In the immortal words of mr. Ice Cube 'today was a good day'. Not only did I not have to use my AK, or have some sort of pork product for breakfast but I did some scary fun stuff that I've never done before... (not a 'special massage').
Since Hoi An I've been kinda loosley affilated to a group of about eight people all travelling on their own and all moving roughly the same direction and same speed. Pretty much everyone has gone to other countries now, one to China, one to France, the rest to Thailand. Anyway, there's just me and this Texan kid named Cody left and we decided last night that it was high time I had a go on a motorbike so today we got up really early, hired some bikes and set out across the mountains.
Cody had a cool russian bike called a Minsk and unfortunately I was lumbered with a semi automatic scooter. I say unfortunately, but I reckon it was definitley for the best because I have never properly ridden a bike before. Also I was given a cool helmet like the ones the Baddies wear in Aha's 'take on me' video.
Maybe this was not the best place to start learning... Thick fog, incredibly windy roads with sheer cliff face drops, suicidal bus drivers and crazy steam powered (well it seemed like it) communist trucks that couldn't stop in an emergency if they tried.
Anyway, I took my life into my hands and stepped up to my 110 cc Suzuki 'Best' and we shot off following a map some vietnamese guy had scrawled onto the back of a menu which promised us beautiful scenery, isolated villages and some good fun.
The first two hours were a bit uncomfortable, we were riding up to a high pass in the Fansipan Massif and it was bitterly cold, I had bought some gloves and I had my fleece on but they did absolutley no good. Then the cloud cleared and I saw some of the most fantastic scenery I have ever seen, not that I could check it out too much because I was dodging trucks (one of which had recently crashed and rolled over spilling sacks of salt into the road) and crazy North Vietnamese tribeswomen who were standing by the side of the road trying to sell us bracelets as we passed.
We came down into a valley and soon the road was no more, just a track which was very stoney and dusty, but my trusty 'beast' handled like a dream. We passed through several villages and stopped in one or two to say hello and the people were really friendly and happy to see us. The people in these villages had been living in the same way for centuries and all still wear traditional dress, have no electricity, don't speak vietnamese it was really interesting to see and experience. I guess they don't get many white people around those parts because everyone was waving and shouting hello as we passed, including the old men and women! I've never waved to so many people, I felt like royalty... Well, the kind of royalty that rides around on a ragged japanese scooter, but special nonetheless.
The weather suddenly took a turn for the better and soon we were cruising (slowly as the road was so shit) under blue skies and a blazing hot sun. Then we came to our first bridge... It was like something out of Indiana Jones, a wooden rope bridge over a gushing river with planks rotten, broken and missing... but that was heavenly compared to the second bridge which had been swamped and was replaced by two young boys on a bamboo raft about a metre wide. we sat and watched them at work for a while and decided that while it would probably be fun to try, the Motorbike hire place had our passports and may not take kindly to having their bikes lost in a river, so we followed a very narrow track about a mile upstream and came to another rickety rope bridge, which didn't seem that much safer, but we had no other choice.
At this point Cody mentioned that he was running kinda low on fuel and that if we didn't hurry back we probably wouldn't reach Sapa before nightfall. so we set out to find a petrol station and then get our swerve on back to town. Of course Petrol isn't that easy to find in the Vietnamese highlands and we drove to what our Vietnames 'friend' had told us was a highway... in fact it was a sealed single lane road that went straight as an arrow through a valley full of rice paddies and water buffalo. We burnt along there at full speed (Not sure how fast because the speedo was broken, but I had the throttle fully open... Very scary) only stopping when one of my wing mirrors fell off, until we reached a Petrol station.
Only to be told by the attendent that they had run out of petrol! By this time my bike was very nearly empty too, and we had about 40 km uphill until we reached the pass. not to mention that the sun was starting to get worringly low. I checked my headlights and of course they were not working, so I started to feel a trifle panicky.
The next hour or two were very hairy, basically driving as fast as we could up the mountain as the clouds and dsuk loomed. luckily we made it to the pass while it was still light, and we still had some fuel, but just to be sure we turned off the engines and coasted down into town, it was great fun freewheeling the 10km back into Sapa and at the end of the day I felt a great sense of achievement. Not only have I discovered that I can ride a bike, but that I can do it on narrow mountain roads and on dirt tracks and over rotten rope bridges. Also It was really cool to leave the tourist trail and just kind of get lost in the mountains, we didn't see any other white faces all day. I just think a motorbike has to be the best way to see a country... From my huge experience of one day! We did ride abot 160km though... And I got a sore arse.
To celebrate we had pizza.
