by 6 and be sure to top it up." I briefly contemplated running for the ferry to Haiphong City and driving straight to the border - I could be well into Laos before six rolled around and he began to wonder what had become of me.
I flew up the road through a highly scenic mountain valley to Hospital Cave. Fortunately, I arrived the same time as a tour group and a guide was on hand. This former Vietcong soldier led us into the different chambers, had us line up and stand at attention, and then he proceeded to sing folk songs to us for about 20 minutes. It was an odd encounter and was only made more so when he posed in what appeared to be a Tango stance with each tourist for a picture.
There were a few more caves along the route but they were all gated and had no guides in sight. The next stop was the national park where a difficult trail took me up to a rusty fire tower on the top of a limestone crag. After hiking back down, I raced around aimlessly for several more hours, seeing all the island had to offer. Towards sunset, I did a few laps around town and ran across the girls I had left in Hanoi; the Canadian opted to pay for nachos at a western place rather than take advantage of her free rice and veggies dinner, so I dressed in her clothes and went with the tour group for a delicious (and deliciously free!) multi-course meal.
I had made a circuit of the trip providers in Cat Ba town and found one that claimed to stop for a few caves and snorkelling before returning to the mainland. When the bus dropped me off at the pier, the driver explained that there was no such boat - all they had was one which sailed directly for the city - if I had a problem with that, I could return to the hotel and take it up with the agency whilst the last boats of the day left without me.
So in four short hours I was back at the harbour and miraculously, I found that my bike still had all its parts and had barely moved - someone had figured out how to start it without the key and had moved it a few meters away so it was no longer blocking traffic.
Road To Sapa
I took a ferry to the eastern side of the city and from there, ran up the coast. All along the way, high limestone cliffs jumped out of the level terrain. The remaining daylight hours were spent riding to the small town of Dinh Lap. Here, there was only one motel and, well aware of its utter lack of competition and the chances of me riding on into the night, it charged me $10 for a room with 3 beds, a TV and air conditioning.
Prior to nearly any transaction in Vietnam, you will be questioned as to your country of origin - if you happen to be from America, your best bet is to lie. There's very little resentment towards Americans for their part in Vietnam's past - you might see some hostility in the elders, but there seem to be very few of us around nowadays and the younger generation knows virtually nothing about us. What seems to be universally understood, however, is that Americans are rich - rich beyond all understanding - richer than the English, Germans, and Japanese combined - no matter what a vendor happens to be selling, he/she is confident that he/she can name the highest price imaginable and an American will just chuckle and say "$10 for a banana? Why, that's nothing, It may as well be free!" For this reason, I have begun to say I am from Zimbabwe - people don't know squat about Zimbabwe - they don't know what language Zimbabweans speak or even what a Zimbabwean looks like (some don't even know the correct term for a person from Zimbabwe), but most realize that it's not a particularly wealthy country.
For its size, Dinh Lap had a hopping night life with kids of all ages swarming the streets and music blasting from a central school. The children all crowded around me and asked me the normal barrage of unintelligible questions and taught me a wide range of Vietnamese curse words. I had dinner at a random restaurant which seemed to have a moral objection to the normal practice of charging me double for everything I ordered but had no qualms about bringing me 5 servings of each and billing me accordingly; as is the custom in Vietnam, while I ate, a drunk came over and harassed me about drinking his mystery drink while drooling on my food.
I set off in the early morning for the nearby city of Lang Son; here there was a lively market selling tons of crap from across the border - I bought a breakfast rice dish from someone operating out of a basket and thus had to maintain an Asian squat for the entire meal (this was a low budget operation, usually such sellers have two baskets which are enough to hold stools, a table, several sets of china, a pot of boiling water, and enough ingredients for an extensive menu). The Tam Tranh cave contained several large caverns illuminated by a rainbow of colored lights and the adjacent Mac Dynasty citadel provided a number of stairways up the four spires from which you could see all of town and, on a clear day, well into China.
It was a typical mountain highway to Cao Bang; this place didn't have a whole lot to offer - I went in search of a hilltop monument with a view, but ended up just driving in circles - I did manage to find a restaurant which may have been the first place in the country to charge me the actual price for a meal - for a little under 50 cents I got heaping helpings of rice, soup, salad, tofu, green beans, and boiled peanuts.
After a few more hours I had reached Cho Ra - here I got a room and chatted with the locals; a little girl tried to steal my Vietnamese phrasebook, but otherwise the night passed without event. In the morning, I headed up to Ba Be National Park; when I arrived, there was no one to charge me any money or tell me what I was supposed to do there, so I just did a circuit on my bike - there are apparently lots of opportunities for trekking, boating and caving, but as usual, an English explanation of how to go about doing these was in short supply.
The next road on the intinerary was not so good; it changed from gravel to boulders to sand and I had to wade across no fewer than 5 rivers along the route. I ate lunch somewhere near Chiem Hoa; something went terribly wrong with the translation - I said I was a vegetarian, the woman nodded in agreement, and soon came back with a plate full of bloody, hairy, room-temperature chicken. Back home, I've eaten at a number of Vietnamese restaurants that have served excellent, hot, flavorful dishes, but the people here don't seem to eat anything like these - they apparently prefer to eat their food cold with zero seasoning, sauces or other elements you would usually tie into the "cooking" process.
There was a major highway to Vinh and from there an extremely scenic, well-paved path through the rice fields to Khanh Hoa; this 40km sidewalk was only one-lane wide and thus had zero cars, but I was constantly dodging swarms of bikes, motorcycles and animals - at one point a chicken flew right into my front wheel, but after going through two quick cycles, it flew away seemingly unharmed.
The next stretch of highway was rather dangerous as there were a great many trucks and buses careening down the middle of a 1.25 lane road. As I neared Lao Cai, this hazardous channel was replaced by a new, four-lane highway which was being constructed in such a way so that at every island interval it was necessary to switch to the opposite side.
From the city, I jumped on a super highway which was 8 lanes wide and would clearly never satisfy its potential unless the country's population doubled and each of these new people bought a car. Even with the onset of darkness I could easily do 80kph consistently, but this road suffered from two critical problems: 1.There were no mileage markers indicating upcoming towns and 2.It was going in a direction orthogonal to the one in which I had intended to travel. Being the cautious type, I only made it 10km before I stopped for directions.
The woman with whom I verified my course was sitting on a straw mat in the market selling dog meat out of a steel pot with a cardboard sign written with magic markers. With a setup like this, you have to wonder whether this is a regular business or just "making lemonade" out of the death of a family pet. Coming to Vietnam, I had hoped I could accidentally try dog meat and only learn what it was a day or two later after it had had time to fully digest - then I could just say "Oh, that was dog meat? It wasn't too bad." but this has proven very difficult since all restaurants that serve this delicacy explicitly say so on their signs, and more often than not, there's a picture of a dog (these places also serve up cats, snakes, squirrels and other common pets - the first time I saw one, I thought it was a vet). So it's quite possible that I may never try dog, and if I do, I probably won't list it on this blog as I have enough trouble getting traffic without PETA protesting my site.
From Lao Cai, it was a nearly vertical mountain road to Sapa. There were those that said that this trip couldn't be made with a 15-year-old, 100cc bike, but although I spent a great deal of time at full throttle in first gear (and even a little time pushing) I eventually made it - now the only test that remains is to see if I can make it back to Hanoi before this thing crumbles to dust. The temperature dropped by around 10 C on the trip up - Sapa is the coldest place in Vietnam and is more often than not, sitting in a cloud.
Sapa
This is the premier backpacking destination of the north and as such, is ridiculously touristy; hordes of costumed tribe people try to sell you handicrafts out of baskets and everywhere you go you hear cries of "You want to buy from me?", "Motorbike!", and "You smoke marijuana?" I met up with the Israeli girl and two Americans for dinner; one of the guys ordered a cheeseburger with onions and tomatoes - what he got was a buttered baguette with a cheese triangle - he politely mentioned to the waiter that there seemed to be something missing, but he only became extremely flustered and try as we might, we couldn't seem to convey the idea of a "burger" to him. He eventually came back with something that vaguely resembled a sloppy joe, but was most likely dog (which he had most likely spit in); this caused all of us to lapse into hysterical laughter for the next half hour, but afterwards we had an interesting philosophical argument about who's fault it is when a Vietnamese restaurant screws up a western food order. I went to one hotel that night and found it to be full - without giving me a chance to look around, the owner immediately announced that I would sleep in the maids' room (with 4 maids) for free; never one to argue with free I went along with it.
In the morning, the market was swarming with colorful tribespeople selling all manner of tribal fashions and other miscellaneous goods. I visited Ham Rong, the tourist mountain, which charged 15000 D to let you climb up a big hill, buy souvenirs and get a view of the town; at the top was an ostrich farm - out of all the things I could've come across in a hilltribe cultural mountain, this was among the least expected - perhaps the tribespeople used them for transportation; when I neared the fence, the biggest ostrich charged me, then sat down and proceeded to beat his sides with his head - I'm not really clear on whether this was for intimidation or a mating ritual, but it sure was funny to watch.
I rode my bike to a nearby waterfall and over a pass to what happens to be the warmest province in Vietnam. Next it was on to Cat Cat village which charges an admission fee to walk through and get harassed by souvenir vendors. There were other attractions around town, but even though they were on well-established roads, it was required any tourist be accompanied by a guide on any expeditions to those areas.
The woman with whom I verified my course was sitting on a straw mat in the market selling dog meat out of a steel pot with a cardboard sign written with magic markers. With a setup like this, you have to wonder whether this is a regular business or just "making lemonade" out of the death of a family pet. Coming to Vietnam, I had hoped I could accidentally try dog meat and only learn what it was a day or two later after it had had time to fully digest - then I could just say "Oh, that was dog meat? It wasn't too bad." but this has proven very difficult since all restaurants that serve this delicacy explicitly say so on their signs, and more often than not, there's a picture of a dog (these places also serve up cats, snakes, squirrels and other common pets - the first time I saw one, I thought it was a vet). So it's quite possible that I may never try dog, and if I do, I probably won't list it on this blog as I have enough trouble getting traffic without PETA protesting my site.
From Lao Cai, it was a nearly vertical mountain road to Sapa. There were those that said that this trip couldn't be made with a 15-year-old, 100cc bike, but although I spent a great deal of time at full throttle in first gear (and even a little time pushing) I eventually made it - now the only test that remains is to see if I can make it back to Hanoi before this thing crumbles to dust. The temperature dropped by around 10 C on the trip up - Sapa is the coldest place in Vietnam and is more often than not, sitting in a cloud.
This is the premier backpacking destination of the north and as such, is ridiculously touristy; hordes of costumed tribe people try to sell you handicrafts out of baskets and everywhere you go you hear cries of "You want to buy from me?", "Motorbike!", and "You smoke marijuana?" I met up with the Israeli girl and two Americans for dinner; one of the guys ordered a cheeseburger with onions and tomatoes - what he got was a buttered baguette with a cheese triangle - he politely mentioned to the waiter that there seemed to be something missing, but he only became extremely flustered and try as we might, we couldn't seem to convey the idea of a "burger" to him. He eventually came back with something that vaguely resembled a sloppy joe, but was most likely dog (which he had most likely spit in); this caused all of us to lapse into hysterical laughter for the next half hour, but afterwards we had an interesting philosophical argument about who's fault it is when a Vietnamese restaurant screws up a western food order. I went to one hotel that night and found it to be full - without giving me a chance to look around, the owner immediately announced that I would sleep in the maids' room (with 4 maids) for free; never one to argue with free I went along with it.
In the morning, the market was swarming with colorful tribespeople selling all manner of tribal fashions and other miscellaneous goods. I visited Ham Rong, the tourist mountain, which charged 15000 D to let you climb up a big hill, buy souvenirs and get a view of the town; at the top was an ostrich farm - out of all the things I could've come across in a hilltribe cultural mountain, this was among the least expected - perhaps the tribespeople used them for transportation; when I neared the fence, the biggest ostrich charged me, then sat down and proceeded to beat his sides with his head - I'm not really clear on whether this was for intimidation or a mating ritual, but it sure was funny to watch.
I rode my bike to a nearby waterfall and over a pass to what happens to be the warmest province in Vietnam. Next it was on to Cat Cat village which charges an admission fee to walk through and get harassed by souvenir vendors. There were other attractions around town, but even though they were on well-established roads, it was required any tourist be accompanied by a guide on any expeditions to those areas.
Saturday evening was a crazy time in the town's main square; someone reported there was something called a "love market" where local singles once went to romance random strangers - unfortunately, a bunch of weird tourists started showing up and gawking at them, so this tradition was replaced with a night of selling crap to tourists. There was still a dance-off where kids spun in circles while playing panpipes - it looked like the standard "who can go the longest without throwing up" contest. Adjacent to the square was a big line of yam cookers - it seems as if a big night out for the Vietnamese is sitting on little stools in front of a barbecue and eating sweet potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, bamboo rice, and eggs - sure, it may seem strange to you, but you've never tasted these yams!
Sapa is one of those serious tour-jumping-off points and as such, there are about five standard trips on offer at a hundred hotels/internet cafes/hamburger stands around town. These include a trip to a market, a 3-day hike to "remote hilltribe villages" which are visited by about 300 tourists each day and a hike up the highest mountain in Vietnam, Fansipan; the latter was the only one that appealed to me. The Fansipan summit is usually made in two to three days and I connected with a group of four Americans (this just about doubles the U.S. tourist total I've come across this year) who were planning for the three day trek, however there was also a Spanish couple making a nearly unprecendented attempt to do the return journey in a single day; in the end, I decided that "Fansipan" was a pretty sissy name for a mountain and set off biking instead.
I've heard a number of stories about a scam where someone removes parts from your motorbike and then attempts to sell them back to you when you discover that your bike won't start; I think I was the victim of such an attempt, but it seems at the time I returned, the thief had gone to lunch. So I pushed my defunct scooter down to my hotel and one of the staff dissambled, adjusted the appropriate wire and had it running again within 10 minutes; I asked him if he could do anything about the gears, brakes, or fuel guage, but sadly, his expertise and patience were limited.
And while we're on the topic of scams, here's a particularly costly one: Vietnamese gas pumpers don't understand the word "full" – they consistently interpret it as "four liters." Unless you're riding on fumes, your bike most likely won't be able to hold 4 more liters; this isn't really a concern, though, since there's a handy button on the pump that disengages the flow of gas from the meter, so they'll make sure you get that perfect 4.000 pump every time. And if you ever see someone in a highly-touristed area selling reasonably-priced water, they are almost certainly bottles picked out of the trash and refilled with river water – don't put any stock in the plastic seals, they've got them down to a science.
I rode for 40 kilometers at a non-stop 10% grade, leaving the dismal, cloud-shrouded Sapa behind and returning to the sunnier skies of Lao Cai. From there, it was up another mountain to Bac Ha where the weekly market was in full swing. I had seen ads in all the guesthouses for day-trips to this market but could not imagine why anyone would sit on a bus for six hours just to see what seemed to be readily available in every town in Asia. This, however, was less an market than a zoo – great crowds of tribespeople from the surrounding villages marched around in their colorful garb and bartered for all the things essential to mountain village life; also on sale were many head of horses, cows and water buffalo – I thought the latter would make for an excellent Christmas present but had to refrain from casting my bid as I was going to have enough trouble getting my bike back to Hanoi without a ton of buffalo on the seat behind me.
The road continued upward to a few more villages with elaborately terraced farms on the mountain sides; after breezing through these, I coasted down to the lowlands and headed west to the town of Van Ban. There's not a whole lot to this place, but it does have two large guesthouses; on any other day I would've had no problem getting a room, but on this particular night, the quiet country burb was abruptly overwhelmed by an army of Danes and everything was fully booked; I ended up securing the maid's closet where they threw a few blankets over a plank and charged me 60,000 dong – approximately what you'd pay for a luxury suite with attached bath back in Thailand. Fortunately this disparity didn't follow me to a local restaurant where I grabbed soup, rice, stir-fried vegetables and a plate of tofu for 4500 dong - not quite real food yet but you can't go wrong with a quarter.
Middle of Nowhere
I was up bright and early thanks to a city-wide public address system that began its broadcast each day at 5am. An incredibly scenic trip through a river gorge took me west towards Than Uyen. Despite Sapa's reputation as the coldest locale, this ride was far chillier than anything I'd found up north, and I only narrowly avoided frostbite by wrapping dirty laundry around my face; I still took an inordinate number of photo, snack and toilet breaks.
Travelling south, the road swept abruptly upward and was soon lost in a cloud where the temperature and visibility both dropped to nil. There was an odd sensation to this vast, white emptiness of the mountain pass - there were no longer any people or animals, buildings or cars, only myself, the sound of my motor, and the void that swallowed us. Along the way were the remnant's of man's futile efforts to gain a foothold in this place - mangled safety railings dangled off the cliffs or lay in crumpled heaps on the shoulder, and rarely did I go 100 meters without running across a patch of asphault that had been shattered by the impact of a few tons of rock. It's hard to say how long I remained in that silent oblivion - there was always the same dim light suggesting that somewhere, infinitely distant, a sun still beamed down, but whether minutes or hours passed, it was impossible to say without glancing at my watch; I began to wonder if I had not always been there, if the whole life I had known was just a passing dream as I drifted through the eternal stillness. And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the grey melted away; a patchwork of greens and yellows and browns unfolded below; waterfalls cascaded down striking cliffs; farms and villages came into focus; out of the clammy nothingness, a grand new world had been born, warmed by the brilliance of the hillsides and the profusion of life throughout. --Just in case you were wondering what runs through my mind on those long motorcycle trips (in the brief intervals when I'm not reflecting on how much my butt hurts).
It was another 100 or so kilometers of stunning scenery before I arrived in the town of Thanh Son; here I visited half a dozen nearly empty guest houses but did not find one willing to bend from their initial figure of 150K; hotels in Vietnam are a funny phenomenon - the standard price for a room is right around what the average Vietnamese person spends on food in a month, so it would seem as if there could be a bit of flexibility. Dinner was a serious milestone as I convinced the restaurant not only to head my food, but to incorporate more than one ingredient in each dish, though I still had a drunk hanging on me the entire night.
To the Vietnamese, personal space is a difficult idea to grasp. Whenever I go out to eat, I have a full family watching every shaky wave of the chopsticks and at every internet cafe, I have a decent-sized crowd huddled around reading my email out loud. They are a people that likes to congregate - whenever I stop for directions or shop for a snack, I instantly have at least 5 passerbys form a tight circle around me - I'm not sure if in doing this they intend to be of some help - if so, they're not very good at this, but they are absolutely brilliant at congregating.
The next morning, I set off on a long, bumpy dirt road to Hoa Binh. In this city, whose name means "peace," I had my first-ever multi-vehicle collision. I was steering around a few bicycles when a motorbike came flying from the other direction and sideswiped me; I didn't have much forward momentum so I just teetered to a stop, but the other guy tipped and wiped out. I began to walk his way to see what I needed to do, but the locals just shoved me back toward my bike and told me to get away as fast as I could - this clearly wasn't one of those countries where you swap insurance details and wait for the police to come. I drove about 20m away and stopped to tend to my pinkie finger which had unfortunately been smashed (luckily I always carry a spare); the guy caught up to me, borrowed my neosporin for his many wounds, and demanded that I pay for his damages - I gave him a $3 note, which seemed to appease him, and we went our separate ways.
I visited a local market and had yet another reminder of my ignorance of the price system. I stopped at a desert stand and inquired about the price - the vendor said 3000 and thinking it was reasonable enough, agreed and sat down. As I ate, she shouted out the price I had paid to the neighboring stalls and then began telling the story to random people who passed by: "He asked me how much and I said 3000 and he said ok! 3000 dong, for this!!" So in the end, my ego took a slight hit, but I was satisfied with how it had turned out - for an extra dime, I had made this woman's day.
Cuc Phuong
Before too long, I had reached Cuc Phuong National Park; here I grabbed a $5 single room in a stilt house even though the hotel operator assured me that it would be better for me to pay $15 for a room with three beds (it's funny how rarely I agree with guesthouse staff on this point). While I waited at the visitor's center, I heard an unearthly howling, and going to investigate, found the "Endangered Primate Center" full of hyperactive langurs and gibbons. With only a few hours of daylight remaining, I raced down a 20km thin strip of concrete through a dense, mountainous jungle (I'll avoid geeky analogies to forest moons, but it was, at any rate, a very fun ride) and soon arrived at the main trailhead. The standard loop was listed as 2-3 hours so I had to sprint it while still reserving time to gaze upon a really old tree and explore the dark depths of the Palace Cave. The major attractions of the park included a "1000 year-old tree," two "ancient trees," and a "big tree" (which you can deduce is likely also very old). On the way back to my guesthouse, I stopped at the "cave of prehistoric man"; this contained many large caverns, which reportedly held bats and skeletons - even for someone as fearless as myself, wandering alone through a big, dark cave full of dead people was a tad bit spooky. I went to the park restaurant, relishing the idea of ordering from a menu, but found that the English version only contained only three words: "chicken, beef, and vegetables" and so, I had the same thing I always have.
Chickens make for a good alarm clock but they've got nothing on the gibbons that started at 5:30 in the morning. There were a number of stops to be made and I knew the general location of all of them, but was lacking in even the most fundamental of specific directions. After driving on a constant heading for an hour, I stopped to ask if Tam Coc was nearby, and found that I was in fact only a kilometer from another attraction, the floating chicken village (about 40km from Tam Coc). I drove back and forth for some time, and stumbled upon a number of interesting neighborhoods including a Catholic district with tightly-packed houses and narrow alleys reminiscent of the ancient cities of Spain and France; I eventually found that there wasn't actually any way to reach this floating village by road and had to seek out a boat - luckily a boat owner soon jumped into my path and I was soon on a tiny wooden rowboat driven by a woman who steered with her feet and copiloted by a toddler. We moved through the canals of Kenh Ga and admired the huge jagged rocks that formed the backdrop for the houses. At one point, I got to take the oars while the woman and her child laughed at my inept attempts to paddle. Later, we pulled up next to a vendor boat and the kid got a pack of ramen noodles which he proceeded to tear open with his teeth and eat cold. When the ride had finished, I paid the agreed-upon amount and they immediately came up with a dozen reasons why I should pay extra - it was eventually decided that I should give the toddler 10,000 dong (why I don't know, I did more work than him); I'm not really clear on what he intended to do with the money - probably eat it.
I went down a few more alleys through the paddies amongst a plethora of epic rock formations until I arrived at a place with a horde of buses, tourists and snack vendors; I asked one of them where I was and learned that I had in fact stumbled upon the ancient kingdom of Hoa Lu. Here, there were a few pagodas of mild interest and a long hike up a mountain offering good views of the surrounding countryside. I ate at a restaurant which offered among other things, several menu items with "satyr" as the main ingredient; this led me to wonder if it's considered cannabilism if you only eat the lower half.
Further down the road was the famous Tam Coc (widely labeled as "Halong Bay without the water" though it is in fact only accessible by boat) where a few hundred French tourists were loaded on to boats to be steered through a series of caves. My driver found me to be profoundly amusing and discussed me with every single Vietnamese person we passed. At the turnaround, there was a swarm of vendor boats that attempted to sell you a drink and, failing that, to persuade you to buy one for your hardworking driver; I defended my apparently callous refusal by offering to paddle the 3km back to port - this went ok until we reached a narrow channel where I broke the boat into several pieces - I was then stripped of this duty and given a very small paddle with which I could only do minimal damage.
From here I ran past Ninh Binh 30km to the south to the heavily Catholic region of Phat Diem. Here, an elaborate cathedral popped up every few hundred meters, and at the center was a grand cathedral which was a cross-between a wat and a grand Roman hall. Returning to Ninh Binh in the dark revealed the unique challenges of night-driving in Vietnam. Hundreds of bicycles, ox carts and other unlit conveyances crowded the roads and plenty of motorbikes sped along with no headlights as they believe this conserves gas; perhaps the biggest danger was the wide-load vehicles whose lights gave no indication of the size - a good rule of thumb is as follows: whenever you see two headlights (or one accompanied by a loud horn), get off the road. In Ninh Binh I found a hotel room for $5 and a delicous meal from an English menu for 8000 dong - I'd never been so pleased to be back on the beaten track.
Ninh Binh
Some more random observations about the country - first, there are no trash cans; I became painfully aware of this fact when I got stuck behind a bus for 20km and had to dodge flying garbage about every 30 seconds; everyone just throws everything on the ground, whether they're in a park, a store or a train and assumes it will somehow resolve itself; I've tried my best to pack it out, but whenever a local sees me carrying a wrapper, they helpfully snatch it from my hand and toss it on the ground. Second, the garbage trucks play Christmas music; so if you hear "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" drifting down the street, it doesn't mean you have to rush to put up the trimmings, you just need to wheel the can out to the curb. Finally, all movies are dubbed by one person, who uses an identical monotone voice for every character; it's very odd to hear your favorite action star spouting his slogans in the dialect of a smallish Vietnamese woman.
Certainly among the world's most feared condiments is the Vietnamese fermented fish sauce. It has an odor and taste far fouler than anything in the western world and it has recently joined hand guns, bombs, and durian fruit on the list of things that are forbidden for inclusion in carry-ons. Tourist-geared restaurants rarely serve it and even the backcountry eateries dilute it with 10 parts water to every 1 part paste. Like most mornings, I started out in Ninh Binh by seeking a new culinary experience in the local market; I finished off a huge stack of shrimp pancakes for 2000 dong and went in search of a refreshing beverage. I found one stand piled high with water bottles filled with a thick, brown liquid. After many unsuccessful attempts to ask the identity of the stuff, I noted a large pile of sugarcane next to the table and surmised that it must be some sort of sugarcane smoothie; so I bought one, popped the top and took a huge swig... I never really got that taste out of my mouth, and every meal since has lost its original taste and assumed the flavour and aroma of the sauce.
I rode my bike up the road to the loading dock for the famed Perfume Pagoda. The norm was to share a boat with 3 other tourists, but as always, they assured me that others would never come and I would need to charter a whole boat myself. Two groups did come along shortly, but they were a bit too French to let me share their ride. I eventually talked the ticket booth into arranging a boat for just over the cost of a 1/4 share; they apparently hadn't cleared this move with the boat owners, though, and a violent altercation erupted over who would get stuck with me. Somehow it was resolved and we paddled 3km to the base of the mountain; these boatwomen have superhuman strength - I thought I'd give the driver a rest and paddle the second half of the trip, but I was ready to throw in the towel after the first 10 minutes. Once the boat docked, I had to hike for 4km up a steep slope through endless rows of souvenir and drink vendors; I was accompanied in this quest by hundreds of Vietnamese pilgrims of every age, though our triumph was ever-so-slightly diminished by the cable cars that ran up from the base. There was nothing particularly spectacular about the pagoda beyond its ridiculously inconvenient location.
Once I returned to the mainland, I drove toward Hanoi; along the way I was stopped by the cops but the meeting was thoroughly pointless as neither of us had the slightest idea what the other was saying (if only it were so easy to get out of a ticket in the States!). Riding through the capitol is, in far too many cases, a once-in-a-lifetime experience; there are no lanes, no traffic lights, and no rules; the basic premise is to avoid dying as best you can, and, if its convenient, try not to run over too many people. No one has working mirrors (they break off too easy) and, since the air is filled with one continuous din of horns, one more blast doesn't have the slightest effect; essentially you just have to go as fast as you can until something gets in your way, then swerve; it amazes me that the whole city is not just one huge tangled mess of bodies and motorcycle parts.
I somehow escaped serious injury and made it back to the rental place; the owner decided to demand more money for the use of his crappy bike before he would return my entry/exit papers, but after a bit of discussion and a brief fist-fight, we reached an agreement to satisfy both parties. I discovered that there was a tourist bus leaving for Hue that evening, but since I had had bad experiences with such tours before, I decided I would go to the bus station and sort it out for myself. Strangely, all buses along the nation's main route from its second largest city seemed to stop around 5PM and, when I arrived, the station was completely shut down. I crossed the street to the train station and, for $2 more than the air-conditioned bus, I got a hard seat in a fan car. As I've come to expect with this form of transport, we arrived at our destiation 4 hours late (I think this had to do with arbitrarily stopping in the middle of nowhere for no reason whatsoever); as a consolation for this, the staff gave us a free breakfast of fruit-filled bread and a lunch of rice with assorted meats and vegetables; if you've never had a Vietnamese train meal, it's a little bit like the worst airplane pack you've ever had, except with a couple of pig organs thrown in and more MSG than an economy pack of ramen noodles.
Even by my standards, this guesthouse is a little weak
250kg lake tortoise
Water Puppet Theatre
A beast of a bike
Legendary Halong Bay
Random Vietnamese people who asked me to take their picture
Catba
Waltzing with the enemy
My guidebook called this cave "easily accessible"
Is this thing safe?
They closed the road for this??
I have never felt so cool as when I was cruising around on this bad boy
Ostrich doing something crazy
Crazy hilltribe market
Luxury suite (aka broomcloset)
Weird monkey
Giant walking stick
Really old tree
She rows it with her feet!!
Highly informative sign
You don't want graffiti on the historic monument? What a bunch of communists!
