Vietnam Day Four: Hanoi to Phu Yen

...and so our bike rides begins.

We met our guide, Huan, at Offroad Vietnam at 9 and were introduced to our bikes and the waivers that went with them. Money and liability sorted, we left the back alley shop and crossed the street to saddle up our bags. It was beautiful smoggy day to leave Hanoi.

The traffic is mental. There are rules, I suppose, but they are largely unwritten. Honking is used to communicate position (but also to say hello), and cars, buses and bikers all jockey for a place to move, turn and not run into one another.

It is exciting basically being within an inch or so of other drivers when you are driving through town, but it is also exhausting - both in the sense that you are just breathing in a ton of exhaust, and it is tiring. We were glad to make it mostly out of the city about an hour and a half after departure, and stopped on the banks of the Red River for food and drink.

Coffee break

Something important to note here is the difference in speed compared to riding back home. I don't think I ever got above 70km/hour on the fastest areas of good paved highway. In smaller towns and villages, and especially once we entered into farmland and mountain trails, we were often travelling around 40km/hour.

Which is good, because as the landscape changed from the city to more rural areas, the jungle became thicker, and the roads narrower.

Before I came here I thought that the hardest adjustment in riding would be other vehicles - I often encountered a large semi coming my way in my lane passing another semi and I was the one who was expected to move. But the truth is that the things that have given me the most pause have been wild dogs, chickens, and buffalo. The dogs are everywhere. 9.9 times out of 10 they don't care about you, but many also don't have the sense to get out of the way of the bikes either, They are all little medium-sized and just saunter around the streets, eating garbage, fighting with one another or just napping. The chickens are just chickens, dumb and erratic in their movements, so dicey when passing them on a bike. The buffalo....are just slow, and sometimes will block the road entirely. More often then not there is a shepherd nearby to move them along, but no one seems in any particular rush.

Overlooking harvested cassava fields

In short, it was an exciting and exhilarating day. I started my 40th year by being able to start traveling around a beautiful new and foreign country. A lot of the day was in the city, but there were a few moments near the end of the ride where I really felt like this is it, this is what I came for. Those were the ones where the sun was setting over the mountains and Cass was riding ahead of me on narrow dirt roads, lined by harvested rice fields. That and the fact that school children are so excited to see us pass through, waving and shouting "hello!" and giggling if you wave back (Huan says that not many foreigners come through some of these particular areas).

We made it to Phu Yen around 5, and re-cooped in our hotel until dinner time. We met up with Huan and walked to a local family run restaurant and I ate my fill. The food has all been wonderful here, Surprisingly, I haven't eaten much Pho at all, but Huan is making most of the food choices for this section of the trip. Instead we are trying new things in each place, often just different meats (like chicken, pork and beef) cooked in various ways. Spring rolls, too, seem to be done differently in each place, and that is a nice surprise.

But what really got me at the end of the day is the local rice wine. Many families have their own recipes, and when the time is right, they love to share. And share they did. We were joined by the owner for a time, and his sister as well. Then some other motorcycle guides who knew Huan joined the table and after we had eaten, a cake was brought out to help me ring in my 40th birthday, It really was a special time. The hospitality is like non other.

and so ends the first day of our motorcycle trip.