Day 7....this would be the last day on the bikes for us.
We had a great meal and more than a few beers last night at the hotel eco lodge type place we were staying at. The food was top notch, yet again. There was more than a fair share of chopstick mojo going on too.
Maybe I need to explain that. The thing we found with chopsticks, was that you get to grips with them quite quickly, but every now and then your ability to use them will just evaporate midway through eating with the damned things. When that happens, you've lost your chopstick mojo.
It was a lovely peaceful place to stay with no traffic nearby, just the sounds of the woods. After a great, early 7am breakfast (pancakes, bananas, honey!) we trudged back to our rooms to load up for the last time. Since the bikes were parked about 150 yards away Pinky dashed to each room on his bike to collect our panniers since they weigh a good 20-30kg by now. Plus there's bike kit to be carried (lid, jacket, gloves, cameras, rucksack etc). It's always fun, and takes at least half an hour for everyone to get ready.
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| View from my room verandah |
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| Mr Phil's room |
I'll be honest at this point and say, we weren't expecting much of this day's ride other than to get to where we were heading - Lao Cai. If I'd had my brain switched on I'd have remembered that Lao Cai was the same town we visited on the China border last year before riding down to Thac Ba Lake and stopping at a home stay there.
Like I said though...low expectations for today, and if anything because there was a lot of mileage involved (220km) we thought it would be a bit of a slog, a long haul if you will. It turned out to be pretty eventful and I think left us with some more great memories. Things often turn out different than you expect on a trip such as this. Keeping an open mind and going with the flow, is the best way of tackling it.
To begin with the road was uneventful. After about 10 miles I had a brief meltdown when I thought I'd left my passport with the staff at the eco lodge. I pulled Pinky over and he said straight away I definitely had it, he'd given it me back the night before. I quickly checked my bag and he was right...! We rode on for about an hour then stopped at Viet Lam for a coffee. It was a typical roadside affair, I realised I'd also left two cans of iced coffee in the fridge at the eco lodge...so obviously I was really on the ball today.
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| First stop of the day at Viet Lam for a G7 |
On we went, down major roads and through lovely towns all decorated with Tet celebration banners and flags. Plenty of school kids around, generally cycling along the road while holding an umbrella above themselves for shade, and talking to their friends on bikes next to them 3 or 4 abreast. We then took a road that turned into what I'd call a dirt road, but that would probably be doing it an injustice. There wasn't a flat part to it, in fact there were hollows and ruts in the road a good 18" deep at times, it was good fun but the bikes were taking a battering.
The dust is a real issue when you're stuck behind a truck or bus. On this road we caught up with a truck, and it took about 2 miles for me and Joe at the back of the pack to find a gap alongside it where we could pass. The trucks tend to move to the middle of the road when they see you trying to pass and they rarely help you out, if anything the opposite.
So we pass the truck, and within about 1 mile one of Joe's bungee's comes untied and starts flapping everywhere along with a loose pannier. He pulled over and I stopped with him. I can still picture it, it was the hottest it had been all week, a good 30 degrees C easily, and there's Joe with his lid and gloves on trying to frantically tie the bungee back on with this truck in the distance about to overtake us again! As soon as he got it tied I buggered off in front of the truck. Mates eh.
Further on up, I'd taken to getting a bit of airtime out of these ruts I spoke about. One of them turned out to be a bit deeper and a bit steeper than I expected, with the result that as the bike jumped out the far side of the rut, although I was stood up the back seat kicked up and hit me up the backside. My pannier had also made a bid for freedom so that was another stop to re-attach everything.
Before too long we had our first mechanical issue of the day. You may recall that we were all on Honda's apart from Pinky who was riding the Manfat. Ok, the Sufat, a 225cc chinese beast of a machine. Well Del was following him I believe, and noticed that the entire rear subframe assembly had detached itself. We stopped to check it out, and it transpired that the subframe mounts to the frame itself had snapped. We limped on and stopped at the next village, a very small ramshackle affair which was a good 10 miles down this dirt 'road', and even more remote than the middle of nowhere.
A couple of the ladies busying themselves outside their houses came over to check out the strangers in town, and the (by their standards) huge motorbikes. One of them who was particularly curious is pictured below admiring Jim's rack, which by now was doing a great job of storing his lid and gloves whenever we stopped.
Next thing you know, she's on my bike, then she fired it up and revved it a bit. I could see her looking at my aluminium bowl with envy. We got a few photos while the mechanic got to work welding Pinky's subframe up.
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| The Garage. |
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| Opposite side of the road from The Garage. |
After a few minutes I came to a decision, I would give the bowl to one of them - the one who'd come across first and sat on my bike. I was intending to fit it in my suitcase, and had worked out in my head how that could be done, but this seemed like a better use for it. She needed it more than me, it would otherwise get hung on the wall at home as a Nam trophy of sorts. I called her over, cut the cable ties off and gave her the bowl. Bless her, she started getting money out and counting it, I asked Pinky to tell her I didn't want any, it was hers. She seemed really happy to give it a new home.
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| Proud of her new bowl. That's her place in the background. |
Joe had decided to give the other girl his potty. Picture the scene, Joe trying to explain to a group of women who only speak Vietnamese, what a potty is and what it's for. In the end he had to demo it, at which point they understood and burst into laughter. The lady seemed genuinely pleased to have it, as much for the tale as for the potty itself, no doubt one of her grandkids is now using it for the intended purpose.
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| So you err..you sit on it like this...and err...well you know... |
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| The penny drops! |
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| Welding? Like a boss. |
We reluctantly left the village and made tracks, the road was much the same for a while and after perhaps 15 minutes the welding gave way and the whole thing snapped again. I'm pretty sure we stopped at yet another place and got it welded a second time, and that weld didn't last either. However for some reason I have no photos of it to share with you. Eventually when weld #2 broke Del got out a pack of Joe's huge cable ties and bodged it like so....
Now Del is a bit of an engineer type, he can rebuild engines (to a very high standard), he's a very capable electrical engineer, the works. And anything he does, i.e. if he builds a motorbike from scratch, he does to a very, very high standard. Honestly, the fit and finish of some of his bikes has been outstanding.
That said, he does a cracking line in bodges too. And this here cable tied subframe was a cracking bodge. It was so good in fact that it held for the rest of the day where two welders had failed!
Pinky bungee'd his luggage to my bike to take some strain off his subframe, and on we went.
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| Stopping to fix the Sufat after weld #2 failed. |
Finally we made it back onto normal blacktop, and in a big way. One minute we were on a bumpy rocky dirt track that was doing it's best to destroy the bikes...the next minute we rounded a corner, and found ourselves on this unbelievable twisty, wide road that snaked its way over a mountain. Pinky was up front, followed by Jim then myself. Strangely, my XR was handling a LOT better with the extra weight of Pinky's luggage on the back. I was on near-full knobblies and throughout the week you could lean it just so far then it would squirm around and let you know it didn't want to lean any further. With the extra weight on board it gripped much more and was nice and stable with a fair amount of lean (for a dirt bike on knobblies you understand...). It was obvious Jim was really enjoying himself, I tagged on behind and had a superb ride just following them both. I expected the same was happening behind me, really impossible not to enjoy this fantastic flowing road. And unlike many other roads we'd been on all week this one had great visibility through each corner.
When we reached the bottom and eventually stopped for a cool down and some food, we all raved about it. I believe it was Jim's favourite road of the entire tour.
Once over the pass, we levelled out onto straighter and calmer roads. Kids were cycling home from school, and the roadsides were full of sheets of bamboo being dried out. Remember what I said earlier about Chopstick Mojo? Well I think on this particular day I lost my photo mojo. Normally I can get a very respectable photo while riding the bike, but I'm sorry to say I didn't get a decent enough photo of the bamboo at the roadside. Sorry about that.
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| Kids with their brollies |
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| Bamboo sheets drying out |
Another quick stop for a drink and cool down on a cafe midway through this fantastic bend. It was good to sit in the shade and just watch the occasional traffic go by for a while.
From there it was a steady ride that eventually got to a more built up area approaching a city. Suddenly we're in the city, and I can see the gantry in the photo below, at that point I remembered it from last year and knew where we were.
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| L-R: Joe, Del, Bryan, Phil, Me, Jim. That gantry just behind us is in China!! |
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| Me |
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| China!! |
I don't thin we could really believe a week had gone by so quick. At the same time we'd done so much in such a short space of time. It was pretty emotional for me, but underneath it all I was really glad we'd all enjoyed it and we were all in one piece. Riding in Vietnam is risky business.
Pinky made some arrangements with the hotel that we could use a couple of their rooms to have quick showers. We wouldn't be leaving for the train until later in the evening. Once showered, me and Phil went for a walk to see a bit of Lao Cai. Phil bought some trainers, we had a coffee, then a coconut, then made our way back. Later on we all went out for another walk and explore around the markets to try and find gifts.
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| Last stop of the tour is just down that alley between these two buildings |
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| A local school |
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| Not many 'proper' bikes around in Vietnam, this was quite unusual to see. |
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| It's coconut time! Surprisingly good. |
Late in the evening we chucked all the bike luggage on a handcart, and the hard working porter chap pushed it to the train station while we walked. When we got there the bikes were about to be loaded up. I just remembered in time to remove my GoPro bar mount before it was too late, it was still on the left handlebar.
Wasn't expecting much from the cabins but they actually turned out to be really good. All the luggage fit in them and under the beds, there were 4 to a cabin and the place was air conditioned. There was a bit of larking about on the train but I don't remember too much of it due to being asleep very quickly.
I woke in the early hours, and shortly we approached Hanoi and crossed the bridge just before the city itself. The train was on a line that passes literally down streets and right past people's front doors. It was amusing to see how close the buildings were to the train window. It was also surprising to see that at 5am Hanoi food market was in full swing, absolutely buzzing with people who were presumably traders buying goods for the day. It seems like life never stops in Hanoi.
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| Bryan and Jim settle in for the long haul |
This is what happens during the day when the street is being used as a market...
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| Hanoi train station...5.45am... |
So...while there's still another day to go, which I will write up, and there are still videos to be sorted through and posted up, that concludes the bike part of the trip. I struggle to put into words just how fantastic a time I personally had. The bikes, the roads, the food...the EPIC scenery, which is just jaw-dropping at every turn. But most of all the people, both the fantastic bunch of lads I had the pleasure of joining on this tour, and last but not least the awesome Vietnamese people themselves who are friendly and happy almost to a person. I really hope I can return to do Nambusters III at some point in the future, now that would be something!
