Back in Nam

It was going to be an enjoyable trip, i had no real knowledge of vietnam apart from a strong liking of the coffee it produced, and it wasn’t too far away from where i was currently in zhuhai china. Keen for a short trip somewhere and also a cool girl i knew called Issy had grandparents from vietnam and had told me it was nice. Vietnam it is then.

We will go on the sleeper train, much cheaper than flying and anything that avoids a chinese airport is a good idea, planning on sourcing a bike when we get there i tell Issy to pack light and dress for a bike adventure trip if she wants to come.

She arrives dressed as this the next morning, obviously what we think of suitable clothing for a bike trip is somewhat different, and while this is very nice the practical side of me questions taking a young girl on a bike trip, I have only ever gone with mates or by myself before and this will be a new experience. Will play it by ear and see how it goes.

Onto the sleeper train which resembles a prison but with slightly better bedding and less anal rape. Its a thirteen hour trip and i pass time by drinking warm beers until i am slaughtered and go to bed, surprisingly comfortable until the wake up call that the train has arrived.

We arrive to Nanning,china and go stay at a hostel that can process out vietnam visa within two days. Nanning is a nice town with a good walking street of bbq style food. Great place to drink beers an eat whole bits of some creature from the murky depths once cooked and covered in spice and lime juice. No doubt it’s mother was out crushing the steel hull of some ships in revenge.I’m the one with the beer, not impaled on a stick. For now.

Waiting for the visa we went on a bus ride to see a old village, the bus was a rusted out heap and the ride was truly terrifying along a road not wide enough for two vehicles, but we push through anyway, i made my peace that i had a good life and it was now in the hands of the sixty seven year old driver who constantly took slugs of strong liquor from a clear bottle at his side. We made it alive and the old village was in fact, an old village. The excitement of the old village was instantly noted on arrival.

Once we took the death bus back into town again Issy said she had a friend with a bar in Nanning we could get hooked up with drinks at, this sounded good after the wild times at the old village a few beers to wind down could be nice, we meet up with some friends of hers who are a lesbian couple, not hot at all but the “man” one of the couple is pretty cool to talk to and it turns out we are going to a gay bar, that’s cool gay people know how to party and i’m rolling in with three girls so should be cool.

At the bar they have some performances on stage and ask me to go sit on a chair, many men would have said no but i’m used to being front of crowds so it should be ok…ends up with a overweight middle age chinese man in a costume dancing around me, it is absolutely hilarious and everyone seems happy that i get a laugh from it. No photos of this as everyone was laughing too much, probably a good thing.

The next day we collect our visas and roll on a eight hour bus ride across the border and into Hanoi, a busy city with a sea of scooters, the scooters and bikes look like a school of fish they way they move and flow together through the streets.

Stay in a nice little hostel on Ly Quoc St, cool little area to look around and a young english guy parks a bike out the front with a for sale sign on it, Honda 100 Win for $210 usd. He has ridden it 1500km up from Ho Chi Minh city and it looks pretty straight, I ride it around the block and with a handshake and 210 usd changing hands i own a new bike. The exchange rate means i am a multi millionaire and pay around four million dong for my new wheels.

Self made millionaire!! My fourth grade teachers we’re all wrong!! I’m a success!

The next day we get up and pack the bags on the bike, it even comes with occy straps!! the night before i bought a comprehensive tool kit consisting of a shifter, gaffa tape and large pliers, If i can’t fix it with that i can take parts from wrecked vehicles or cut wire from a fence, threaten other motorists into donating parts with the shifter or simply use the pliers to get that last sweet draw from a joint without burning my fingers, the gaffa tape is purely for if Issy keeps talking and pissing me off.

Checked the bike over, it had oil and with a quick adjust of the front brakes was ready to roll! swingarm pivot had about four metric acres of movement in it but everything worked and it ran sweet, had a chinese replacement engine in place of the original, the design on these is so good that even if you made the engine from cheese and wood shavings it would still work well.

One hundred CC is not a lot, about three shot glasses or so, mated to a four speed transmission with two people and our gear on it some people would say it’s not enough, but it ran like a wounded moose and carried us with all the grace of a ice skater with broken ankles.

Leave Hanoi and get totally and comprehensively lost, i wasn’t even sure where we were going so assumed i could not get lost, but had wanted to head south, ended up going north west. Fuck it, let’s keep rolling and see what we find i don’t really care as long as it’s a fun ride. Had packed light so had to stop on the way and buy a jacket, beanie and gloves as it was a bit cold, got a free lid with the bike so got Issy to wear that while i had a protective beanie.

No fucking idea where we are going worked out pretty nicely, it was in the hands of the road gods if they wanted me to run over a mine or find some fun. Stopped for lunch at a little cafe in the bush and the store lady was super cool, cooked us a great feed and then took us on a tour of some local spots before showing us a local hotel to stay at for a couple of days while we explored the area, a wonderful person.

Rode into Ba Vi national park and up a big mountain, it was back to first gear and wringing the little Hondas neck a bit to follow the winding road up, the road was tarmac and with the smell of near boiling oil wafting into my nostrils we crawled to the top, it was like the little engine that could but with less train references.

Checked out a temple at the top, temples are always at the top of the hill, most likely future investment in key real estate locations.The ride down was great, crazy steep so no engine needed just freewheel down and try not to brake too much, the wobbly honda was cranking on the way down, Issy is used to chinese traffic and blissfully unaware how close we are to constantly crashing as the swingarm pivot moves back and forth through the corners keeping things interesting.

Had purchased a small amount of the devils lettuce (weed) in Hanoi under incredibly dodgy circumstances from a crooked looking moto taxi driver, had to do the transaction while we rode and got him to drop me off at a different hotel from the one i was staying at, waited in the lobby and he circled the block once again and after than i was out of there, sketchy as. Unable to source papers had to de-tobacco some smokes and refill with chopped reggae salad.

Headed south once we bought a SIM card that let Issy phone have a GPS, fucking awesome thing and made the ride much more organised, turned out i was on the Ho Chi Minh trail and checked out some old army trucks laying about.

Houses look really cool here usually two or three stories so as not to take up usable farming space i imagine.

The scenery was beautiful to ride through, doing around 70kmh sounds slow but was perfect for where we were and also how baked i was. Roadside cafe are everywhere so you can stop for a coffee or a beer as you please, i wasn’t hitting it hard just a few beers along the way and awesome coffee when i felt like it. Roadside stop for a beer with hammocks to relax in, this is my kind of place.

The scenery was breathtaking, ..or that could have been the uni cigarettes.

COFFEE!!! the reason of my trip, is so readily available and so good there it is awesome! roadside stop for coffee was happening pretty often we were just cruising and stopping at anywhere that looked nice.Coffee drips through and after about five minutes you can have it straight, or with condensed milk and ice to make a sweet iced coffee, damn this stuff is good!

Also the cafe provide bongs for customer use, everyone smokes straight tobacco in the guys always offer me a try, i’m not usually a tobacco smoker but had a go and instantly felt like my head had been put on a frisbee and launched at top speed. Seems better than cigarettes as no butts left to tidy up.

Propaganda posters here are cool as.

Stopping for fuel is only about once a day a the little 100 seems able to run on the smell of a dry rag, no oily-ness required, bigger towns have normal fuel stations but countryside has smaller drums with a lift pump or sometimes just fuel in glass bottles. Takes about $5 us to fill the tank.

Lunchtime beers, 50c australian for a 500ml Hanoi beer, nicely done and the beers is good i try to get french style sandwiches but most of the country places just have rice noodles, i ate a shitload of rice noodles as i cant speak vietnamese so always just ask for “food’ and see what comes out.

Beers and motorcycling inevitably produces wheelies.

Meet some local kids that liked the wheelies, once the camera was off i forced them to work in a factory producing cheap shoes, haha take that kids!

Decided to head across to the coast and check it out, ended up in a place called Samson. Do not go there. It was weird, the whole beachfront strip was set up for a large amount of tourists that were not there so it was eeire like a ghost town but even the ghosts had fucked off, desperate hotel owners trying to hussle you into their hotels and usual tourist trap bollocks.

Made the most of it by doing donuts on the beach and letting Issy ride the bike around town for a while.

Boats there were interesting, bamboo formed hulls with single cylinder diesels.

The boat winch was in regular use, i really love bush engineering, here we have a diesel stationary engine driving a transfer case from a 4WD or old army truck to give a neutral and 2 available speeds and a gearing reduction, then turning a diff from similar vehicle to turn the drive 90 degrees and give another gearing reduction, worked great and i was impressed with the rubber belt drive coupling, roughly balanced and working as a cush drive it was wonderful re use of parts.

After a couple of days at the coast we headed back inland to the countryside again and i felt much happier to be back on the trails with nice relaxed people, rode through some lovely roads and the Honda was running like a champ.

Small asian market bikes are wonderful, light, simple and reliable. Along with being cheap as hell you can’t go wrong with just turning up and buying something for a quick simple trip. Cruising along is nice you can soak up the sights.

The only brief stop in the trip was when we came to a river crossing, it did not look too deep from the bank and was flowing fast so i was sure i would get across, Issy tried to tell me not to do it, but shes a girl! So i told her to “watch this!” and i would ride across. Standing up on the pegs i rode the first part easily, looking pretty cool moving around on the bike. My feet going underwater and the exhaust note changing to that of a boat as it also went under just added to the cool factor.

I’ve got this, easy done, no worries! Running water is known for it’s calming affect, but as the water level rose again and the engine stopped abruptly it was not calming me at all, bags tied on the rack with passports and cash that i’m sure would be better off not underwater. The captain must go down with the ship, or in this case jump off the down streamside with water over my knees and hold the bike up. Cunt!! Bike is light enough to push to the other side so that’s a plus.

While i waited for the bike to dry out i got some lovely photos.

Headed back to Hanoi as the journey was nearing it’s end, got the bike washed at a roadside stop for $1 us. Say what you want about child slave labour but it gets shit done.

Sold the awesome honda at the same backpackers for $150 us and got drunk on this local Nep Moi with the Hotel owner who helped me sell the bike, I had wanted to find the guy who helps street kids fix bikes in Hanoi and donate it to him but the offer of selling it was easy and on the spot. Next time i want to go see what the workshop that helps kids is like and maybe help out or just laugh at the kids for being poor and homeless while i burn money in front of them.

Bus and train ride back to china was passed by reading Ho Chi Minhs book and smoking my last small joint before i did the border crossing into china, don’t carry drugs across borders kids, it’s just not smart. Had a great time and hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as i enjoyed the trip, learnt a bit about vietnam and had bulk fun. Peace out!