Hue And On To The Beaches

Hue is the most beautiful city I have seen in Vietnam, it was the old imperial capitol and it still shows. It’s also a place for artists and education is highly valued here. As I head south the food gets better, one can only eat so much noodle soup!

I had a great lunch with a couple of local specialties and a beer for under $3 bucks.

In Hue I went on my first guide tour in Vietnam and got on my first bus in this country. Considering, that I had a small hangover from two happy hours from the night before, it was an outstanding choice, we visited some of the emperors tombs, a pagoda and the Citadel. Our tour guide was outstanding and the tour included a buffet lunch and a boat ride. It was a great way to spend the day and interesting to see the country from a non motorcycle perspective.

Hoi An is just south of Da Nang, it’s a sleepy little beach town with great food and an unending supply of touts. I spent a day at the beach and got a bit of a burn, so no beach for me today. I’ve spent most of the day so far catching up with my writing dear readers. The hostel I stayed at here has a pool! The heat was almost unbearable on my ride down, especially with all the safety gear I wear. Thank science for evaporative cooling.

It’s 500 km from Hoi An to Nha Trang, so I stopped in a non touristy place for the night, Quy Nhon, there’s a guest house in a village just outside of town that I really wanted to stay at but they were booked up for several weeks. I stayed at a hotel with a welcoming and friendly staff. It’s one of the few places I’ve been that have no touts and where no one tried to rip me off or quote a tourist price. In fact, I went a whole 36 hours without having any hassels with the price of anything.

I took the road that the Top Gear folks raved about during their motorcycle ride in Vietnam. It’s a nice road, but the claim that it is one of the best coastal roads in the world does not sing true. Apparently these guys have not ridden on the east or west coast in the US.

Then I arrived in Nha Trang, it is over touristed, the beach is not that great and it is full or Russians! From what I understand, from here south, it is Russian Central. It makes sense, when you think about it from a political standpoint. I took a day to chill and took a day to go to an amusment park. You have to take the worlds longest tramway to get to the park. The park was a let down. I went for the water park, but if you have been to a half decent water park in the US, it just doesn’t compare. Though the tram ride was quite good. On the upside, I had and good cheeseburger and some excellent Indian food!

Holy Big Ass Cave!

I have been in a lot of caves. All the major ones in the US and a bunch of others around the world. Thien Duong Cave, better known as Paradise Cave is 31 km long! Tourists can venture in for the first 1.5 km. This part of the cave has a huge walkway and great lighting, the designers of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park have done a phenomenal job. It’s the best national park infrastructure I’ve seen anyplace in Asia.

They let about 10 people a day to on a guided trek that goes 7 km into the cave, I was fortunate enough to get a slot. In fact there were only 3 of us! We had an english speaking guide and a porter. The cave complex is amazing! There are places inside that feel like a stadium. There are also parts you have to swim through as well as some tight pass throughs. And of course stalagmites and stalagtites galore.

Before starting out they cave us camo uniforms and running shoes to change into. Out of the three of us, I was the only one who could fit into the camo and no one could fit into the shoes. They are really not set up for western tourists. The cave was discovered by a local man in 2005. They have been doing tours in it for 3 years. My advice is go now. It’s hard to say what it will be like in a decade. The only down side is that it’s costy. 2,600,000 dong ($130).

We started by going through a gate the tourists never get past and walked about 1/4 km. Then the guide had us turn out our lights and we were in pitch darkness and there were no sounds at all. It was very cool. If I had my way, I’d set up a rope that could be followed so you could do the whole trek in complete darkness. Though I’m not sure there are enough weirdo’s like me to market it to.

We continued on for about 3 km and stopped to take everything off but foot gear and swim wear. The wet parts were coming. There’s a strange cultural disconnect for me with the modesty involved. When I put the camo on over my tee shirt and swim trunks, I had to go around the corner so no one would see me, but the guides use underwear for swim wear. I guess what happens in the cave, stays in the cave.

It was me, an Aussie riding a bicycle through SEA and a girl from Northern Europe and when we got in the water, the Aussie was a bit shocked with the temp. I’ve swam in caves before but not for this long. After walking past all sorts of very interesting formations and getting detailed explanations of how they form we arrived at our stopping point for lunch. At the 7 km mark the cave is open the the sky.

It was breathtaking to come around the corner and see daylight shining down on a little valley in the cave. We found a big rock to have lunch on. Lunch was crap, a bunch of rice, a few pieces of non descript meat and an over ripe banana. After lunch we went exporing and swimming. There was a shaft of like shining down on a bolder, way up on a ledge. Of course I had to climb up there and bask in the light.

The trip back was a rocket run. I kept stopping to take more pictures and the guides tried to hurry us along. Which of course inspired me to take even more pictures. I do not think the guide said two sentences on the way out. There was one other problem with the guide, he only talked to the first person in line as we were walking through the cave. The cave itself is stunning and if your anywhere near the central\northern coast in Vietnam, it is a must do!

Lake Ba Be, Hanoi and Headed South

My last stop before Hanoi was Ba Be lake, a national park with 3 interconnected lakes. I did a homestay in a village on the lake and stayed for two nights at a place called Duy Tho. It was beautiful and affordable. I rented a boat for a day, which was expensive and loud, but I got to see the lake. It is well worth stopping by the lake for the homestay, but I would skip the boat trip unless you are with a group and you have not spent much time on the water. I would have been happy with spending an hour in a small part of the lake in a dugout canoe.

Ba Be is quite beautiful. It was stunnning on the water in the early morning. There are all sorts of interesting animals living around the lake, but they do not exactly rush out to say “Hi!.” The boat ride includes a stop by a small water fall that feeds a hydroelectric plant and a short trek through a big cave. We stopped for lunch near the waterfall.

My host helped me find a faster and less trafficked road to get back to Hanoi, saving me countless encounters with trucks and busses and saving me a couple hours of driving. I was back in Hanoi in the early afternoon. Then it was time to get my bike serviced. It had some issues with shifting in 1st, 2nd
and neutral

One of the great things about hanoi is Bia Hoi. It’s a freshly brewed keg beer that has a shelf life of a day. In the Old Quarter, you can pick up a glass of it for 5000 Dong (25 cents). It’s tasty, cold and refreshing. On my last night in Hanoi I went for Indian food at Tamarind. It was pricey but very good. I was pleasantly suprized. I found a really good place for a massage about 5km from the Old Quarter and took a walk over. For 450,000 dong ($22.50) I got a 90 minute massage preceeded by a soak in a barrel, a soak in a jaccuzi and a steam. Pure bliss.

I ended up in this tiny no where town my first night heading south, as my scheduled stop did not feel very friendly. The place I ened up was very friendly!

I checked in to the only place to stay in town, which had two rooms and went for a walk. As I was passing by an elementary school, a couple of kids said, “Hello!” and I responded. Within 2 minutes the entire school emptied out and I was mobbed by kids saying hello, asking me my name, how old I was, where I was from, on and on. They wanted to shake hands and were facinated by my tattoos. I tried to get them out of the road and used taking a picture as a motivator. As you can see from the picture, they never really stopped vibrating.

I walked them all back to the school, some of the teachers were giving me the stink eye, some were caught up in the kids excitement. When we got back in the school grounds some of the kids were dragged off by teachers but about 20 of them decided that they were going to show me around town. We went to an outdoor market and the local hospital. I think they were introducing me to their parents, but who knows. One little girl gave me a flower and that started a trend. After an hour or so of being dragged hither and yon, I made my escape.

When I got back to the guest house, the second room had been rented to 4 engineers and they invited me to eat dinner with them. Of course, out came the local hooch and a bunch of food I did not recongnize, but they schooled me and were approving of my use of chopsticks. When the bll came, they would not take my money. Of course the woman who owned the restraunt tried to get me to pay for the whole bill. Unfortuately if you are a westerner traveling here, you are nothing but a dollar sign to many people in SEA. Luckily that unpleasentness is offset by people like the 4 nice gentlemen that bought me dinner.

The Final Frontier

I just spent four days riding through the Ha Giong area. It’s what the guide books call Vietnam’s final frontier. It has a lot of historical value as Ho Chi Minh spent a bunch of time there, it was a safe haven, it’s also on the border with China. You have to buy a permit to enter the area.

Between my off road adventure the other day all through the mountains in the frontier area, the views were stunning. The limestone mountains and the roads rising and desending through them made for the best views so far on this trip.

I met a Canadian, Justin, traveling by motorbike through the north. He had a six day rental and we decided to travel together for a few days. Justin was the first westerner I met traveling by motorcycle in Vietnam. While I’ve found many people writing about riding in Vietnam, I’ve only come across a handful of people and I’ve yet to meet anyone outside of Hanoi who is doing what I’m doing, who bought a bike to see the whole country on.

We stayed two nights in Dong Van, the northern most city and did a day of trecking. It was nice to get off the bike for a day. The trecking was great, we found an old French fort overlooking Dong Van and then just hiked up into the mountains on a random 10k hike. We met some nice guys who invited us in for tea.

The next day, I took the scenic route through the rest of the province and Justin made a B-line for Ba Be Lake. I ended up being off road again for much of the day. Justin got lost and didn’t make it to Ba Be until the following day.

I went to the local Yamaha shop to buy some motor oil and the owner kept giving me tea and shots of rice whiskey, I think I had shots with half the town. I could barely walk.

Today I Was a Motorcycle God!

Today it took me 7 hours to travel 125 kilometers. Most of that time was spent going 50 kilometers on a single track road, ok, trail, throught the backcountry. It was the most challenging day I have ever had on a motorcycle in 15 years of riding and I’ve ridden cross country in the US twice and been as far as the end of the Pan Am in Panama.

Today’s ride had the best scenery I’ve seen on the entire trip. I was riding ridgelines, doing hill climbs and did more river crossings than you could shake a stick at. At one point, about 30 K in, I came to a river crossing that was proceeded by about 30 meters of bolder s doing downhill. It was very intimidating. I did not get any points for style, but I made it through!

If fact I was up to every challenge the route threw at me. If I had known how difficult that route would be, I would not have taken it. It was not any shorter and it did not save me any time, it just seemed more interesting and I’m so glad I did it!

I have a confession to make, I have very little experience riding off road and all of the off road riding I’ve done was on a BMW, K1100RS, a 120HP superbike designed for sport/touring. In 1995 I went on the BMW Paris, Paris to Panama, endurance rally. There were 120 riders and we had a fleet of Land Cruisers supporting us. Our route was scouted and mapped, our meals and accomidations were all arraned, and the off road riding we did was not that challenging.

There is a huge differece between riding a 120 HP motorcycle that weighs 300 kilos and a little 10 HP bike that weighs 120 kilos. You really do not want to stall on a hill climb on a slippery slope with that little bike. It just doesn’t have the torque to recover, especially while sliding downhill, backwards. But recover I did!

I highly recomend taking the scenic route from Vihn Quang to Ha Giang, but have a modicum of self preservation and do not do it alone! If you want the details of the route, leave me a comment or send me an email and I’ll get them to you.

It is hard to describe the feeling of accomplishment I reaped for today’s adventure! It has been quite some time since I have pushed my limits as far as I have today and it was a huge confidence builder. The great thing about accomplishment like this is that it increases overall confidence and builds self respect. I’m tired, sore and exausted. “Today I was a motorcycle god!”