“On the roads of Vietnam”

Feeling totally in love to see Linda again after ten weeks traveling “alone” in South-East Asia! We were ready to start our adventure in crazy Vietnam. The real feeling of freedom; buying a motorbike and driving through the countryside of Vietnam is the best way to travel this wonderful and diverse country. Linda and I felt to be in a real episode of Top Gear. For so far, Vietnam is the most adventurous county I have traveled. Vietnam is well known of the crazy driving people on motorbikes (everywhere), beautiful caves in Phong Nha, special hill tribes in Sapa, magnificent rock formations in Halong Bay, cultural experience and relaxing in Hoi An, history of the Vietnam war in the Vinh Moc tunnels and sunbathing in the beach resorts of Mui Ne (and many more). We start our big adventure in the craziest city of Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City.

Surviving the traffic of Ho Chi Minh City was the first challenge Linda and I had to face when we arrived. On motorbike taxi we drove to the crazy traffic to our hotel, a quite dangerous experience in the beginning (especially for Linda). To illustrate, everywhere where you are looking are motorbikes, and they are driving as idiots. For example to cross a road you “just walk without thinking”, the motorbikes will pass you automatically while walking. When you stop walking it is dangerous, because the drivers don’t expect this. Furthermore, Vietnamese people carry everything on their bikes. From all kind of animals (ducks), empty bottles, Christmas trees, blankets, etc. Even whole shops are sometimes carried on their motorbikes.  Actually, everything you cannot imagine to carry on your motorbike. Just see some of the pictures down this blog to give you an idea. Finally we got used to the traffic of motorbikes and decided to buy two motorbikes.

For only $345 each we bought two Honda Wins of the year 1997 (brand new). This brand is only popular for backpackers, because they look very cool (and actually they are)! Our only problem, this brand is driven manual and Linda and I had any experience to drive on these things. The guy who was selling the motorbikes said it was easy to learn and after an afternoon trying on an empty parking spot we already had the feeling and control over the motorbike. We asked the man; “What about a driving license, we don’t need any?” He said; “No off course not, if the police stops you, you just pay one million Vietnam Dong ($50) and you will be fine”. Ok, that’s the way of dealing with problems here. Next experience we faced was getting out of this crazy city, which gives you no mercy! In the early morning (before the peak time) we escaped Ho Chi Minh and went on a less crowded road to Mui Ne, a beach town south-east of Vietnam. Learning by doing; after one day we were already experts and off course we were glad we survived our first day on a motorbike, what a feeling!   

In few days we drove up north from Dalat via a mountain road to Nha Trang and finally headed by night bus (cheating a bit to save time) to Hoi An. No problem to take your motorbike in the bus, if you pay! Hoi An was a great city to visit. There were many things to see, and the old center was really beautiful with nice buildings and temples. This city was very lively, with a lot of markets, nightlife and delicious food. We experienced to make our spring rolls, with egg, noodles and chili (it’s everywhere; terrible). Together with Dung we executed the TWD by smoking shisha and drinking cheap local beers which called Bia Hoi for only $0,16 for half a liter (the cheapest beer in the world). Furthermore, Hoi An is known for their tailor made shops. I bought a new suit, shirts and shoes and Linda bought a nice blue dress with a blazer! At least three times we went back to the shop for fitting, nevertheless it is tailor made and fits perfectly.

We continued by motorbike to Hue via the famous Van Hai Pass, which was really beautiful (httpspublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublic://blog/img4726.jpgblog/img4716.jpgblog/img4691.jpgblog/img4664.jpgblog/img4651.jpgblog/img4383.jpgblog/img4099.jpgblog/img4371.jpgblog/img3778.jpgblog/img3747.jpgblog/img3717.jpgblog/4_2.jpgblog/3_3.jpgblog/2_9.jpgblog/1_0.jpgwww.youtube.com/watch?v=O1zfuBgCUqY). In Hue we saw the citadel and the old “Purple Forbidden City”. In Vinh Moc we learned about the history of Vietnam, we saw there the tunnels which were dug during the Vietnam war to protect the inhabitants from US bombing (with success).

So far, we hadn’t major trouble with our motorbike! We figured out a road (QL 8A) which was a shortcut between the Ho Chi Minh East and Ho Chi Minh West trails. The last trail was highly recommended! A little bit strange was that this road was only showed on the Google Apps map of Linda and not on my navigation, neither the paper road map. Go for it, only thirty kilometers. Finally, this was the worse choice ever. The road was a mountain pass, and the rain the day before had transformed the road into a mud path. Heroic and without giving up we continued the road, after two hours we drove nearly ten kilometers. If you think it cannot be worse, the motorbike of Linda broke down. The clutch was broken, but we found a guy near the road so friendly to fix it temporarily by switching the clutch with the hand brake! We continued, but the road became worse and worse! We were struggling and we fell down in the mud several times. After almost five hours we became very desperate; did we ever get out of this mud? Finally we found some road workers and one of them was so friendly to take Linda on the back of her bike and we continued that way. He was very experienced and helped us to get off this muddy (terrible) road. Our shortcut did not worked out, after six hours, mud everywhere and a broken motorbike we reached the Ho Chi Minh West trail.

We made it after a lot of blood, sweat and tears (we thought). Only 100 kilometers to drive to our final destination Phong Nha. Another wrong estimation, off course you cannot drive this distance in only three hours (before it became dark). Already 5 pm, and we still did not find any villages, houses or anything else where we possible could sleep.  While driving high up the mountains, it became colder, foggier and darker; soon we had to find a place to stay! We discussed, what to do when there was no village anymore, driving in the dark is too dangerous? However, surprisingly a guy shouted at us in front of his old house in the middle of nowhere high in the mountains (without windows and heating system) that we could stay in his place. We had no choice and decided to stay there for the night. The guy was very friendly and even prepared us a nice meal and in the evening we played some Chinese chess. Linda and I were glad we were saved and even found these hospitable people. My finance teacher always learned me; “there is no such a thing as a free lunch”. The next morning the guy asked us for one million Dong, we offered him only six hundred thousand (already a lot).

“Motorbikes are terrible” (citation and thought of Linda - many times on the road towards Phong Nha). With all bad luck in the world, the gear of Linda’s bike broke. Only the fourth gear was working, and just the fourth gear is not useful in the mountains. With a rope and a lot of effort we pulled the motorbike with a rope connected to the other (working) motorbike uphill. Uphill we managed to get the motorbike started in the fourth gear, by pushing the motorbike downhill. Another morning we spend struggling with our bike, but finally we made it (after another four hours) to Phong Nha. In the evening we sold the motorbike of Linda directly, unfortunately the motor was destroyed during the day. However, we enjoyed the beautiful and huge Paradase cave and the enormous mountains in the national park of Phong Nha.

By night bus we drove to Hanoi. Time for some relaxing after the motorbike debacle, Linda and me went on a two day (one night) cruise to Halong Bay. It was incredible to see the huge rock formations in the sea of Halong Bay. The fog around the rocks gave a mysterious character. During the cruise we visited a cave and went in the bay by kayak. The cruise was good quality, the rooms were nice (finally good matrasses) and the (sea)food was delicious! In the night we did Karaoke on the boat with some other Dutch students and Linda and I song the “Piano man” with a lot of volume! The squid fishing was a joke, because nobody caught anything.

Our last journey we made to Sa Pa, nearly five hours drive from Hanoi. Sa Pa is famous for their rice paddies, which are everywhere. First day in Sa Pa was very cold (only 10 degrees) and we had to buy some additional warm clothes. Unfortunately it was very foggy, so we could not see any rice paddies. For the second day we arranged a home stay with Mu, which we already met when we left the night bus. In the early morning we hiked into the mountains to Hau Thao, where here tribe the Black Mong was living. During our hike it starts raining, even with hail. Finally the sun came and we had an amazing view at the rice paddies.

In the afternoon we arrived at Mu’s house, we were surprised. Back to basics, her life was so simple. It was going back in time for at least 100 years. The house was built from basic materials and she was living there with her family on twenty squared meters. There was no kitchen, just an open fire where they cooked on. Moreover, the fire was also a manner to warm up the house, with smoke everywhere in the house (unhealthy). Animals were walking everywhere; chickens, ducks, pigs, dogs and even cows in front of the door in the evening. After a delicious dinner, prepared by Mu and us (we cut the potatoes) we drunk some local happy water. This is rice wine and taste like vodka. The next day we continued our hiking and ended up at her sisters’ place. Surprisingly, there was a big celebration going on for Tet (Chinese New Year), Mu invited us for lunch with her family and again we ate a lot and we drunk happy water. We walked back inside the rice paddies and via another village we walked back to Sa Pa. An amazing cultural experience to participate in the traditions and habitats of a hill tribe. Linda and I are very thankful to Mu, we enjoyed her stories and the hiking.

The last day in Hanoi we sold also our last motorbike for a reasonable price (after some effort). What a great adventure we had the last four week in Vietnam. It was hard to say goodbye after almost one month traveling through amazing Vietnam with my lovely girlfriend! Gona miss you in Indonesia Linda...