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There Today | Vietnam Diaries 👋 Where today? Peru 🇪🇨 well-nigh us instagram facebook real-time Vietnam Diaries That month we spent on motorbikes June 28, 2018 - 33 minute read - travel vietnam overlanding In February 2017, at the start of our trip virtually the world, we explored Vietnam by motorbike. Starting in Saigon and ending in Hanoi, we relate the wondrous people, food, and culture of Vietnam we saw withal the way. 1: Saigon to Kê Gà 127 miles / 204 kilometers - 8 hours Saigon our trusty steeds We left Cambodia by bus, arriving at the Vietnam verge a few hours later – at the start of the journey we were forced to requite our minion passports to the bus attendant, so as we crossed into that weird liminal space between countries, we crossed our fingers, hoped we’d get them when on the other side, and left the bus. Sans passports, we were waved into a massive Soviet era warehouse/border crossing/misery palace and waited and waited and waited with 50 others for each of our names to be tabbed out and our passports returned to us with the necessary exit and entry stamps. Ryan cruised through in 30 minutes, whereas Camille’s name was the second to last to be called. Then they tossed your luggage through an unmanned scanner (foreshadowing) and pop out the other side into Vietnam! We don’t plane really fully remember getting into Saigon. Maybe it was bus ride, or the long wait at the border, but we folded into our beds immediately upon arrival. We stayed at Hong Han Hotel in the backpacker district Phạm Ngũ Lão, a frenetic neighborhood packed with upscale Western fare and slum in the wall soup joints. That night we unwittingly walked through a Caodist recurrence – we were those asshole backpackers – tired, confused, and new to the country and just bashing our way through. In the end, we were rewarded with the some of weightier phở we’d overly had. The next day we wasted veritably no time in getting ourselves some motorbikes.Withoutdoing a tuft of research on various options, we decided to go with Honda Blade 110cc semi-autos from Tigit Motorbikes. Most backpackers will roll into town and buy a refurbished Honda Win from a local shop or flipside backpacker just finishing their trip. This adds a unrepealable venture and unpredictability to your journey, as you never know when your shocks might goof or the engine might explode – both stories we heard from travelers who had washed-up that very thing. Literally every other shop in Phạm Ngũ Lão is selling used motorbikes of various makes and models, most of them stuff Chinese knock-offs or real Honda Wins repaired with sub-standard Chinese parts. Not wanting to deal with the headache, we went with the “guaranteed buy-back” option, where we buy the bikes for full price up front in Saigon, and sell them when to the same visitor in Hanoi when we’re done, minus 200USD for the trouble. Some Thoughts on Riding a Motorbike Through Vietnam Make sure you have your motorbike license (from your home country) plus your International Drivers Permit (IDP) – it’s been wonted in Vietnam since Nov 2016, at some point you will get shaken lanugo by the police and it’s just easier to have your paperwork. Also, it is required for most travel insurance to imbricate any accidents. Test ride and inspect your bike. Think long and nonflexible well-nigh what style of ride you want – our platonic bikes would’ve been small, transmission motorcycles. Big bikes are basically untellable to acquire, require uneaten licensing and permits, and the top speed limit for motos is 60 kph (37 mph). There are a couple spots where you can squeeze out a few increasingly kph, but honestly, between the potholes, dogs, and the pebbles trucks, you’re not cruising any faster than that. We wanted unspoiled bikes that we would not be maintaining, except for oil and tires, so we went with Tigit.Weightierdecision ever. EVER. All of their bikes except for the Honda Blades were once on the road, so instead of “real” motorcycles we got 2 cute semi-autos. But they were killer little bikes.Withoutpicking up our bikes, we tested our worthiness to decipher Vietnamese café menus and ended up with a plate of Bò Né – Google Translate said it was “beef” and “butter”, but it was unquestionably a succulent sizzling whinge and onion plate with raw egg croaky on top that cooked itself in the pan, served with a stubby light-as-air baguette.Veritablydelicious. The first real meal in a new country is unchangingly a bit of stressful roulette – you haven’t seen many menus yet, and if you are like us and planning day by day, you probably haven’t washed-up the legwork of learning the local dishes, let vacated the language, but they’re often the most memorable. We were hot, tired, hungry, mildly drastic and unsure of what “butter beef” was, but once it came out we were so satisfied with what arrived at our table. We had planned a few uneaten days in Ho Chi MinhMunicipality(called Saigon, it’s historical name, by just well-nigh everyone), but … things got moving and so did we! Restless and excited, we hopped on the bikes and went. We booked a spot in Kê Gà on the beach. We were lead out of the municipality by our logroller from Tigit (thank goodness, considering navigating traffic on that first day by ourselves would’ve killed us), and then we hit the Cat Lai ferry, which put us solidly out of the municipality and onto Highway 1. Highway 1 is, for lack of a largest term, a truck thoroughfare.Withouta couple of kilometers (“kays” in moto-speak) Ryan looked at his phone and saw a road we could hop on and cut wideness the oxbow of the highway. The buffalo carts turning onto this road hauling huge tons of rice should’ve tipped us off, but we were fresh and ready for an adventure. It didn’t take increasingly than 2km for the road to trail off into a foot path through a rice paddy – running parallel to a dirt track that the buffalo carts would not have minded, but we did, considering it was under 6 inches of water. It became well-spoken that we were going nowhere fast, and pretty tropical to tipping over into a flooded field and just ruining the day, so we tip-toed our bikes backwards and teetered when to the main road. The rest of the ride to Kê Gà was a bit of a slog – long empty road (although it boasts some of the highest speed limits in the country – a whopping 70kph) wearing over to the coast. Ryan moreover learned a very important motorbiking lesson that day – WEAR SUNSCREEN. 2017-02-13-153914.jpg 2017-02-14-122233.jpg 2: Kê Gà to Hàm Tiến 24 miles / 38 kilometers - 1 1/2 hours As we unfurled driving north we left the delta of southern Vietnam and were met with a plunging coastline filled with colorful boats. 2017-02-15-3471.jpg 2017-02-15-3480.jpg 2017-02-15-3485.jpg 2017-02-15-3492.jpg 3: Hàm Tiến to Mũi Né 8 miles / 12 kilometers - 1/2 hourWithoutHàm Tiến, we took a short jaunt to the other part of the peninsula to the beach-side town of Mũi Né. It’s said that many years ago it was a backpackers oasis where intrepid travelers camped on the beach, but by the time we arrived, it was a strip of waterfront resorts catering to Russian and Chinese tourists. All the signs were first in Russian, then Chinese, and finally English, and the tourists outnumbered the locals. It was an interesting throw-away from what would wilt our new normal, bopping between isolated villages in the countryside without a single tourist in sight. We crush to the famous overlook of the Mũi Né fishing fleet, a picturesque scene of roundish, colorful fishing boats welded in calm, shallow waters. The blue-painted wooden “coracle” diamond is thought to originate from India and are known as thung-chai in Vietnamese. The name coracle in English comes from Wales and the similar wend designs are seen in South West England, Ireland, and Scotland, but we seem this is a specimen of convergent evolution. While the persistent winds on the beaches of Mũi Né made it less well-flavored for unstudied beach-goers like ourselves, the shores are a major destination for wind surfers searching for aerials. We wandered the waterfront at sunset and retired early for the long 7-hour journey to Phan Rang the next day. 4: Mũi Né to Phan Rang 95 miles / 152 kilometers - 7 hours Climbing onto our bikes early in the morning, we set off to conquer the Sand Dune Highway, a long unshut road of rugged coastlines snaking through white sand dunes and desolate swaths of desert landscape, and connect to a trademark new highway to Phan Rang through what the Vietnam Coracles calls ‘The Dragons Graveyard’. A few hours in, enjoying plentiful sunshine, warm breezes through our helmets, waves to our right, sand dunes to our left – we came upon the infamous police checkpoint between the Red Dunes and White Dunes. It is well known in backpacker circles that Vietnamese traffic police stop foreigners to trammels their papers withal this road (it’s plane marked on most maps) in order collect fines upwards of 200k đồng (~$10) Luckily for us, we had current IDPs, our undecorous ownership cards, and valid motorbiking licenses, so looking a bit deflated, they let us protract withal our way. White Sand DunesRemoterlanugo the road, we soon found ourselves bobbing virtually in Gobi-desert-worthy peaks of yellow sand dunes. Locals have figured out that they have something good going on and have set up shop selling unprepossessed drinks and rectangular(ish) undecorous pieces of plastic you can ostensibly use to slide lanugo the dunes. With little traffic and few families stopping to play, in a fit of drastic frustration, a line of the old ladies selling the ‘sleds’ came out into the road and worked a tampon to get us to stop and rent some plastic. We snaked our way through only to find the real hustle happens remoter lanugo the road at the big dunes. We’ve heard it used to be a self-ruling for all, but now they’ve erected to tuition tourists to “guard” their bikes. It’s dangerous out here, you know. If you want to get fancy, for ~$10 you can trip over the dunes in an old US Army Jeep. Not recommended for a lot of reasons – for others, it’s worrying as heck to be walking virtually the dunes and be wrung that a Jeep is going to come flying blindly over the ridge at 50kph, and it’s treasonous to the ecosystem.Segregatewisely. As the sand dunes faded in our mirrors, the landscape reverted again. That big wipe empty road stayed big, clean, and empty. It felt like we were the first travelers to hit the pavement, it was glorious ride, everything you hope for as a rider. So clean, in fact, the local coastal villagers were using their big, clean, empty stretches of road to dry the recent rice harvest. And then that big, clean, empty road got bigger, and emptier, and cleaner. Huge bricked promenade style sidewalks on either side of the road appeared. It became a 4 lane divided road with young trees planted in the center. The salt farms on either side of the road were 5 - 10 feet lower than the road, giving this surreal feeling of flying whilom the landscape. massive salt flats that big old empty road Dragons’ Graveyard And then… that big new road just ended in a tampon of oil drums and potholes. translates to 'no cars' While trying to decide to whether to protract or find flipside road, a local kid herding goats on his scooter waved us through saying that the road was fine. The ride up into the desert cliffs withal the ocean was one of our favorites of the trip. Since the road was obstructed off, there wasn’t any traffic – a few local goat herds, some bafflingly vacated construction workers filling potholes barefoot, and some x-rated road equipment. It’s a magnificent highway. Huge paved scenic pull outs every couple of kilometers are well-constructed with new benches and trash cans, it was so easy to stop and just drink in the uncounted ocean. But it was pretty obvious why it was sealed – plane though the pavement was so new and wipe it looked like it was laid yesterday, massive potholes five feet in diameter and huge rockslides tapped up the road. Someone had gone through and marked all the potholes with tree branches so motorists wouldn’t fall in, and it was easy to maneuver on a motorbike, but I doubt the massive tour buses that this highway is obviously meant for could be so nimble. But we felt happy by the road that was too big for it’s britches, that was too optimistic yet to handle the local geology, considering it was empty. Not a truck or terrifying bus in sight, just us and the desert rocks and the massive ocean views. on top of the world park littered with trash the cliff side road emptied when out into flipside big wipe boulevardWithouta few increasingly hours we hit Phan Rang, a small, but relatively new municipality perched on the beach. It’s known locally for it’s seafood, but not much else. It was a relatively dim and uninteresting, but it was a place to rest our heads between Mui Ne and Da Lat. We stayed in a little guesthouse and drank wine with the owner, who told us all the local tourists come in on buses from Saigon at 3am. Dropping our tons at the hotel, we made our pilgrimage to the waterfront just as the sun to setting. one of our first wondrous sunsets 5: Phan Rang to Đà Lạt 60 miles / 96 kilometers - 4 hours stubby legs and tiny stools The next morning, a little old lady on the street made us baguettes and eggs for breakfast, a meal we would wilt yawner to during our time in the former French territory of Vietnam. We geared up for our first big mountain journey, pushing our bikes to the max as we ascended the Vietnam mountain ranges to the North.Withouttwo hours of climbing, tired and lacking caffeine, we pulled off for a coffee at the whet of the road without summiting the tallest point. We were rewarded with a scenic view surpassing dropping into the valley below, flipside two hours of gravity-fed adrenaline. the valley unelevated crazy road That night we stayed in the Dreams Hotel replete with saunas and a hot tub for well-nigh ~$15 a day, and as we sat that evening, soaking our wreck in eucalyptus vapors, we decided to stay a few uneaten days. But take it from us, segregate the town, not the hotel. Having some time to kill, we asked virtually and were pointed to the Easy Rider Tour, a local group of riders who take tourists on journeys virtually the surrounding countryside.Withoutbooking our guide the previous day, we met our less-than-enthused guide the next morning. The sights were… underwhelming. It was less of an pure tour, but rather a guide driving us to tourists sites, parking, and waiting for us to pay a non-included fee to walk virtually some shrine or whatnot. The weightier part, surprisingly, was getting unprotected in a downpour and taking shelter under a road-side awning. We got to talking with our guide and learned well-nigh the history of Easy Riders, where our guide comes from, his travels throughout the rest of the world, and how Vietnam has reverted without the war. Sometimes the weightier tours come from leaving the “tour” altogether. 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 8: Đà Lạt to Lăk Lake 90 miles / 144 kilometers - 6 hours Bánh xèo, a rice and shrimp pancake that is the most wondrous supplies item in the world, no joke. We crush on to Lăk Lake on the suggestion of a friend, and it was a pretty unconfined way to spend the day. The roads we were on were new, with a big new underpass that gave us an wondrous view of one of Vietnam’s famous floating villages. It’s nonflexible to get a good tour of these villages which is why we hadn’t sought one out yet or later – these are people’s homes, but there are a few villages virtually SE Asia that have transitioned in part to stuff a tourist oddity. Other travelers talk well-nigh them the same way they talk well-nigh the elephant camps – beautiful, impressive, but moreover tightly depressing and frustrating. The zone virtually the lake (the largest natural lake in Vietnam – any larger lake is man made) is the home of many of the minority groups in Vietnam. The minority cultures in Vietnam seem to be treated with the same value of respect as Native American groups in the United States – relegated to small geographic areas, and provided minimal political power. That doesn’t midpoint you shouldn’t visit and learn their culture, it just ways you need to be very shielding when booking a tour (as we were in Kon Tum) to make sure you’re not taking wholesomeness or supporting uncomfortable stereotypes, and checking to make sure you are welcome to waif in and say hi. Lăk Lake As Americans, we are not unquestionably unliable to visit a lot of these groups without special permission from the Vietnamese government. There has been a recent history of violent revolt by minority groups versus the Vietnamese government, and the fist of government has come down.Stuffable to see the village from the underpass was pretty magical, but since we didn’t visualize seeing it, and we didn’t know who lived there, we didn’t finger well-appointed popping lanugo to the river to investigate. Arrests, or at minimum, steep fines, for surprise American visits are real. So we kept on this trademark new road wondering what it’s going to bring to this region: new trucking lines? mining? tourism? who knows. Eventually we rolled into the little town on the opposite side of the lake from the eco-camp we were booked at and waited for our boat. We locked our bikes up, crossed our fingers, and hopped on the long tail that showed up for us. We stayed at the Lak Lake Tented Camp. It was our most expensive night in Vietnam (~$90, our typical walk-up upkeep was ~$10-30), and a bit splurge on a romantic middle-of-nowhere getaway. #catsofasia It is like one of those places that pops up on Pinterest with a click morsel logo saying “10 most trappy glamping destinations in Asia”. It’s quite pretty – you take a wend over the largest natural lake in Vietnam to a traditionally styled long house with safari style permanent tents perched up on the hill overlooking the lake. And we were the only ones there (probably considering $.$). If we were staying longer (which we couldn’t afford), we’d have gone kayaking on the lake or walked through the rice fields to one of the villages overdue the hotel. Instead, we drank some beers, hung out with the friendly kittens, watched the local fisherman illegally zapping fish to death with car batteries on their little canoe (electrofishing), had a really really good dinner of some of the local specialties, sat our on our terrace, and then fell unconsciousness to the sounds of epically loud karaoke wayfaring wideness the water from the town wideness the lake (killed the ‘alone in the universe vibe’ a bit). Then woke up, had a unconfined breakfast (the kitchen at this resort made it worth all the money we spent on the night – it was some of the weightier meals we’d had in this area), grabbed the wend when to our bikes and roared off into the distance. illegal electrofishing 9: Lăk Lake to Kon Tum 170 miles / 275 kilometers - 8 1/2 hours Once you leave Lak Lake and hop on the QL27 there’s not a lot going on, and then you hit the AH17 and there’s plane less. If you’re on your way to Kon Tum there’s only like three places to stop for supplies and gas: Buon Ma Thuot, Buon Ho, and Pleiku. This is the most wearisome part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It’s flat, straight, dry, and dusty. I hope you made a good playlist, considering you’re just slogging through the kilometers on this one. This ride was memorable for us for how unremarkable the road was. At one point in the afternoon we were stressing well-nigh getting into Kon Tum surpassing visionless and hadn’t eaten in a few hours, and needed to eat. We were so tired and bored and hungry that the only thing we could do was alimony riding – trying to icon out how to get supplies was going to take uneaten neurons that we didn’t have available, but virtually 3pm we cracked. We tried the first place that had people outside, but they only served beer and coffee. Then, magically, Google stepped in and saved our tired asses. Ryan searched for “restaurants” on Google maps and surprisingly, it found something. This never happens. Google maps isn’t super unconfined in Vietnam. We mostly usedUnshutStreet Map via Maps.me, but it found a restaurant that had an very review (which meant it was really real, someone had been there), so we turned lanugo a side road, sat down, and got dished out two wondrous miracle bowls of fat white noodles in a thick salty goop covered in handfuls of untried onions. Over and over then this would be our favorite sort of shop – they make one thing, there is no menu. You sit down, say you want two of whatever it is they serve, and get fed. If you’re lucky, you’ll see the house specialty on other tables, or, maybe you have no idea and get surprised. A good indication of quality is someone coming in, and ordering 5 servings for takeaway.Withouteating, we kept going. And then the sun started to go down. And then the gates of hell opened up: the trash fires started getting lit and the pebbles trucks started rumbling onto the road. It’s nonflexible to ride a motorbike for a long time. It’s nonflexible to ride at night when there are embers flying into your face. It’s harder to ride at night when you have a tinted visor. It’s plane harder to ride at night when you have a tinted visor covered in dirt truck dust. We stopped every 20 kilometers for a few hours to victual wipe our visors and lean on each other and count how long we had left. in front: trappy sunset behind: trash fire Eventually, we got to Kon Tum. Kon Tum was one of the highlights of our trip considering of an epic “tour” (sort of tour sort of just crazy adventure) we took to the surrounding minority villages with a local artist, An. It’s such a unconfined story it’s worth it’s own post – working on it now!Trammelswhen later! 12: Kon Tum to Quảng Ngãi 128 miles / 206 kilometers - 7 1/2 hours Kon Tum marked the end of our time in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. There are a couple of ways to get when to the tailspin and Hoi An, but we’d been reading well-nigh QL24. QL24 is a really trappy mountain road that runs through rainforest surpassing dropping into the rice terraces towards the coast. We unscientific it would be 4 - 5 hour drive, and the weather looked good. Such naïveté! It started out well-spoken and comfortable, but as we rose in elevation the clouds and mist rolled in. Driving through an zone that looked popular with Vietnamese tourists, Ryan pulled off to retread his jacket. He slowed lanugo into a turn-out – his when tire slid out from underneath him – and then WHAM he was down. It was terrifying. Thankfully, he’d been going slowly, and we were in front of what looked like a casino with plenty of people walking in – they’ll help us, right? Nope. Once the initial panic had passed, and it was well-spoken that no wreck were wrenched and he wasn’t going to transude out and that the ladies in heels walking by weren’t interested in providing us with the time of day, Camille “Ace Field Medic” Teicheira slapped some bandages on Ryan’s hands and leg, wrapped his palm and knee in an orange trash bag so it wouldn’t transude through his pants or get soggy in the rain, shoved some Advil lanugo his throat, and we unfurled on. And then it started to pour. And then the road fell apart. At first it just petered off into gravel. And then the pavement came back, sort of. Massive potholes that would swallow a water buffalo were everywhere. The only bonus of the all rain is that it filled the potholes with muddy water so we could unquestionably see them. We did 30 km in an hour, slowly creeping along. Ryan's still running on adrenaline Ryan's still running on adrenaline Trying to alimony morale upper It was awful. We were nervous well-nigh Ryan’s wounds – they were soaking wet and the edges of the wear on his palm were saturated and white, which is not platonic conditions for quick healing. They moreover hadn’t been cleaned properly vastitude the rinse with bottled water and swig wipes, but we couldn’t go any faster. 5 hours later we crawled into Quang Ngai and our guesthouse. One squint at Ryan’s hand and the guesthouse owner dragged us wideness the street to the local pharmacy. Clinics are few and far between, and they aren’t unshut late, pharmacies on the other hand, are the defacto medical superintendency provider. The pharmacists shoved Ryan into a chair, threw on some gloves, and got to work cleaning his scrapes and bandaging him up. All the charged us for was the forfeit of the bandages and iodine. In retrospect, Ryan probably should’ve gotten a stitch in the puncture wound on his knee, but 🤷‍♀️. Quang Ngai is nothing to write home about. It’s the first real stop on the coast, and has reasonable guesthouses. We wandered lanugo to the night market for dinner, found a rented seafood restaurant, and then got swindled by a drunk guy who sat lanugo at our table and started ordering supplies for us under the pretense of practicing his English. One giant plate of octopus later (Camille hates octopus) we gave up and dragged our tired butts to bed. 13: Quảng Ngãi to Hoi An 70 miles / 112 kilometers - 3 hours Quick momentum up the 1 withal the coast…ish to Hoi An. We stayed in a cute hotel with a balcony overlooking a flooded field where water buffalo grazed, but was just steps from the heart of the city. Hoi An is a trappy city. It is moreover a huge tourist yank considering of the Unesco World Heritage Old Town. We’d been staying in small guesthouses and hanging out on the motorbike circuit, so the unexceptionable tourist lights were a bit of a shock. But we got in the swing of things pretty fast when we realized how good the bánh mì in town were. #catsofasia child safety ways putting a upper chair on your moto instead of just holding on to the kid Something succulent and fried and covered in shredded untried mango 14: Hoi An to Đà Nẵng 16 miles / 26 kilometers - 5 hours* Da Nang from on upper It’s a thirty to forty five minute momentum to Da Nang from Hoi An. It’s pretty and suburban. You can see a glimpse of the ocean lanugo short streets, and it feels a million miles yonder from the port hustle of Hoi An. Since the momentum was so short and our hotel room so boring, and the weather not perfect for a swim, we hopped when on the bikes and crush the Son Tra Peninsula. It was AMAZING. We cruised virtually the Peninsula hanging out with monkeys, the massive Goddess of Mercy, warmed-over banyan trees, and epic waddle slides until it started to get dark, then we buzzed lanugo the mountain without an wondrous sunset into the famous neon bridges of Da Nang when to the hotel. Shit eating 'omg so fun road good' grin Confucious playing chess Da Nang Da Nang 15: Đà Nẵng to Huế 80 miles / 128 kilometers - 5 1/2 hours Welcome to the Hai Van Circus Đèo Hải Vân, the ‘ocean deject pass’, is a famous mountain pass between Hue and Da Nang – famously dangerous and famously fun (as evidenced by the Top Gear episode). It’s significantly less dangerous now that it used to be since there’s now a massive tunnel underneath the mountain so most motorists can shoot right through underneath the twisty fog covered mountain pass. Now for the most part the only traffic on the Pass are the vehicles not unliable in the tunnel (trucks with hazardous materials and livestock, and motorcyclists), and the tourist buses. We’d gone a couple of weeks in Vietnam once only meeting a handful of other travelers – traveling from Saigon to Hanoi on a motorbike is a popular trip, but we wouldn’t have known it from the people we met on the road. Until you get to the top of the Hai Van Pass. Holy smokes there were a lot of people. Huge tour buses were packed into the parking lot of the cafes, flocks of Easy Riders with selfie stick wielding passengers, and dozens of tourists on rented motorbikes from Da Nang. Hai Van Hai Van with pig trucks, mmmWithoutthe hustle and precipitance of the Hai Van pass, we decided to take a long and meandering route to stave the dirt trucks on Route 1.Withoutwinding through little farmers tracks virtually the peninsula, we found ourselves starving and in serious need of some food. We crush into town, mimed us scooping supplies into our mouths, and the locals led us to a granny who fed us succulent bowls of BBQ pork and rice. We arrived into Hue without dark, falling into our beds with sore backs and shoulders. The next evening we went out and found some ‘Free Sightseeing’, and ate one of the weightier meals we’d had in Vietnam. Sassy lemonade with aSelf-rulingSightseeing The Rights of Foreigner when Visiting HueMunicipality2017-03-02-205956.jpg 2017-03-02-210043.jpg 2017-03-02-210123.jpg 18: Huế to Đông Hà 52 miles / 82 kilometers - 2 1/2 hours By this time we were feeling well-appointed on our motorcycles and decided to take an easy momentum well-constructed with some detours. We stopped outside of town near some rice fields and as soon as we took off our helmets and the locals could see our blond hair in the distance, they immediately came over to take some selfied with the foreigners. Rice everywhere Unfortunately, Dong Ha was really boring, the main yank stuff a big 5-star hotel in town we stayed in for $30. We thought we got a unconfined deal, but as soon as we finished breakfast, Ryan was running to wideness the dining room towards the washroom and was stuck with supplies poisoning for the rest of the day. 19: Đông Hà to Phong Nha 95 miles / 154 kilometers - 4 1/4 hours Looking at our guidebook and not seeing much between Dong Ha and Phong Nha, we decided to throne to Phong Nha. The momentum was filled with trappy limestone karsts and caves. We stayed at the Chap Lay farm-stay, had a long talk the next day with the guest relations manager, and took the crazy ferry over the river the next day to stave a 20 minute drive.Withoutarriving in Phong Nha we signed up for a multi-day caving venture where we bushwhacked through the jungle, staying in tents during pouring rain, and literally swam (yes, swam!) through multiple caves, seeing crazy spiders and bugs. Good thing we decided not to go swimming and missed the leaches. Not surprisingly everyone in our party got terribly sick from the unprepossessed and the rain, so we ended up staying a couple uneaten days to heal and sleep.Trappykarst (limestone) mountainsTrappykarst (limestone) mountainsTrappykarst (limestone) mountains The most interesting ferry so far The little old lady had very strong stovepipe Look, increasingly rice Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Our hairdo in the caves Modern art, with grotto The thing of nightmares -- a spider the size of your squatter Our campsite on the river Soul sucking mud Soul sucking mud Bún Bo at The weightier spit roast pork and noodle shop in the world (probably) Bún wrenched at The weightier spit roast pork and noodle shop in the world (probably) Bún Bo -> Bún wrenched at The weightier spit roast pork and noodle shop in the world (probably) 24: Phong Nha to Phố Châu 109 miles / 175 kilometers - 10 1/2 hours A stretch of old military landing strip now an uneaten wide stretch of the Ho Chi Minh Highway Feeling rested without our extended stay in Phong Nha, we set out on what was supposed to be a relatively short momentum on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Pho Chau. As we were zipping through the mountains in the middle of nowhere, Ryan turned when to see nothing but road. He waited a few minutes, but when Camille didn’t come virtually the bend, he headed when to find Camille pushing her velocipede up the hill, when tire flat. We pushed the bikes to the side of the road and fruitlessly tried to undeniability Tigit Motorbikes for some emergency help, but since we were in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, our phones didn’t have and signal. Shortly thereafter, we met some sad tourist bros who didn’t have unbearable gas to get to the next time and didn’t bring any jackets. We showed them that the route was mostly downhill from there on our phones and wished them luck. We could help them well-nigh as much as they could help us that that point. Luckily, without well-nigh a half-hour of trying to flag lanugo the few cars that passed, a couple from Colorado, precipitously jammed onto a unseemly Honda Win with all of their luggage, slowly puttered up and offered to requite us a hand. They had a tire patch kit, but neither us really knew how to get the tire off the wheel. We were worldly-wise to flag lanugo a passing tourist bus by throwing ourselves into the road, and without some tense negotiations with the drivers, we well-set to pay 300,000 Vietnamese dong (~$13 USD) for their assistance. We though it was highway robbery at the time as that was well-nigh our weekly supplies budget, but they had us over a whisk and in retrospect was worth getting us out of that jam. With a newly patched tire, we set our for Phố Châu for a surprisingly creepy night in the hotel where Vietnamese traditional medicine was founded. 25: Phố Châu to Hà Nội 251 miles / 404 kilometers - 11 hours In the final sprint of this marathon, we woke up to find Camille’s rear tire unappetizing again. Supposedly in their haste, our tour operator saviors from the day surpassing created a pinch unappetizing on our patched tube. Nearing the end of the Ho Chi Minh HighwayWithoutsome gesticulating and copious use of the Google Translate app, we were worldly-wise to wheel the velocipede to a nearby shop to get the tube replaced. For some reason this usual 15-minute job took several hours and we spent a lot of time chatting with the local Vietnamese families well-nigh our trip. Moto repair shop They thought we were strange for wanting to explore Vietnam, remarked on how good our teeth were, and were shocked that we didn’t have many babies waiting for us as home. We were moreover offered many times the ubiquitous tobacco bong điếu cày that is infamous for putting first-time users on their asses.Throneto the link whilom for a video. Tea plantationsWithoutover ten hours on the final stretch of road to Hanoi, constantly dodging earth mover trucks spewing clouds on pebbles into the air, our backs, arms, legs, brains, and souls all ached from the long day day of riding. This is how you learn how to momentum a motorcycle/scooter in Vietnam -- a simulation machine This is how you learn how to momentum a motorcycle/scooter in Vietnam -- a simulation machine Yes, that is exactly what it looks like: a crate of dogs heading to a restaurant near Hanoi. :( Some of the ridiculous vehicles you have to contend with on the road And then the road just keeps going Spacewoman We hit the mountains just as the sun was starting to set Hanoi As we pulled into Hanoi without dark, we weren’t fully prepared for the craziness that in the metropolis, replete with 11-wide moto lanes and criss-crossing expressways flying overhead and inexplicably plunging underground. Haggard, slowly snaked through the municipality trying to follow the directions on our phones who not hitting the bikes in front of us. Soon without jumping on the expressway towards the part-way of town, we quickly lost each other. There not stuff any room to stop or pull over, we knew each other would just proceed to the hostel and we would meet up there. One of the few automobiles on the road slammed his brakes in front of Ryan, causing him to fly forward on his velocipede and welt the front on his legs. The car didn’t fend as well and there was a huge wafer in the bumper and a very wrestling Vietnamese man yelling at Ryan from his car. Not wanting to get tied up in Vietnam police bureau-crazy (the tourist is unchangingly wrong), Ryan zoomed off and was lost in the sea of moto lights in the crowd.TrappyHanoi We settled into our Hanoi hostel, grabbed a much needed banh mi, showered, and sunk into our beds. We explored the cities many coffee shops, markets, stumbled into the yearly festival, and ate some wondrous food. With that, we flew from Hanoi when to Bangkok to protract the rest of our world tour. FIN Total 2,096 kilometers. quick thanks to Travelfish and The Vietnam Coracle for the most wondrous and wonderful guides to this mythological country. We had no idea what we were doing and couldn’t have washed-up it without them! Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.