The Adventure of a Lifetime

Off the train and into Hanoi. My first impression was that this was a more crowded and chaotic version of Saigon - but I digress. I'll discuss the city more in my next post - on to the good stuff... Prepare for a long read.

--- DAY 1 ---

We took a cab into the Old City where we picked up a pair of Russian beauties: two Soviet-era "Minsk" motorcycles. Four-speed, manual transmission, 2 stroke engine, loud, powerful, smelly, and perfect for a week long adventure into the rugged, isolated mountains of the northwest.

After dealing with all the mandatory bullshit of contracts, deposits, passport copies, learning the correct combination of oil and gasoline, and taking pre-ride pictures to cover our asses when they undoubtedly would try to charge us for "damages" upon our return (we learned our lesson in Thailand with the dirt bikes), we began the first and most anxiety-inspiring leg of our journey - the escape from Hanoi. Recall my description of the traffic in Saigon, then multiply that by 1000 in terms of volume, speed, and insanity. There are no rules, and the other drivers are ruthless! Before we could finally relax out on the open road, we had to weave and dodge our way through about 15 miles of the clusterfuck that is Hanoi - hell. After almost losing each other a few times in the sea of scooters, stalling out at "traffic lights" while quickly learning the quirks of our bikes out of survival necessity, and a few close calls with homicidal tractor trailers, we made it out onto the highway and breathed our first breath of oxygenated air (don't come to Hanoi if you have any problems with respiration). By the way, it was night at this point, which made our escape all the more exciting.

About an hour outside the city we stopped for the first time to let our adrenaline levels settle, check our map, and grab some water at a small night-market. The women and kids at the market all crowded around us to check out these crazy "Canadians" who had somehow found their way to this tiny, obscure corner of the world (the anti-American sentiment in North Vietnam is still prevalent enough to warrant a temporary change of nationality). We used our handy-dandy phrasebook to answer their questions about who we were, how old we were, where we were from etc... They told us which direction to go, and we continued on our way after picking up a bag of delicious peaces from one of their stalls. About one hour later, we arrived in a small town called Hoa Binh, where we spent out first night. (Still pretty close to Hanoi, but we didn't want to drive any farther in the dark.) We went out to find some dinner and we were called over to a tent with a stove and a bunch of plastic chairs by a group of locals in their late 20s. They collectively knew about 15 sentences in English, but it was still a lot of fun trying to communicate with them. They offered us round-after-round of the local rice liquor, which we had to politely decline after about the 10th shot. We decided not to order the monkey-brain soup that they were all eating, and we opted for pho beef noodle soup instead - a little monotonous at this point but much more appealing. They paid for our dinner and said good night. (We still gave the owners a few bucks.)

--- DAY 2 ---

Hoa Binh - Son La

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

We woke up early to hit the road and were blown away when the daylight revealed how quickly the scenery had changed since Hanoi. Already we were well on our way up into the mountains. We began to see our first Montangards - the local hill tribes of the northwest who have no cultural, ethnic, or linguistic relation to the lowland Vietnamese. Gliding down smoothly paved roads past bright-orange August corn ripe for harvesting, ambivalently fat grazing water buffalo, smiling hill tribe children, sun soaked valleys with a mixture of jagged peaks in the background and rolling green hills in the foreground, and miles of clear blue skies - we began to let go of the tensions that had been building up over the past few hectic days of travel through Vietnam.

As we began to ascend our first serious hills, we quickly learned how to manipulate the gears to help us maintain speed and control. It didn't take very long to get comfortable with the bikes. (And yes Mom, I finally wore those dog tags you gave me just in case I fell off the side of a cliff and someone needed to identify my body.) We navigated a few sections of wide, winding switchbacks up and down the small mountains in the lower regions and dropped into flat valleys with straightaways that took us past vast fields of rice paddies and cornfields. Every now and then the beauty was too much for us to bear and we stopped to take some photos. (Most of the time, however, we stayed on our bikes through the really dramatically beautiful sections, so the pictures I have don't even come close to doing our experience justice. We arrived in a town called Son La after about 250 kilometers and settled down for the night. Brian tended to his severely sunburnt arms, and I boasted about the benefits of sunscreen. We did a little exploring of the markets, but there wasn't too much to see in the small, dusty town.

--- DAY 3 ---

Son La - Dien Bien Phu

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

We were jolted awake, bright and early, by the bugling of "Reveille" as the town's troops were called to assemble in the sports stadium below our window for morning exercises. Without being able to get much more sleep, we set off. It took us a few tries to get the bikes started, and we were a little concerned, but we figured out that after a cool night in the mountains we needed to switch the choke down before trying to kick start them. (Another step that feels like second nature in retrospect.) Once again, immediately and dramatically, the road and landscape changed completely. The smooth pavement and then short (very random) six-lane highway leading up to Son La gave way to a tiny one-lane dirt road which snaked up through the steep hills to the northwest. Not sure if we had accidentally taken the wrong route out of town, I asked around a few times and we were assured that this was the only way to Dien Bien. After clearing the first set of 10% grade dirt switchbacks, we dropped into a beautiful valley of low, terraced rice paddies being worked by hordes of hill tribe members. We encountered almost no ethnic-Vietnamese from here on out. As we ascended the mountains and continued our journey, the locals became increasingly more colorful. The hill tribes are known for their ornate dress, and they really do look like they are shown in pictures. This is no tourist gimmick, just a patch of sincere, untainted, traditional lifestyles in one of the most remote parts of Southeast Asia.

We tried to take some pictures, but we felt like we were invading their privacy and treating them like zoo animals, so we refrained until we got to Sapa a few days later. Furthermore, some of the tribes believe that photographs steal their souls, so they try to hide every time they see a camera - another reason for the lack of hill tribe pictures (sorry! you'll just have to come see for yourselves!)

The novelty of the open road soon wore off, and the adrenaline rush that accompanies an awakened consciousness of our fragile mortality soon kicked in as we entered the most humbling 100km of our trip. Not only were the jagged peaks of the massive mountains that soared thousands of feet above our heads enough to make anyone feel insignificant, but we also entered the zone of rainy season landslides, which cause such horrible road conditions that you begin to thank God for your life after every heart-pounding switchback over rocky, gravel and dirt "roads" with potholes that looked big enough to be remnant bombing scars from the French or American wars. I am positive that some of these potholes were bottomless, and that every now and then a little Vietnamese kid falls through and pops out on the other side of the world somewhere near Paterson, New Jersey. To make matters worse, trucks the size of battleships come barreling down the one-lane roads at lightning speed, with no regard whatsoever for us puny motorcycle drivers. I'm convinced that some of them try with all their might to knock us off the sheer cliffs at every chance they get. Almost worse than having a truck race around a bend toward you is being stuck behind one. The dust they kick up is blinding and burrows into the darkest depths of the tiniest alveolar cavities in your lungs, leaving no option to stay behind the trucks, you have to pass them. This must be done quickly and with complete blind faith - the only time to pass is when the truck slows down while taking on one of the hairpin switchbacks. At the exact moment your intuition tells you to go, you hit the clutch and pop the bike down into 2nd or 3rd gear, pray for your life, and race around the truck as fast as you can while trying to avoid any oncoming traffic on the narrow turn.

Whenever we were able to take a break from concentrating on the road and enjoy the scenery, we were blown away by the astounding valleys, peaks, villages, and locals. The English language doesn't offer a way to accurately convey the extreme beauty of the landscape, and I can only use the same 10 adjectives so many times before I start getting repetitive, so I won't even try -- look at the pictures. The scenery for the rest of the trip was really really really really really nice. Period.

The last 30km into Dien Bien Phu was some of the bumpiest terrain we had crossed all day (I say terrain instead of road because I can't bring myself to call what we were driving on a "road"). Hours of violent bumps took their toll on my bike and two of the screws broke off the rack to which I had strapped my bag. The bungee cords began snapping and by the time I noticed, I had lost my water bottle and the map. We spent the rest of the trip navigating by the sun and the stars (and asking people where to go, the signage is not too shabby either). After 6 hours, we arrived in Dien Bien Phu and found a hotel. I'm not sure the owners could tell that there were humans beneath the layers of dirt caked onto our faces and clothes, and they showed us directly to the shower, somewhat confused. We fell asleep as soon as we showered and plopped onto the beds, woke up for dinner a little later, and went back to sleep for the night. What an exhausting day!!! We noticed that as we got further from civilization, fewer and fewer people could speak any English, so we decided to try our luck with learning some more Vietnamese phrases. We taught ourselves how to count from 1 to 999, and it became a vital tool for the rest of our trip. We used our new number skills to do everything from negotiating the price of a hotel room to explaining to fascinated locals that, yes, Brian is indeed almost 2 meters tall.

--- DAY 4 ---

Dien Bien Phu - Lai Chau

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

Another day of incredible luck with the weather, it was sunny and warm and beautiful. The roads were still winding and exciting, but they were paved and smooth! Hallelujah! We were deep within the heart of hill tribe country, and we were still climbing in altitude -- over 1 mile at this point. As we dipped through valleys and climbed over high passes into river gorges and over rolling hills, we passed through a sequence of varied micro climates - some hot and dry, some cool and damp, and some with an occasional misting of light rain. We crossed over mighty rivers, so silted that the water was a darker brown than chocolate milk. We dodged suicidal cows and water buffalo who thought the middle of the road was a perfect place for a nap. And we waved to the endless flow of smiling children who always jumped up to greet us with a hearty "hellooo!" even while there parents stared on with confused glares.

This was the day that I experienced motorcycle Zen. There is something hypnotic about the natural flow of zigging and zagging, leaning left and right, gliding around smoothly paved switchbacks at regular intervals on a warm sunny day in one of the most beautiful wildernesses on Earth. It inspires a feeling of peace unmatched by any experience that I can use as a justified comparison.

After only three hours, we reached the town of "Lai Chau" only to find that it had been renamed to Tan May, or something like that. The government had decided that another town about 80 kilometers to the north would make a much better Lai Chau, so they swapped names. Since we had planned on spending the night in Lai Chau, and since we were hours ahead of schedule, we decided to continue on to the new Lai Chau to spend the night.

While we were stopped taking pictures of a pool full of water buffalo, Brian's bike slipped off the kickstand and the clutch handle cracked very slightly. We didn't notice until about an hour later when we slowed down to navigate a patch of mud puddles, and he found the handle dangling by the cable. The crack had worked its way all the way through, and the handle had completely cracked off. By an act of God, this happened just as we were approaching a small village that just happened to have mechanics who just happened to know exactly how to fix Minsk motorcycles. Twenty minutes and 4 dollars later the handle was fixed, and we were about to head off, but the mechanics called our attention to a massive storm that was building just over the hills across the Chinese border. A wall of black clouds descended upon the village and it began to downpour. We spent about an hour at a little restaurant eating lunch and enjoying the serenity of the storm and small village life. We made it to the new Lai Chai just before it started to rain again, and had some horrible food in town for dinner. (We hadn't been to impressed with Vietnamese food up to this point.)

--- DAY 5 ---

Lai Chau - Sapa

Today was the most amazing drive of my life:

Of course - the one day we REALLY wanted clear, sunny weather, the clouds and fog rolled in with a vengeance. The dreary weather and change in landscape made me think of the English countryside with small farms bordered by piled stone walls and little brooks flowing alongside the winding road. (Except this version of the English countryside had 10,000 ft high mountains in the background.) We had tons of energy for the drive, and the thick air made everything very peaceful. We zoomed across the rolling hills, enjoying the lack of other cars or people in this VERY remote corner of Vietnam. After stopping in a hut at the peak of a hill for lunch, we continued on to the Trom Tan Pass - the highest mountain pass in Southeast Asia next to the tallest mountain in Vietnam. The views were awesome. We stopped at the edge of a cliff overlooking the mountains, and laid out on some rocks for a while to take in the scenery and relax in the brief patch of sun. We were joined by a young hill tribe kid who sat down to watch us before running off to climb a 50 foot sheer cliff behind us by pulling himself up from vine to vine (show off).

Sapa had always seemed like some far off fantasy destination in my mind. The unattainable. The beacon at the end of a the tunnel, but finally - 5 days and 800 kilometers later, we arrived. We didn't expect much from the former French hill station - judging by the many dreary towns we had passed through on our way up, but we were pleasantly surprised by the charm of the place. It is a small, quaint town with European efficiency and layout, inhabited by hill tribes, and bombarded with tourists. I was disappointed to see Westerners again, having successfully evaded them for the past five days, but we really appreciated the tourist infrastructure that had followed them to Sapa: good food, hot showers, ENGLISH, etc...

We randomly bumped into the Spanish people again that I had met a week earlier on the train to Hanoi, and we chatted for a while about our respective adventures and where to get a decent dinner. They re-extended their offer for me to visit them in the spring, which I might just do.

Finally we felt comfortable taking pictures of the colorful locals. We felt that as long as they were hawking us and trying to nag us into buying their goods, it would be okay to snap some photos.

--- DAY 6 ---

Sapa - Hanoi

Sapa was very nice, but we decided to leave early the next day and try to make it all the way back to Hanoi in one long stretch. As soon as we were nearing the edge of the city, my bike started puttering and stalling every time I tried to start it. I was getting pretty worried, thinking maybe the gas attendant had put in the wrong combination of gas and oil. A Vietnamese guy came over and helped us change the spark plug, which we thought might have been the problem, but that didn't help. We rolled the bike across the street, where by an act of God once again, there just happened to be a mechanic who knew Minsks. He immediately removed the carburetor and cleaned it out. Huge blobs of gook and dirt splashed onto the floor, and he reattached it and started up the engine which revved to life and purred like a kitten. He charged me about a dollar and we went on our way. (Gotta love cheap labor!!)

It was another cloudy day, and the first few hours of the drive were cloudy and a little depressing. We stopped for lunch at our 6 hour halfway point, and by the time we got back on the road the weather had gotten sunny and warm again. As we drove further back into civilization the roads got wider and we could finally pick up some speed. When we got out of the mountains and into the lower, flatter region around Hanoi, the landscape began to look exactly like how I would have imagined Vietnam - dense jungle with miles of rice paddies, a snaking road winding around the lowland hills, and women with conical hats carrying goods over their backs. Finally, we began to see signs of urban life. Traffic increased tenfold and the roads again became hectic and maddening. We relearned the tricks to dodging other motorbikes and suffered the black exhaust fumes of government trucks. After following signs that lead us through an impossible maze of side roads, we began to approach the city. Four land highways became dirt roads which became town centers which became industrial wastelands. Cows were everywhere, and they have the right of way. About 60 kilometers from the city we could see an enormous storm rolling in, so we stopped to put our ponchos just in time as torrents of heavy rain began to pummel us with its stinging cold. We had nowhere to stop, and we wanted to get back into the city before the bike rental place closed, so we continued through the storm - probably the most unenjoyable experience of my life. My sunglasses were fogging up, so I had to take them off and rely on squinting to keep the rain out of my eyes. The roads got muddy, and traffic got crazier. We were going as slow as our bikes would go, and it seemed like nature was doing everything it could to prevent us from getting back into the city. We were lucky as hell that this was our only experience with rain -- being the rainy season, it usually rains every day in the mountains, but we had pretty great weather the whole time.

After a total of 11 hours (a hell of a long trip!!) we made it back to the rental place just after it closed. We locked up our bikes and went back to the hotel to collect our bags and find a room.

We made it. Alive. We conquered 6 days and 1,200km (800 miles) of some of the most challenging motorcycling terrain in the region. We climbed to an altitude of 10,000 feet and back down. We explored beautiful landscapes and experienced an exotic, traditional way of life. Truly this has been the experience of a lifetime, and what a way to culminate an already inredible adventure!

Here are the new pictures ---

http://picasaweb.google.com/MxMrshll/Asia3