Tuesday 12 April 2016

Day 5: Police..camera...action...!

Day 5 - Song Ma to Dien Bien Phu


The hotel in Song Ma was pleasant enough, I'd slept well and an early start was planned.  Everyone was up and bikes loaded by 8pm (yes that's an early start in my book :)

Bikes sorted, we rode approx 30 seconds up the road to have breakfast! That consisted of a few sugar loaves and some bananas, which was as close to the breakfast of champions as we would get. While we were eating we noticed the methadone clinic across the road with a particularly weary looking girl sat hunched up on the road outside it.

View from the hotel balcony.





Our intention today was to traverse a road that follows alongside the Laos border most of the way up to Dien Bien Phu.  Hung had already explained the choice of routes in advance and cautioned us that if we took this proposed route near the border we would not be allowed to stop, take photos or do anything other than a quick wee break for around 90km. Breaking those guidelines would no doubt see us getting questioned by the military or the police.

Part 1 was to ride 30km or so to a town near the border called Coc Toc, then pick up the road from there. It almost went to plan. We had a fantastic ride to the first stop in a small town, over - you guessed it - more mountain roads which were as twisty as you like. Only problem was that I'd got a mesh jacket on and it was suddenly quite chilly on this road once we reached a bit of altitude.  The cool breeze was getting straight through the mesh as it's supposed to do and I was shivering as a result. I didn't want to have to unload the main bag to get at another layer, so was forced to improvise by stuffing my adventure hat (think Indiana Jones and you're not far off) down my jacket.  Worked a treat.  It was clear that everyone was really enjoying this road. Much fun was had.





I often find in Vietnam that the moment you let your guard down and think you're getting used to the place, it will come along and hit you with something unexpected.

On arrival at Coc Toc, we attracted quite a lot of attention.  We pitched up at a small shop and the owner brought us some G7 coffee out.  If I haven't mentioned G7 before, it's an all-in-one dried coffee powder that's thoroughly addictive once you've lived on the stuff for a few weeks.  Wake Up Coffee is another brand that's also quite good.

As we were stood around, a chap arrives on scooter and talked to Hung.  It turns out he's a local Policeman and word had quickly spread to him somehow that we were in town.  He demanded all our passports.  He inspected each one very carefully, noting down all our passport numbers in a little book and checking every page to see which countries we'd visited in the past.  He did seem to pause on the page where I've got some arabic immigration stamps, which concerned me a bit.  After a lot of talking to Hung he rode off.

Hung relayed to us the message; if we continued on the road we were on towards the border, we would be in quite a lot of trouble. At this point we were around 10km from Laos.  He strongly advised we head back to Song Ma and take the other route up to Dien Bien Phu which is still only 5-10km from the border in certain areas.  We agreed.  Look on the bright side, we would get to ride that fantastic mountain pass again, so no problem.

Roger had been proudly carrying his toy dumper truck on the back of his XR since we bought it him the day before.  While we were reeling from the Police encounter, a little toddler walked up and obviously took a shine to Roger's truck. He kept looking and pointing, a universal language understood by all.  In a touching display, much to the amusement of the locals who were hanging around, Roger removed the truck and gifted it to the little boy. The lad hurried off with it to his family, not believing his luck, before coming back and giving Roger a hug to say thanks.  Aww!





We headed back across the mountain for a while, before pulling over when Hung spotted a shaky old bridge.  You know by now that we can't resist a dodgy bridge crossing.  Off we went across it, then followed a small trail up a very steep clay slope through a village.  To say they were surprised to see us is an understatement. We dodged the livestock and rode through to the other side of the village, got a few photos then returned back to the main pass.







We continued 30km back around the mountain more or less to where we'd started off from that morning. I must have taken one photo stop too many because I got separated enough from the group that I started to wonder whether I'd missed them turning off. Fortunately Roger was a star and waited at at the junction of the turn that the group took to catch me as I rode past.




Having caught up (eventually) it wasn't long before Hung led us across a trail that included 4 low bamboo bridges.  The trail snaked through some cut-off villages which were very basic with wooden stilt houses and muddy trails only.  Great fun! There was some mud in places but nothing more than a few inches deep. Plenty of ruts to avoid though.












Somewhere around this point I may have made a bit of a gaffe. I stopped for one photo too many, and just as I pulled back onto the road a scooter with two policemen on board rode past.  The road surface was very much under construction in this area, with a new road being built.  Being on a KLX250 dirt bike I could have gone much quicker but didn't want to overtake the police who were riding very slowly on their little scooter. So I was forced to sit behind them patiently for a good 10 minutes or so until we caught up with everyone else.  I'm not sure whether they would have stopped anyway since they were in front of me, but the lads were all waiting at a sort of checkpoint and the police stopped in front of me. Then, for the second time today they demanded all our passports and entered into a conversation with Hung.

Not long after that had begun, some nice chaps from the Army also arrived, and also got involved in proceedings.  We have no photos or GoPro, other than the bit I had running on the GoPro as I pulled in, as you can imagine we didn't want to antagonise the situation.

Hung is on the left talking to the police at the post, another policeman also on the scooter and army bloke about to arrive.
Eventually we sort of got the line that they were 'aware' of our presence near the border and there was some issue with our passport numbers.  They took the numbers down again (correctly this time) and eventually let us go on our way.  I can only presume after taking our passport details the first time they ran some checks which showed an issue with the information they had gathered.

At that point we just wanted to get out of this whole area since there wasn't a particularly pleasant vibe.  Things got better from here on in.

The road snaked its way up and over some decent hills and we stopped to admire the views and take photos for a while. As the road wound downwards we followed a dusty mixed road/off-road for a while before turning up a narrow track leading up into the hills.  It brought us out in a very, very remote village tethered to the hillside.  There was a kind of "everything shop" where you could buy a coca cola, or you could buy a pigs head.  The owner was sitting there butchering a pig when we arrived, amidst your usual shop fayre.  Many people from the small village came out to stare at us.  Awkward.


















The "Everything" Shop. You can buy everything there.


Hung was talking to the owners while we stood around drinking coca cola and trying not to feel too self-conscious.  It really was quite strange for a while although we were getting fairly practised at being the centre of attention by now.

Before we left, the shop owner told Hung that we were the first visitors to the village. Ever.  When we asked Hung to check what they meant by that, it seems that they have never had any tourist or westerners in the village before. We seemed to be quite literally the first, which was incredible.

One of the local lads offered to show us the trail that led out of the village, because it could be quite tricky in places and there was a chance we would get lost.  So with that, we set off following him on his scooter down what turned out to be an amazing trail.

There were a good few 'severe' drops to the side but it wasn't all like that.  It was very undulating, narrow and it snaked around and over various hills with the occasional section that you really, really didn't want to get wrong. After a while the young lad told Hung we needed to keep 20 metres between the bikes for the next bit otherwise the ground could subside and that would be that. If it's rained any time within the last 7 days, this trail is impassable.

On the way down, Bryan's rear brake on the CRF seemed to cook itself, so he had to tentatively chug down the other side of the trail on engine braking and a spot of front brake.









This few KM of trails, and our encounter with the lovely people in this remote area and the village were one of the highlights of our trip. The off road trails demanded your absolute attention, while the scenery demanded photos and admiration.  Superb.

The trail eventually led us back onto a minor road that cut over through the hills and mountains surrounding the area.  We rode a reasonably uneventful but very enjoyable and twisty 60km with the occasional village thrown in. Around late afternoon we found ourselves riding through the flatter lowlands with paddy fields all around us and a nice sunset developing.  After the hassles earlier in the day, it was nice to just enjoy the ride with little or no drama for the rest of the day. Following Roger and Bryan over most of these mountain roads it seemed like I got into a nice rhythym, being able to trust the person in front to spot any hazards and set a fast yet enjoyable pace.





Typical of the types of village we rode through.
This chap was about to transport that 15' arrangement on his scooter!


Almost 60km of twisties like this with no traffic. Road surface highly variable.
Some mixed surfaces on the higher routes.




The last 10km or so were all on this one continuous road with paddy fields either side, and mountains beyond those.  Unfortunately it was a highway, which meant trucks & lots of traffic generally. Being later afternoon, it was the busiest time of the day so you really had to have your wits about you. We slogged the last 10k into Dien Bien Phu and followed Hung to the hotel without much drama though, and enjoyed a very well-earned beer in the lobby for an hour before trekking our stuff up to the rooms to get changed.

That evening, Hung took us to a great place nearby where all the cooking is done at the table.  You can either do that yourself or they will do it for you.  In our case, Hung fulfilled chef duties. They set you up with a small gas stove and a cooking pot that already has stock and some veg simmering away, then periodically bring you fresh veg and meat that you then cook in the pot and serve immediately.  Most Vietnamese cooking is done this way, cooked in simmering stock rather than being fried or cooked with oil.  It's quite healthy since there's little or no oil used and the ingredients are fresh, being sourced nearby.  Into the pot at various stages went chicken, pork, thinly sliced beef, noodles, green veg and so on until we couldn't eat any more. I struggled a little with the chicken since I just can't eat it if I've seen it before it was cooked, but that's just me being soft.  Overall it was a lovely place, a few beers were consumed and all in great company.  Still missing Pinky, Del and Joe though.

We talked about the next day when we would see some of the military history around DBP. There were a few places we visited on NB1 that I felt weren't really worth the diversion, but there was a specific place where there were tanks, guns and trenches still left over from the major conflict held there in the 1950's. This is all centred around A1 hill (named Eliane 2 by the French) so I tried to describe it to Hung to save some time in the morning.

Chef Hung.

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