Our motorbiking through northwest Vietnam continues...
While the road from Sapa to Lai Chau had been paved and in generally good condition, the same cannot be said of the “road” from Lai Chau to Son La. I suspect that it was built by the French sometime in the fifties and deliberately beat into unrecognizability since then. Part of the lack of upkeep may have to do with the fact that Lai Cho's days are numbered: in a few years the city--indeed the whole area--will be underwater as they complete a new dam.
Anyway, this was a definite “off-road,” in the true sense of the word. And boy, was it ever fun! This was like mountain biking on turbo! Pascal and I ripped through these rocky, bumpy, pothole-ridden mountain roads like there was no tomorrow, pushing ourselves to the edge and letting the adrenaline take over our beings. Wow, this was the high life!
It was almost with disappointment that we finished our day's journey in Son La, although it did start to rain near the end there. But after an exhilarating journey we were dead tired and I barely lasted two minutes of wakefulness after dinner before passing out on the bed in our room.
The only unusual thing that happened to us that day was that we were randomly checked and detained by the police in a tiny little mountain village for close to an hour. First they wanted our passports, then our motorcycle driving licenses (which of course we don't have) and so on and so forth, but thankfully our guide did the heavy lifting with these guys and eventually we were able to resume our journey.
Day 4 (Friday) was the day from hell. A typhoon hit Vietnam this week, causing untold damage and flooding on the coast. Apparently, it even made CNN. Unfortunately, it also brought some rain to the north in what otherwise would be the dry season. Well, dry this day was not, let me tell you!
First of all, rain after weeks and weeks of dry weather is not a good thing when it comes to roads in Vietnam. You've got all that oil buildup and, more importantly, all that dust and dirt which turns into a super-slick layer of mud on the roads. It was like driving on a Slip 'n Slide.
Another discovery that morning was that the waterproof rain pants we'd rented from the motorcycle place in Hanoi didn't fit. Extra large for a Vietnamese is not quite large enough for a couple of Westerners. Soggy pants, here we come.
Plus, and I'm sure this is self-evident to experienced bikers, but didn't quite register with us until this day, but motorcycle helmets do not have windshield wipers. So when you're riding in the rain you've got serious visibility issues, not to mention the mud being splattered up at you from other vehicles in front of you. I spent pretty much the entire day with the visor up, which meant taking the rain on full-face (next time you're out driving your car in the rain, stick your head out the window and see how that feels, especially for 8 hours straight.)
So by mid-morning we were feeling rather damp and dejected, not to mention the fact that taking pictures or video was practically out of the question, which made it even more depressing. But then it got worse.
They're building a new highway to Son La, so there were miles and miles of road under construction. Unlike in the West, I don't think the Vietnamese believe in separating the construction work from traffic. We were literally riding and weaving through heavy equipment: huge dump trucks, earth movers, those large metal-wheeled roller things. At one point I even had a mini-heart attack when a gigantic backhoe rotated and opened its gigantic metal claw out over my head.
And then we hit the mud pit from hell. For a stretch of several miles in one of the villages, the mud had been chewed up repeatedly by all the large trucks moving through, creating an entire street of deep, deep mud. This was serious stuff, with even four wheel drive vehicles fishtailing around (and of course digging even deeper into the mud, contributing to the problem.)
I had the honor of being the casualty. I'd like to think it's because I don't have the studded all-terrain tires on my bike like Pascal and Antoine do, but in all fairness it's quite likely it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.
At one point the mud got so intense that I was constantly fishtailing right and left, and it was only a matter of time before I lost control of the bike. I didn't fall myself--I was going slow enough that I simply stepped aside--but the bike peeled out from under me and lay on its side. Little Vietnamese kids were pointing and laughing. Just great.
The mud was so deep that my foot was in to my ankle, and I just prayed that I wouldn't actually fall over completely into the stuff. A little while later, I had the distinctive pleasure (misery loves company, doesn't it!) of seeing Pascal do exactly the same thing, losing control of the bike and stepping off while it slid over sideways. Har har har.
As we discovered, the only way to move through this stuff is slowly, with both legs outstretched to step a foot down as soon as the bike starts tilting one way or the other. God forbid you should try to put your feet up and ride normally--there simply isn't enough time to shoot your foot out and regain your balance if the bike starts fishtailing.
What makes it even more difficult is not just the fishtailing from the rear wheel, which can be adjusted with some careful throttle control, but also the huge amount of mud being picked up by the front wheel. It would get to a point where it would block the rotating of the wheel, acting like a front brake. And we all know what a great idea a front brake is under slippery conditions. Not.
Anyway, this was quite the little adventure. Further on down we even moved through some combinations of mud and “puddles” so bloody deep there could have been an entire guy submerged in there scuba diving for all we knew. He wouldn't have been able to see a damn thing, mind you, but the point is that this was practically like going for a swim with our bikes.
The road did eventually improve, and soon we welcomed the overly slick pavement we had cursed earlier in the day. But it wasn't over yet. Last I checked Vietnam was a warm tropical country, but as we climbed towards our last mountain pass it was so bloody cold and windy I was half expecting to see snowfall any minute.
Oh, yeah, and there was fog. Lots and lots of it. So we're cold, it's windy, we can't see a thing, and hey, we're soaked as well. What a fantastic combination! My feet went completely numb, although for some reason I could still feel the swishing of cold muddy water in my shoes. My hands were frozen stiff on the handlebars, requiring supreme effort of will to use the clutch, and the tundra-like wind was threatening to blow me off the motorcycle.
So what did I do? I sang. For over an hour. No one heard me above the wailing of the wind (not that anyone else was dumb enough to be driving during this weather except the truckers, but they don't count since they're driving the equivalent of large tanks), and perhaps this was an indication of my losing some degree of my sanity, but frankly it was a great way to get my mind off the present misery as I tried to remember the lyrics to a variety of Christmas carols and other interesting songs.
At one point in our foggy ride through these high mountain passes we had to make a stop and brief detour, as a rock slide had completely wiped out a section of the road. There were boulders the size of my Jeep, and I wondered how long ago it had happened. I do know that my helmet wouldn't have been much help.
We arrived in Mai Chau cold, wet, soggy, dirty and fairly miserable. Instead of a hotel for the night, though, we parked our bikes under a local family's wooden house.
Yes, under. Presumably because of the great amount of rain during the wet season, a great many of the houses are raised up on stilts. The ground floor is essentially open air, and you have to climb up the stairs to get to the living quarters.
After a hearty meal in which Pascal accidentally ate meat for the first time in years (he thought the spring rolls were vegetarian, but no. Quite tasty, though), we also were forced to drink the local wine, zao. Not only is this fairly potent in and of itself, but, going far beyond the Mexicans with their worms in the tequila, the Vietnamese throw all kinds of critters in their wine bottles, everything from snakes to scorpions to bumblebees to evil-looking cockroaches and so on. We'd seen a number of these bottles in the past few days and they resembled more the freak show at your local natural science museum than anything you'd want to ingest.
But hey, when in Rome...
After dinner the locals performed some traditional dances and singing. Great stuff. One particularly fun one involved bamboo sticks.
Two local people facing each other held long bamboo sticks across the floor where you danced, one in each hand. Going by the beat of the drum, the would bounce these sticks down between them, and on the fourth beat they would whack them together.
What this means for the dancers is that if they have a leg or foot in betweeen these sticks on the fourth beat, it'll get whacked. There were three of these bamboo pairs on the dance floor.
When the local girls did it, it looked like a piece of cake. They effortlessly glided through the bamboo obstacle course, gracefully dancing around barefoot without a worry in the world, their feet seeming to escape the bamboo trap at the last possible moment. Easy as pie.
Yeah, right. Try doing this after drinking zao. When the girls grabbed Pascal, Antoine and I to join them, it took all of 10 seconds for me to receive my first whack. Ouch! After that I was slightly paranoid, barely trying to dance to the rhythm of the drums as I kept 100% of my zao-hampered concentration on the bamboo. Sometimes I'd realize at the last minute that my feet were inside the kill zone and make a ridiculous looking leap to safety. This amused the locals to no end, which I'm sure is the whole point.
That night we slept under full mosquito netting (thank God—the little bastards were out in full force) on the floor, and it was remarkably comfortable.
The next day we rode back to Hanoi. Even more wet and cold than the day before, if that's at all possible. What the hell is up with this dry season? Actually, this was the first time it'd rained in over 2 months—just our luck to be there right when a typhoon hit the country.
Riding into the city was an experience and a half. Between the bad state of some of the roads, the crazy local drivers and the slick mud and grime, it made for more than one close call.
At one point I almost became a hood ornament for a red and white bus (its image is permanently ingrained into my long-term memory). The road was particularly muddy at this point and I had to drive straight to avoid sliding out of control. I'd calculated the approach to the bus so that I would pass right by him. But the insane bastard turned right towards me at the last minute.
Time stopped. Motion stood still. It's quite amazing what your brain can do when you're suddenly faced with a mortal threat. I couldn't make any sudden turn, as I would slide out of control and fall (and likely be run over). Nor could I brake suddenly, for the same reason. So with the maddening slowness of suspended time and heightened state of awareness, I leaned as far as possible away from the bus and swooshed by at the last instant with a hair's breadth to spare. All in a day's work.
Later, I almost became Gabriel sandwich. Since I was bringing up the rear following Antoine and Pascal, I was often at a disadvantage when passing. They'd go first and it'd be clear for them, but by the time I made my move the situation would have taken a turn for the worse.
In this particular case, Antoine and Pascal both passed a slow moving bus, and I started to do the same. The fact that there was an oncoming truck didn't really faze me—we'd done plenty of these before and there was room enough on the road in this instance for the three of us.
Except this bus driver was a crazy psychotic bastard from hell and started veering left right as I was passing him, forcing me directly into the face of the oncoming truck. Just great. So I hit the throttle full out—double or nothing. And the instant I cleared the front of the bus I veered in front of it, feeling the solid whoosh of the truck as it passed by, plus a loud honk for good measure. Amen.
We must have something with buses (or maybe they hire at the crazy farm), but Pascal had his own incident as well. Antoine passed a bus on the right in the shoulder of the road (this is Vietnam, remember), and Pascal started doing the same. But slowly. Unfortunately for him, the bus was coming up to his stop and must not have seen Pascal, and he started closing in on him. Swerve, screech on the brakes, cursing and so on.
Speaking of cursing, Pascal reserved his very best for the dogs. They seemed attracted to him. Maybe it's because he's been wearing the same unwashed pants all week, I don't know. But we'd be riding along and all of a sudden a dog would scamper out of nowhere right at Pascal, who would swerve and honk and curse. If he was a dog lover before, he certainly isn't one now.
By the time we were in Hanoi proper on Saturday afternoon, I felt like a kamikaze pilot. We had joined the massive throng of two-wheeled vehicles, and Antoine must have been in a hurry to get back, because we were really cooking. It's one thing to do this if you're the lead bike: you can pick and choose where you want to go. But as the guy in the rear I was forced to pull of some hair-raising maneuvers to keep up, stuff that likely would have gotten me arrested back home as a menace to public safety.
But man, what a trip! Time to kick in the next phase...
Cheers!
Gabriel
