Vietnam Again. Yes. I Really Came Back

HANOI, I HAVE RETURNED.

“Look who came back!”

The first thing I heard as I walked back into Nexy. Yes, I chose to stay there again. I didn’t feel the need to look around for a new place to stay, and Lisa was ok with the choice. The only thing she cared about was trying the Vietnamese food that I spent 6 weeks ranting and raving about and seeing the unique beauty that was Vietnam. Bags were dropped and soon I brought her into the mess and congestion of Hanoi.

Lisa hated it. The constant sounds, the pile on of people, the smells, all of it. It was too claustrophobic for her. The local Viet’s too direct and invasive in her interactions with them. But she loved the food. Bun Cha, for her, rated only below our mother’s home cooking. Success. After filling our bellies, we head to Lily’s to book a sleeper bus that would take us up north to our next adventure. The one ask I had of Lisa was that we didn’t repeat things I had done during my previous jaunt here and she was fine with that. I wanted to go and do a 4-day motorcycle loop of northern Vietnam. Of course, Lisa was a little wary of the concept given her previous experience on a bike in Bali (spoiler; it was not good) but I managed to persuade her into doing it. Tickets bought, we headed back to Nexy to sleep and prepare to take off the following day for the north.

Bahn Mi for your troubles?

THE OLUSHOLA SISTERS TAKE HA GIANG

Goodbye, I said to Nexy for the fourth and not final time and off I went. Our ride showed up with a motorbike expecting to transport the two of us plus our bags. Yeah right. We waited and shortly a friend turned up and off we went to their office. After hanging around for an hour we had to walk and meet our bus.

The traffic in Hanoi was intense that evening. It’s bad at the best of times but because of the mid-autumn festival it was downright horrific. Eventually we made it to the bus and after the token fight with the bus driver about where to lay, I got my way and settled at the window sleeper bed. I won’t lie, I slept for most of the journey. The times I was awake and conscious of the drivers driving I could just remember Duy Anh’s words about the bus that flipped over on the way to Ha Giang.

‘But they survived though!’

At 3.30am the bus had stopped. The garish blue, purple and green lights were turned on and all of us were ejected out of the bus onto the outskirts of Ha Giang. I was both vaguely amused and highly irritated. No context, no here’s your hostel, no nothing. Just a random Vietnamese guy just sitting outside of his hostel (not the one I had been trying to get to) obviously trying to see what the commotion was. After shoehorning my way into a conversation some young Vietnamese people, I sourced myself a translator. We could stay on the bus till 6am or we could stay in the hostel, Kiki’s for $2. We chose the hostel. Within 20 minutes though, I learned that Kiki did not in fact love me and really regretted my decision.

While lying on the bed movement to my right caught my eye. Bed bugs. I was fucking out of there so quick that Lisa hadn’t even realised I left the room. Nope, nope, NOPE. I sat outside, and when Lisa found some on her bunk too, she sat outside with me. Rubbing my arms for the next few hours I swear I could feel the phantom legs of bed bugs crawling up and down my body. Ugh.

At 7 am I deemed it early enough to contact QT, the owner of the bike rental place that we would be getting our rides from. We’d had an awful night lying on hard wooden chairs and I just wanted to leave. After informing the owner of the hostel that I wouldn’t be paying him for the horrific night I had, QT showed up, picked us up and brought us to his homestay and bike rental shop. Here, after hearing about our horrible night, he let us have showers and breakfast free of charge.

After breakfast the real work began. A search through his catalogue of bikes had us each choosing a shiny new semi-automatic Honda Future. At 250,000 VND (approx. €10 each) per day for the bikes it was an absolute bargain. We paid little extra for insurance just in case something happened to the bikes or us during our 350km loop around the north. We then signed the paperwork for our bikes and then began the process of learning how to drive semi-automatic motorbikes with QT’s workers. 45 minutes of driving around the area, and we were ready to take on the open mountainous region of Ha Giang. The next 4 days would be just the two of us, riding in a loop around northern Vietnam, through paved and unpaved roads. Guided really on by the main road Q4LC and a few offshoot roads that we had marked out on our crumpled up map. Our only stops would be for food and shelter at night. I couldn’t be more excited (or naïve).

JUST CAN’T WAIT TO GET ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Let me just say before I get into the tour of Ha Giang. What we both did, thinking back on it… was really fucking stupid. I saw some of the most amazing sights on this earth, and met some amazing people in doing so but at its bare bones; two women, unexperienced in motorbike riding in rough terrain, with no real clue as to where they’re going, just really following a crudely printed out map and one long road? Yeah, no. I’d still do it again though. Anyway, let me continue.

The first day was wonderful. The sun was shining high in the sky and all the greenery around me just felt alive. I felt so small riding around these massive mountains. With my own eye’s I just dips and peaks as far as the eye could see. There was really know end to them. Some untouched, others with manmade roads paved towards them, some with asphalt, others made of pure rock and mud. It was scary and immense. We drove through areas that were properly paved with barriers ensuring our safety so that we wouldn’t go careering off the cliff and crawled past other areas where careening off the edge was a very real possibility. In some cases, not even the barriers could save someone from going over. We very frequently saw gaps in the barriers where a vehicle had very clearly broken through the barriers and gone off the edge. Up high in the north we came across the indigenous tribes of the north. Feature wise they looked quite different to their siblings down south. Language wise, their tongues sounded softer and less tonal than the national Vietnamese language.

As we rode, we stopped in a few places, for drinks, food and just to take in everything around us. After about 30 or so kilometres of winding through the beautiful peaks and valleys, we came up Dong Van Karst Plateau Geo-Park. Back in 2011, the vast area was designated a UNESCO Global Geo-Park – one of only two in South East Asia. Soon we were riding through Heaven’s Gate Pass and cruising through the town of Tam Son on the QL4C road. As we rode through, small hills peaked over and over, lending to the effect that commanded the name ‘Fairy Bosom’ to be granted to them.

All too soon fractures of the perfect peace from riding through this beautiful greenery disappeared. As we rode through some particularly rough terrain, I because very aware that a local duo was riding alongside us, making hand motions and pointing emphatically at Lisa. We looked, clueless, very wary, not understanding what they were getting at. The lady on the back continued pointing, at Lisa and eventually, removed Lisa’s backpack from her OWN back. We were horrified. At some point during our ride, Lisa’s backpack had become dislodged from her bike (I suspect it was while riding through rocky terrain about 20 minutes previously), and this Vietnamese couple had found it, and had travelled down the same road to try and find its owner. This backpack had Lisa’s laptop, phone, PASSPORT, money and clothes in it. I stared despondently at the destroyed plastic and cable ties on the back of Lisa’s bike that were supposed to keep her valuables safe. How much further would we have gone without noticing?

After handing over the bag, the couple turned around and disappeared off down the direction we had been coming from. Lisa and I stopped our bikes, shaken just to take in what had happened. Rummaging through the bag let us know that all of her valuables were exactly where they were supposed to be. Opening her laptop and pressing the on button showed that… it was most definitely broken from whatever impact the bag had mad with the ground. After a few minutes, just to recover from what had happened we continued onwards. A little more silent than before, but still appreciative of the environment we were in.

We cruised by Fairy bosom in Tam Son and all too soon we arrived in our first overnight stop, Yen Minh. Though we were given a recommendation of where to stay in Yen Minh by QT, we decided that what we really wanted at that stage was our own private room, not a hostel. A cursory search on google told us that Toms Homestay is where we wanted to be. Insanely affordable at the equivalent of €4 each for a private room, we immediately made our way there to rest and recuperate. We’d been on our bikes for almost six hours, and when we arrived around 3pm, we instantly face planted and fell asleep, waking up later only to shower and to join the homestay owners and other guests for their daily family dinner.

FIGHTS AND ILLEGAL CROSSINGS

The next morning, we set out after straight after breakfast, enjoying the free open road and beautiful views around every corner. To Lisa’s exasperation, I wanted to stop every 2 minutes just to soak in the views and take some pictures. Though, even she couldn’t help but contain her awe at what we were seeing.

“It’s like out of a movie”

I wholeheartedly agreed. Everything just looked too good. Too polished. Too beautiful. Even after taking pictures, I’d look at them and be disappointed that I couldn’t catch the sheer beauty of what I was seeing.

On we continued, bickering and fighting about what now in hindsight was a trivial and meaningless matter. The silence that had followed in the morning was frosty. We continued to ignore each other on the road, not waiting when one stopped and refusing to acknowledge the others existence.

Kilometres of riding was being done in absolute silence. More kilometres on we stopped due to me having a headache. Ibuprofen consumed, the tension was broken, and we continued on. We headed towards the northern most point in Vietnam trying to reach the Vietnam/China border crossing, enjoying the views once again and with the earlier pleasant mood resorted. At that point I had opted to pack away my earphones as I didn’t really want to listen to music. I wanted to immerse myself in the environment around me with as many of my senses as possible. The drive towards Lung Cu took us through some smaller villages where small children came out to watch us go by. We eventually reached the Lung Cu Flagpole where upon reaching the top you could view both China and Vietnam depending on which side you stood on.

We left Lung Cu and started making our way down towards Dong Van, our next overnight stop, though I was keeping an eye out for the China/Vietnam border. On the way we had a small incident. Lucky for me, without my earphones I could hear everything. So, when Lisa slid off her bike, I knew instantly from hearing the sickening crunch of a bike wheel sliding on gravel. My own panic at what I had heard caused me to turn my bike sharply, causing me to slide off also. We were both ok however, with no major injuries. A nicer local Vietnamese man came to help us set our bikes right. Waving his arms in an up down motion. “Slow slow. No vrooom vrrooom. Slooooow”. Noted. We said goodbye and we were on our way. Didn’t quite get to see the Chinese border, however I was happy in any case. I probably would’ve gotten myself in trouble trying to cross illegally...

We continued on the long route to our next town Dong Van, riding up high heights, and swerving around deep and sharp mountain passes. The hours blurred together in a mix of stunning green scenery, the local tribal Vietnamese people and beautiful weather.

Only Lisa signalling a stop interrupted my reverie.

“I have less than a quarter tank of gas left.”

I felt panic crawl down my spine. The nearest town, Dong Van was at least 2 hours away, and by the map we had, there was no other in between town. Unnerved, we both restarted our bikes and began hightailing it to Dong Van. All thoughts of the scenery around me was gone, the single most important thought in my head – “Get Petrol”. As we moved as quickly as possible towards our next destination, our driving became more erratic, more dangerous. Bends we had carefully navigated our way around before, we were swerving around. The gravel on the road that we were carefully avoiding prior, we drove right through. Which is why, when Lisa skidded off her bike and nearly off the side of the mountain, I really should have seen it coming.

Until next time...

Babs