Now, where was I? Out at Dien Bien Phu. Here's another rural view from my run out to the Laos border to bail out the Italians, stuck in no man's land.
I can't remember whether I mentioned it, but I had a really close call in one of the villages on the way out. Two young lads pulled onto the road straight in front of me and I went past them, back wheel locked up (no front brake, remember?)... with a huge "F@$k You" yell... and discovered that they spoke some English swear words too. Geez it was close.
Definitely nice, open rural lands in that part of Vietnam
I've found some notes I made at the time, so I'll include them here, even though it covers a little bit that I've already put in this thread.
My derriere called it quits as I neared DBP and I checked into the hotel that subsequently had a foyer full of women…. Tomorrow, I head towards Hanoi, instead of away from it.
So - the past two days. Think of the mud on the Western Front in WW1 - Flanders….. I had 30km of that. Two thirds last night, in the fading light, rain and dark - and the last 10km today. That 20km (12 miles) last night took me 75 minutes - pushing as hard as I dared. Many close calls - at slow speed, with the bike sliding all over the place and damn near submerged in mud and water. I ended up following a slower local, but with better lights (and local knowledge) into Muong Lay and was ever so grateful to find there was a hotel… and that they had a room. There were four French people there who had taken two days to get there from the same starting point (SaPa) on some hired Minsk motorbikes - which are better suited to these conditions.
I had a local cop point me out to stop in some random village…. I was overtaking a local on a corner… then his finger swung from me to the local and I was somewhat relieved. Rick, my friend in Hanoi, tells me that they don't like pulling over foreigners.
Hey - new experience today - on the way back from the border… which is about 1150m above sea level, coming back down to Bien Dien Phu which is a bit under 400m - I was coasting in neutral with the engine off…. and I overtook a big dump truck. Its a one lane road, so I had to do it on the rock verge… The truck driver was impressed … gave me a toot.
I've got some photos, but nowhere near enough because of the rain. Every photo is an unzip a pocket, extract camera, turn on, focus, shoot, turn off, pocket camera, zip up process…. all without losing speed, dropping the camera, or, falling off. So far, so good. About 13km out of town I passed some women with amazing head gear on…. I almost turned around, thought "there'll be more"….. not so far. I've seen lots more different minority groups today. Very, very interesting.
I've also seen three countries in the last 24 hours… China, Laos and Vietnam… but I haven't left Vietnam. Some of the rivers I've been following have had standing waves in them they are flowing so fast…. and there have been drops of well over 500′ - and in some cases probably well over 1,000 feet - with no guard rails. The old vertigo thing happened again when I looked down at the river yesterday. Go over and no-one would ever know.
I ran out of petrol yesterday…. and have been over cautious since. I don't like buying fuel from roadside stalls… but there are some places you just don't want to run out. Luckily I was only 4-5km out of a village… I flagged down a local, handed him $5 (100,000 dong) and asked him to get me some petrol - there were no common words at all between us…. all sign language. He looked at his watch a couple of times, turned around and came back 15 minutes later with a couple of litres. I offered him some more cash, which he refused… and I was off (he kept the change).
The local kids love spotting a westerner… and I get lots of waves and "hello" - which is probably their only word of English. My hotelier for my last night in SaPa was great - he gave me his card, home number and all and told me to ring him if I struck trouble. Lovely guy. We had a quick chat about his background - he studied tourism at uni, but said the reality was different. I gave him some marketing advice (we were amazed to find he had a room on Saturday night…. no-one else did). He took it on board and said he'd do it… His main signage is for the hotel restaurant, and it is easy to miss that he has a hotel there…. I told him to get a better hotel sign, etc.
Unfortunately, I missed photos on the best of it - due to the rain, darkness, etc. I've got some shots going over the highest pass in Vietnam - and a few nice scenes. I don't have photos of me dodging most of the excavator buckets or trucks on the roadworks…. staying alive took precedence.
My same pair of socks did duty again today - but I washed them out and semi-dried them under the hotel fan… and they were drier than my boots, so what the heck.
Anyhow, I had a quiet night in DBP and headed East. I'd done 15+ hours on the little scooter in the previous 2 days - lots of it affected by the typhoon that had hit the country - lots of rain (which means lots of mud) and some wind up on the mountain passes - damn near got blown off one. Conditions were harsh - but the views had been absolutely spectacular. Stunning. I was in Lai Chau (I think) and I asked the locals how far to Muong Lay? There wasn't much English going on, but they told me 75km, 3 hours…. it took nearly 6 hours with the conditions and roadworks = mud. I can't believe how many huge bridges are being built near Muong Lay…. huge… hundreds of feet up.
I think this leg heading east was my longest day though, 300 km in the saddle of that little Zinda, and also the day that I managed to get it to 115 kph... fully loaded.
The scenery was good as I headed east, along QL6. I didn't make it to my planned destination. I really did hammer east from Dien Bien Phu - it was a reasonably good road in parts and I started to hammer the little Zinda, and it got better and better. It freed up a bit and I kept getting higher and higher speeds out of it. I never exceeded the 50kph speed limit, of course - well, not by more than 65kph. I have to say, 115 kph on that thing with two packs is "interesting".
I had another local try the kamikazee act on the way too - coming down a mountain range, lovely sweeping corners, I was just about to overtake him - and he swung across in front of me - no indicator, braking or anything - he just turned off across the centreline. I'd hit the horn to overtake him - he went the other way (as did I) and there we were again…. me going sideways down the road on the tail of another bike. With all the traffic here, I just can't believe how many people just do a U-turn without looking. Phew.
I really shouldn't have taken this photo - but it really shows how careful you have to be. I've been travelling with my Nikon around my neck a lot of the time, when it isn't raining, so that I can snap a shot whilst moving. Its a lot harder pulling the Canon out of a pocket, turning it on, etc…. I took this one, dropped the camera and hit the brakes - hard….. and went past the bus with very little to spare, and me off the bitumen. They are ratbags. Anything / anyone will do it…. cars do it all the time, buses, trucks, other bikes…..
I ended up in Muc Chau. This town is NOT geared up for westerners. I was knackered and decided it wasn't wise to push on. Bear in mind, I'm 6'6" in my shoes... and riding this Zinda was like riding a powered roller skate shoved up my arse. It hurt.
I ended up passing this bloke a few times through the mountains. I'd stop to take a photo, he'd zoom past and I'd run him down again
Plenty of roadworks on the way too
Apologies if I double up on any photos here, but they are unfortunately scattered a bit in my photobucket account
Some more scenery
Let's cover Muc Chau. Its a reasonably large town. Not huge, but a good ten minutes to ride from one end to the other. Wiki calls it Moc Chau and says there's around 150,000 people in the 2,000 sq km district. I couldn't for hell nor money, find a hotel. It took me 30 minutes. I had the phrase book out, and people pointed up the road and off I'd go. Nothing. Not a single sign in the town with an English word on it btw. In the end the old praying type hands under an inclined head got me directed to a 4 storey building and I got a room... on the 3rd floor, as usual. Dropped the gear there and coming down stairs wondered why they had suggestion boxes on each landing on the stairs. Took a look. Full of condoms. OK... Got to the foyer and its full of young ladies.
Yeah, another hotel geared to the travelling Vietnamese businessman. One of the birds showed me her pet bird and the owner made me some tea... trying to drum up some side business, methinks
I ate at some really grotty place, a short walk down the road and had another quiet night.
Next morning, I did my usual, got on the road and hammered it for a couple of hours before pulling up for a coffee.
Here's the view looking north from QL6, over near where one would have to head north to Hanoi, but I wanted to go south.
This next one might be a tad further east, when I'd got down out of the mountains...
This one was near Cuc Phuong... which I'll discuss soon
