Day 6: Tanks, snakes and coconuts!

Day 6 - Dien Bien Phu to Pa So

We had a good night's stay at the hotel in Dien Bien Phu, and woke to a nice misty morning.  The mist cleared while we were having breakfast on the top floor several storeys up.  I'm glad to say it was a proper Breakfast of Champions. When Roger and me got up to the breakfast area it was closed up, but two girls rushed in and started making pancakes for us like pancakes were going out of fashion.  We thought Phil would be joining us so asked for 3 breakfasts. As it turned out, Phil had gone for a wander so I ended up eating most of his breakfast too. We then had to tell the girls twice to stop cooking even more after they'd brought us two plates of pancakes and bananas each, plus we'd already eaten Phil's too....!

As well as the bananas the finishing touch was G7 coffee, of which I had 3 (mine + Phils plus another), so by the time we were done I was on a proper coffee rush. Phil appeared with a real coconut for me, sliced open and with a drinking straw in there. It's the best thing you can have for dehydration. After chugging down as much of it as I could, there was still plenty left so I took it down to the bikes in the basement parking area to have some more while we loaded up.

Proper.

Vietnamese camelbak.

We set off from the hotel towards what was supposed to be the military museum. As it happened we arrived at the indoor museum which was some way off.  To be fair to Hung, he doesn't often do this tour so we appreciated it might be a bit hit and miss trying to find the correct military attraction when there are dozens in DBP itself.

Immediately as we landed at the first museum I told Hung it was the wrong one and described the one we were looking for.  We set off and arrived next at the other one we've seen before that's not really worth much of a look (it's pretty much just a bunker). On the third attempt we found the one we were after, where there's a collection of tanks, guns and bunkers all on Eliane hill.

Since the last time we were here two years ago, it looks like they have shoo'd off the stalls and hawkers that loitered by the path as you walk up the hill.  All there was were a few stalls at the bottom of the hill selling some odd stuff, such as drinking 'hip flasks' that were easily 1' long.

We first checked out the tanks and old guns that were there, before walking up to the hill crest to see the tank set on a plinth.  The bunkers and tunnels are still in place and mostly open, so if you want to you can walk through many of them.  I had a small torch with me so I went into one and kept going to see where it led to.  In the end, I surfaced over 1/4 mile from where I started and there was plenty more after that. Plenty of the tunnels had cage bars blocking you from getting any further. Understandable.  The tunnels were damp, musty, and short - around 5' from floor to ceiling at the very most. I had to walk almost doubled over.  People most likely lived under here for days or weeks on end which can't have been pleasant.

Attempt 1.

Attempt 2.

Found it! Phil celebrates by donning a random hat.

The business end.

Phil doing his best Meerkat.

In the tunnels, which are much more extensive than you would expect from the surface. Quite eerie too.

That's a crater from 1000kg of explosives used by the Vietnamese troops to destroy the French stronghold.

A nice couple took this photo for us at the DBP monument. As they were walking off they muttered the word 'Russkie' presumably because of Bryan's Russian-design helmet!  Plus he looks a bit serious.

L-R: Phil, Roger, Hung, me, Bryan the Russkie, Jim.

From here we rode out of Dien Bien Phu back into rural areas similar to those we'd passed through on the way in yesterday. With plenty of paddy fields surrounding the roads, and mountains on the horizon, it made for a nice easy ride other than the occasional errant water buffalo. Along the way, the roads changed variety to become very twisty as we wound through the hills. A superb bit of riding for about 1 hour before we stopped for a drink.

Plenty of folk waving as we ride by

Hung confirming directions with a local.

We pulled up in a small town that was similar to many others we'd seen. One road in, one road out. We pulled the bikes up onto the pavement outside the sunny front to a shop/cafe and got some G7 coffee sorted out. By this point I'd taken to hooking the GoPro up to a USB charge battery each time we stopped for a drink which did a great job of extending the battery life through the course of a day. If I was running the GoPro on the handlebar mount I would cable-tie the battery pack to the bars and plug it in then leave it charging while it was recording.

While we were kicking around I noticed in the shop they had my absolute favourite authentic traditional time-honoured Vietnamese snack: Choco Pie! Not sure why the packaging now says Choco Sapion, which google amusingly tells me translates as 'Choco Rearview Mirror'...  Either way this delicious chocolatey snack is just what you need when you've been off-roading all day without anything to eat and are having a sugar crash. So I bought a couple of packs. Sadly there were no cans of Birdy Coffee but I'll settle for Choco Pie. We also had plenty of fresh pineapple which Hung had bought from someone at the roadside not long beforehand, knowing that we were going to stop shortly.  It was basically just a pineapple hacked up into chunks at the roadside and given to Hung in a plastic bag.

While we were stood around chatting and finishing our coffee, some commotion started to unfold 20 yards away.  Two or three lads suddenly sprinted across the road chasing a 7 foot snake, which promptly bolted for the sloped concrete embankment at the other side of the far pavement.  The lads picked up some stones or rocks as they were running, and with no more than 2 or 3 shots they hit it and stunned it.  One of them then grabbed it and bashed it against the road a few times before coshing it with another rock, then he got on his scooter and rode off with it.

The strange thing was, although it looks like a stringy little thing, when it was alive it was a good 5" or more in diameter. When they killed it, it shrunk down to what you see in the photos below.

We just about managed to get a few photos off, but were mainly stunned by it, paused with coffee in hand wondering what the heck just happened!

Photo courtesy of Bryan C. Harrison

We're not quite sure what the snake was going to be used for, but we suspect he was taking it home to cook it.  From there we continued along the route to Pa So, taking in a variety of roads including a few that were still being built or remade.  One in particular was a dust-fest and we were unlucky to end up behind a large construction truck for some of it for a while. You've just got to sit tight and wait for a safe place to pass. And hold your breath for as long as you can.  After that pass we hit a reasonably good surfaced remote hill pass, as twisty as a twisty thing and with virtually no other traffic.  We spread out a bit and just had a nice fast but relaxing ride for a while.

Around 13:30 or so, not having stopped for lunch properly yet, we were carving across a hill road a few hundred metres up and reasonably spread out from one rider to the next.  Upon rounding a right hander I was faced with a number of people walking down the hill spread out across it. Maybe 20 or 30 people in total. I slowed right down to 15kmh and upon reaching the front of the group could see they were carrying a body on a wooden stretcher. Clearly this was a funeral of sorts, probably the first time I can remember seeing a body. Grim, but that's life.

That slightly macabre incident aside, we continued on and found the scenery to steadily improve through the day. The afternoon started to pass quite incident-free which was quite welcome after the police & military drama over the previous day or two.

After we rode across another by-now familiar long red & white painted bridge, the lowlands were spread out to our right with paddy fields reaching to the distant mountain ranges. Around this time we reached a few long straight roads and most of us decided to try and see what the little 250's would do.  The KLX seemed to max out around 115kmh which wasn't bad at all.

After the long straight, there was a left turn forcing us to slow down. Coming out of that turn perhaps 100-200 yards further on there was a complete mud bath spread out across the road. I followed Roger through it, unwisely choosing his line and riding through a ridiculous amount of mud in the process.  Wasn't his fault though, there was an oncoming van that hogged the centre of the road forcing us to take the wider (muddier) line.  Maybe if we hadn't just been arsing around at high speed we would have been riding slower and could have stopped before getting a mud bath!

Just before another long bridge we stopped at an intersection and had a nice sit down lunch at a cafe in Muong Lay. The place doesn't look much from the outside, or the inside for that matter, but it was a great little nook from which we watched not much happening outside.  Still, at least we were cool in the shade, and our hostess was gorgeous!

After lunch we crossed the next bridge and had a really enjoyable, easy ride for a couple of hours. Nice roads, bridges, lakes and leapfrogging photo stops.  Roads that hugged the lake for miles on end, punctuated by sudden major roadworks with concrete dust so thick you could barely see 50 yards. No drama though.

Roadworks Vietnamese style!

After playing photo tag with Bryan and Roger for a while I pulled over to find the others chowing down on some sugar cane bought from a girl under a huge branch at the roadside.  She would just cut a few sugar canes down in the morning then hack them up fresh when someone stops to buy some.

Finally we rolled into Pa So as the sun was starting to set. We were to stay at the Hotel Lananh, which was quite quaint and done out with wooden panelling everywhere.  Nice enough.  We had a few beers outside until late in the evening before eating in their quite grandiose dining area.  Another group of locals further across the room were being very loud and boisterous even by our standards so once we'd had enough we retreated to the outside bar to sink a few more beers then called it a night.

Another great day!