Off road in the Vietnam Mountains

The video below was from a fellow Nam adventurer, Ian James. Ian hails from Wales, as you can no doubt tell from his amusing running commentary on the video :)  I'm not 100% where this was shot but will try and find out.  Shortly after the end of this video, Ian's panniers caught on a rock and unbalanced the bike, leading to him tumbling down the mountainside!  I guess that just reinforces our decision to ditch the panniers this year and go with roll bags or roll-top duffels on the rear seat and rack.  Seems like there are some narrow sections to be navigated through if our planned route includes any terrain like in this video.

I'll let Ian tell the tale from here...

Ha Giang Province - Vietnam

Having set off on an overnight train from Hanoi we made our way to Sapa where we met our guide, Hung. The next 5 days we rode all sorts of wonderful countryside and met amazingly generous and happy locals before riding back to Hanoi.

This video clip shows a flavour of mountain trail that we experienced. Towards the end of the clip we start the decent but unfortunately the thicker canopy meant that the soil had retained a lot of moisture rendering conditions particularly difficult for the big heavy Dommie that was on very road biased tyres.

We spent 3 hours tackling this type of terrain following the end of this clip and ended up, exhausted (mentally as well as physically) and injured. I ride the AMAZING Honda CRF250L, the only bike fitted with sturdy metal framed panniers....which were to become my downfall. A few hundred metres from our overnight homestay and whilst travelling at the rear my inner pannier caught a rock (lack of awareness due to tiredness) and as I stretched out an opposite foot to balance myself I found no resistance. I tumbled down the side of the mountainside rapidly followed by the motorbike. The rest is history as they say.....Vietnamese farmers coming to the rescue, chopping down bamboo and roping the bike up the side along the Bamboo skids. A bust thumb, damaged ankle/leg ligaments, cracked nose meant I got away lightly but the worst thing is that the camera battery had died! Still.....better to have done than not. The bike started first time despite the 40-50ft drop and all that was broken were mirrors. I think the repair bill was about £20!

Counting down to NamBusters III...

After the craziness that was December, we can now start to count down properly to NB3. For me, December included a work trip to Pittsburgh, a family holiday to Lapland, a site move to project manage, oh yes and Christmas with my two lively kids! Pittsburgh was enjoyable, always nice to see a new city and especially when it's decorated for the Christmas holidays.

I liked Pittsburgh, it has a nice vibe and the people were friendly. The food was not generally on a par with what I've experienced in Chicago or NYC but there were highlights, notably an excellent steak that I enjoyed at Morton's Steak House. Probably the best steak I've ever had.

 

Then it was a quick flight back to the UK and off to Lapland the next morning with my family.  It was genuinely an amazing experience and our kids LOVED every minute. We managed to fit in some snowmobiling over a 30km forest route which was huge fun. Those 600cc snowmobiles get a move on nicely too!

So, with all that done we can start counting down to the main event.  NB3 starts in a little over 40 days. I managed to find this nifty little countdown clock on t'internet.  This time round I'm not going to be blogging as we do the trip, it was too time consuming and took me away from the important things (exploring, taking photos & drinking beer). Therefore this time I'll hope to post a few photos up where possible but will do the rest when we get back in the UK.

Nifty countdown clock added below!

Countdown Clock