Viet Road Trip Day 12

Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Viet Nam. This is day 12. Day 11 can be found here.

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ay 12 started out with some fun and light traffic out of the former Imperial city of Hue. Sometimes traffic in Vietnam can feel like everyone on the road is trying their hardest to kill you, or at least slow you down. Other times the traffic can feel like a game of Mario Cart. Leaving Hue felt like a round of Mario Cart on the morning of Day 12.

Leaving Hue. If only I had some banana peels to drop behind me.

A graveyard on the outskirts of town.

oon after leaving Hue, I found the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I had heard of the Ho Chi Minh trail from war movies and documentaries, but I didn't know what to expect in modern Vietnam.

For those of you who don't know, the Ho Chi Minh Trail is a network of trails that were used to transport people and materials across Vietnam in the 1960's and 70's during the "American War", as the Vietnamese call it. This trail was a real threat to the Americans who used tons of bombs and toxic chemicals in attempts to destroy this vital supply line. The Americans were never successful in severing the Trail. They would eventually draw scorn from the world community for military actions in neighboring Laos and Cambodia aimed at destroying the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The trail exists today as a small highway through the country.

Nice little road with only me using it at the moment.

Welcome to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

'm not sure if this first road is actually considered part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but it's close enough. Much of the Trail would be similar to the video above. Small paths not much bigger than a golf cart path. Very little traffic. Big bright red signs saying "Death to all who enter!" (ok, they probably say something else). And beautiful little villages with friendly villagers going about their business.

On the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I started getting that excited "You're way out in the middle of nowhere" feeling. Like being on the edge of fear, but having too much fun to allow the fear to do anything but season the experience with some added tang. I was in the middle of nowhere alright, and it was the most spectacular thing I'd ever experienced.

I mentioned in a previous post that I love water buffaloes. I do. I saw these guys and had to stop for a break.

Probably not a bad way to spend the day.

Lovely stretch of highway through a valley.

he trail opened up into a brand new 2-lane highway that cut through a valley with a river at its bottom. If you watch the video above, you'll see that there are almost no vehicles at all on this big beautiful highway. It's great! However, you may have noticed that of the four vehicles in this video, half of them were driving in the wrong lane, against traffic. That's not so great!

So I don't know what's more dangerous. Crowded roads where other drivers have to stay on their toes. Or empty roads with fewer hazards, but drivers who may be distracted, napping, or attempting to drive their whole route in the lane for opposing traffic.

This "driving in the opposing lane of traffic" thing is very real in Vietnam. I'm not sure what it's about, but when I took the bus from Cambodia to Vietnam, the bus driver spent 90% of the trip in the wrong lane. It's like there's a contest for bus and truck drivers going on. The "Who can go the farthest in the wrong lane without killing someone" contest. I wonder what the prize is.

Nice little farm by a river.

Nice ride down The HCM Trail.

Random shot while riding. This is a pretty typical looking store on the HCM Trail.

Nice house with a pond in the front yard.

A nice neighborhood on the HCM Trail.

fter the highway made its way through the valley, the road thinned out and flattened out quite a bit. For the next few hours of riding, the road would stay close to a river.

And then this video happened. I was riding along, minding my own business, listening to Tool, when everyone in this village started yelling at me.

Friendliest town in the world?

I don't know what's going on in this village, but almost every man, woman, and child in that town waved at me or yelled out "Hello!" to me. In Laos, it was special to get one "hello" from a single kid in a whole day. In Vietnam, it was much more common to be greeted while riding, but even so, only one or two people per town would usually launch a "hello" in my direction.

Maybe this village is just very friendly. Or maybe the town got some good news. Or maybe some tourists came through the day before, giving out candy and money to everyone. I'll never know. What I do know is that I was grinning ear to ear when I left this village, and I couldn't wait to see more things, talk to more people, and experience more of whatever "this" was.

Another random shot while riding.

A nice stretch of road next to a picturesque river.

Found some shade! Time for a break!

his video is a good example of what makes riding along The HCM Trail so magical. It's empty! Riding on the HCM Trail is like riding through a dream. You're just there with your thoughts and the beauty that surrounds you. Of course, some parts of the trail are busier than others, but huge sections of the HCM Trail haven't seen much use ever since Highway 1 was built.

Another thing this video demonstrates is how scarce shade can be sometimes. On some days I would have to ride for 10 or 20 minutes before finding a shady spot to take a break. You would think that with all of the trees and plants, shade would be easy to find, but that's not the case.

The road just keeps going and going...

Taking the cows out for some food and water.

One last video from the day's ride.

A monument in Khe Sanh.

made it to Khe Sanh before dinner time. It was a fairly long day for me at ~170 kilometers. I know that doesn't sound far, but I usually drive slow on the scooter. After 4 or 5 hours on the bike, it gets difficult to focus and riding becomes dangerous for me.

After a couple of passes through the town, I found a hotel and got a room for myself. The hotel was new, nice, and cheap (less than $15). They also had food and beer upstairs in a dining room, so it was perfect. I went out for a few photos, then returned to the hotel.

Day 12 was my first day on The Ho Chi Minh Trail. It was everything I had hoped for and more. The people continued to amaze me. I had been told that the people would get less and less friendly as I moved north, but I was finding the opposite to be true. I went to bed excited about what tomorrow would bring.

What did tomorrow bring? You'll just have to wait until tomorrow (or whenever I get around to writing about it). Until then, ride safe!

Dusk in Khe Sanh.

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Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Vietnam. Read about days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7.1, 8, 8.1, 9, 9.1, 10, and 11 here.