Hanoi, Vietnam (Day 62, 9525 km)

Ah yes, it's good being back in a country where at least the script is familiar. Given the finite number of letter combinations, this also makes for some amusing ones. I have seen all of the following (censored) list, and more: "Who Rang", "Thot Not", "Phat Thinh", "Duc Tan", "Manh Hung", "An Tuon Chat Loung". Well maybe when I find a reasonable international calling rate again!

Also, I am starting to get some meals with chopsticks again – yes, China is certainly getting closer. In Vietnam, more than ever, I have been getting comments on my height, and the pointiness of my nose. Yes, the red-and-blue leathered foreigner wouldn't be able to blend in if he tried.

The next place to visit was the Dambri Falls, around 200 km northeast of Saigon. The falls were nice, complete with glass elevator up the side in case you didn't want to walk back up the long way - apparently the falls would have been even more impressive in the rainy season. Regardless, for me, the highlight of the area was going on a boulder-hop down the river looking for the secondary falls, and for the first time in weeks, just being by myself in unspoilt nature. It was a lovely opportunity to relax for an hour or so in a scenic spot. I also saw the brightest blue butterfly I had ever seen outside of a museum, but then I decided I had best continue as I had less than a dollar's worth of “dong” left. I had had to pay for the waterfall with a US dollar - at a terrible rate, but still only a dollar. There wasn't an ATM or bank anywhere near.

It was in this area that the road started getting a bit more mountainous, and I was happy to finally tackle some contours after so many thousands of kilometers of relative flatness. The traffic also lightened up considerably, possibly because not long after Saigon I had turned onto a secondary route. This, coupled with an excellent road surface, made for faster and more relaxing travel.

I ended up that night in Da Lat, as on the map it looked like the only ATM-worthy place in the vicinity. At an altitude of 1500m, it is a little cooler than the surrounding towns, and it is also quite scenic, with a lake and trees all lit up at night. Da Lat was originally developed as a resort town, and the Vietnamese call the area some word meaning “paradise”. Like many of my unplanned destinations, it is well worth a visit. It seemed cleaner and less run-down than any other Vietnamese town I'd stayed in up until then, and I booked into a nice little hotel on a quietish side-street. I decided the location called for a splashout, so I treated myself to an upmarket Western-style dinner at the Empress Hotel – it featured chicken rather strongly, and came to an exorbitant NZ$14.17.

After some relaxing night-time photography, I returned to my hotel and quickly drifted off to sleep, awoken only by the dulcet tones of somebody yelling outside my window at 4.15am. Diesel engine revving hard, reverse bleeper going strong, the bus painstakingly reversed down the alleyway, aided by the copious yelled directions of the co-driver. Side-street or not, I was glad for my earplugs, and enjoyed another few hours' sleep before tackling the next day's challenges.

My bike still didn't seem to be running at peak performance, and my electrics had also suddenly died - after a little more investigation I discovered that my battery's water was obscenely low. That was a simple walk across the street to find somebody to rectify it, but it took another long day riding before the battery charged enough to allow my electrics to putter back into life - conveniently it was just after nightfall. It still took another day after that before the electrics seemed somewhat normal, and after that the bike's performance returned to normal too.

That day I met an electrical engineer riding along through the mountains checking up on the power lines in the area. His English was fair, and we discussed a few technical matters, like what type of power stations they had, as well as whether he was married and how many kids he had. He told me where I could visit a hydroelectric dam in the area, but I didn't see anything obvious when I was passing, so I continued on my way.

This area was quite pleasant, and it was great having gaps in between the villages where I could bust out my cooker and boil up some instant noodles again. This was something I'd enjoyed and missed not being able to all through Cambodia and the south of Vietnam due to the lack of privacy. Possibly it was a symbol of my independence on the trip, but it was also nice to be guaranteed of a safe and familiar meal.

I managed to lose my way a few times, for example when road forks were totally unsignposted. Mostly this became obvious fairly quickly and I turned around. But I have one especially nice memory of a passing motorcyclist pulling me over, and politely making it clear that he thought I was on the wrong road – when I pulled out my map, and he showed me where we were, I was in total agreement. I felt gratified that he had both the initiative to realise I probably wanted to be on the main road, and also cared enough to let me know.

Along the road many people are startled by my passing – I have had a few very widely open-hanging mouths, and some exclamations. But most people recover soon enough to smile and wave. Especially the cute little girls. Cute little boys being much the same worldwide, some of them found it necessary to track me with their toy guns and take imaginary potshots as I rode by.

That evening I also spotted some more people selling sugarcane juice, something which had been more common in Cambodia. I stopped off on top of a hill, and bought a few glasses from a lady who also had hammocks strung up between the trees. I found this a very pleasant Cambodian and Vietnamese custom indeed, especially after sitting all day.

My original plan had been to travel the main Vietnamese highway along the coast from Saigon to Hanoi – despite the traffic, that had seemed like it would be the best road. But not long before I left, a friend handed me an article written by some recent motorcycle travellers through the area. It described their ride through the little-known, brand new Ho Chi Minh Highway, parallel to the coast, but inland through the mountains. The article said that although construction efforts had been plagued with problems, and the highway was not yet complete, that traffic was minimal, and the route was a far more interesting one.

I tried to check the local knowledge, which was somewhat of a challenge with the language barriers. The general opinion seemed to be that I'd end up on bad roads, and have a slow journey. However, having heard that the traffic along the coastal road is horrendous, and having enjoyed the small taste of mountains that I'd had so far, I decided to give it a go regardless.

Thank you Len for that article! That particular stretch ended up being the most enjoyable riding of the entire trip! Lovely, wide, sweeping mountain roads, just finished, and in excellent condition; curved through scenery that started as “nice” and worked its way up to “beautiful”. The whole trip seems to have been filled with delightful experiences that only came about as a result of a chance meeting or information source.

That day, I sat up on the mountain, cooking my noodles, looking westwards where somewhere about 20 km away was Laos. I realised it was two months to the day that I had gotten up at 4am for the start of this adventure; not knowing what it would bring, or how far I'd be able to get. Yes, things were grand. This was a beautiful spot, I had been kept safe and healthy, and had had a wonderful time thus far. God has certainly blessed me.

I was now approaching the narrowest part of central Vietnam (about 50-60km across), and the map showed the road northwards venturing on the wrong side of the Laos border for a few kilometers (I assume this is due to the Vietnamese side being impassable, as it is in the middle of the mountains). Nobody had been able to tell me whether I had to do border crossings here, so I decided to head back to the coast and try my hand at the main highway.

Back to the flatter areas meant back to paddy-land, some flooded, some drier. Back to the stereotypical Vietnamese shots of farmers with conical grass hats working in their fields. Here, as in the rest of Vietnam, was the prolific water buffalo, usually with huge horns. These seemed quite welcome to wallow in the rice paddies, and I assume they helped fertilise them too.

I reached the coast at Da Nang, and, as the sun was still up, decided to head north to the next town, through a delightful, coastal mountain pass. Halfway up, though, in rolled the thickest blanket of low cloud/mist I have seen in a while, and the visibility made the going become a little slower. I enjoyed having yet another kind of variety to the weather. Once the road came back down, I broke back out into the evening sunlight, and found a place to stay at the China Guesthouse in the small coastal town of Langco.

As the young daughter had the best English of the family, most of my negotiations were held with her, including payment. There seems to be a trend in Cambodia and Vietnam for children to be comparitively independent and knowledgeable about business. For example there were many kids in Phnom Penh with jobs like selling drinks or shining shoes. I suspect that they probably had close family ties too, and that the money all went back to them. I contemplated for a while about the relative merits of a Western carefree childhood compared to a 3rd-world “responsible” one, and was unable to decide which was preferable. Probably a balance, as always.

That evening I stupidly misjudged a jump (not bike-related) and bruised the sole of my right foot. This left me having to get assistance to kickstart my bike for the next three days, and limited my ability to walk easily for the rest of the time I was in Vietnam. On the plus side, I had an enjoyable hour or two listening to Vietnamese karaoke a few doors down from my hotel, and watching the locals have fun – couldn't understand a word, of course, but there was some excellent singing, and most of the melodies were great too.

The following day I rode off up the coastal road, and found the traffic density and behaviour as busy as expected but not overly daunting compared to other areas. I started to have intermittent struggles with changing gear – I discovered on investigation that the splined shaft on the footlever had somehow worn away – adjusting and retightening it a few times got me to Hanoi without major drama, where I was able to get it fixed. (They didn't have the right footlever, but hacked the splined bit off another, new one, and welded it onto mine, all for NZ$5)

At one of my stops to readjust the gear lever, one of the locals decided to get involved, and started grabbing tools out of my hands and doing things his way. Despite my obvious unhappiness, he persisted in this – I could see the other locals were uncomfortable with his behaviour. I eventually got the tools back and “fixed” the lever. Of course due to my damaged foot I needed somebody to start the bike, but before I was ready this clown had hopped on and was trying to start it while it was still in gear. In the end I had to physically lift up his left leg and tip him off the bike! One of my few negative people experiences, but at that stage my resistance was low and I was starting to feel like people were being a little bit too much in my face. I was already fairly used to people looking with their fingers – they were especially inquisitive when I wrote an expenditure in my little book. But having my bike taken over just didn't do it for me.

Ah well... I continued on, and after stopping briefly at the 17th parallel (DeMilitarised Zone between North and South Vietnam), came after dark to Vinh, where I eventually was able to get directions to a guesthouse.

Every Vietnamese guesthouse I'd stayed at up until now had been clean, and mould-free. This one also had plaster chipped off the walls, and smelled of mildew. And it wasn't the cheapest either. But the real disappointment was the disagreement we had over money – after agreeing to the price, and checking in, I found that they wanted to be paid in US dollars, which converted to quite a price hike at the rate they were using. In any case, I only had dong, so I was able to stick to my guns, especially given the condition of the room – but it was one of the few places I would make a point of not going back to. Unfortunately, with my damaged foot, I didn't feel up to venturing out into the darkness to seek an alternative. After checking my email, I used my earplugs to block out the annoying dripping sound, and put behind me a day that had seemed full of small annoyances.

This month was the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam/American War – the celebrations happened a week after I left. As well, it seemed to be the 75th anniversary of something else and the 105th of something else, so there were many red flags and pictures of Uncle Ho on the flagpoles, etc.

The next day there was a fine drizzle, but I pressed on anyway, wanting to get to Hanoi as soon as practical to organise my Chinese visa. Along the way I saw the most chilling accident of my travels – a local bus had overturned off the side of the raised road and was upside down in front of a roadside house. It had obviously just happened, as there were still people peering in the front window trying to decide what to do. I could see no benefit in getting involved, and I didn't really want to see what was inside the probably-crowded bus, so I kept riding.

I was rather damp and cold by lunch time, so I stopped in the small town of Ninh Binh to dry off and warm up. The bemused local shopkeeper handed me a small, dry towel, and I felt welcome enough to set up my cooker and whisk up some warm noodles. After that they gave me some bananas and very strong tea. One of them spoke a fair amount of English, so I stayed a while, enjoying the company and the friendliness of this chance meeting. After more than an hour I decided it was time to tackle the final leg to Hanoi, and they waved me good-bye and said I was more than welcome to return one day.

In Hanoi I paid for getting a quick (overnight) Chinese visa – deciding that although it was exorbitant (US$36+US$30 fast fee), it was no more than I'd pay for the extra food and accommodation while I was waiting. I later heard from some European travellers that they had paid far more to pre-arrange their Vietnamese visas from Europe so I guess it was no big deal.

I had to find a place to store my bike overnight (this was the first place since Singapore that I hadn't been able to use the foyer) – I was shown a supposedly safe motorcycle parking area in the market, but for some reason the attendants weren't having a bar of it, and I couldn't get anywhere with the language difficulties. Eventually we found a guy just down the road who would store it indoors for NZ$2 per night – a rip-off (how one's perspective changes... :-) ), but by this stage I was sick of pushing my bike around. I still had enough time to limp around Hanoi for a bit. I bought some grapes and plums, although they seemed no cheaper than they would be at home. It seems to be a trend here that fruit is more expensive than I'm used to and meat is cheaper.

In Cambodia I'd briefly met some French bicyclists, but no foreign-registered motorcycles. I passed a few more cyclists in Vietnam, but not to talk to. In Cambodia I did see a few "big bikes" but in Vietnam I saw only two bikes (in Hanoi) that came close to the size of my beast - which seems to confirm what I'd been told about the 175cc legal maximum. Nonetheless, all the police I passed were just as friendly as the locals, and, even when I was pulled over for speeding, I was never once approached to prove my legality.

The following day I got my gear lever repaired, and my bike very thoroughly washed for less than NZ$1. I also wrote up some trip report, and rested my foot. That night as a celebration of possibly my last night in Vietnam I went to a restaurant run by a genuine French chef – nice, but a bit high on the gourmet/price curve for my everyday preference. I went to sleep early, trying to be relaxed about how I'd get into China the following day...