Hey everyone,
I know we haven’t been very good at posting some news about our trip, but thats due to the fact that we didnt have time, nor had a place to do so.
Last news were posted from Hanoi, 10 days ago or so, here is what we have been up to.
So we decided to rent russian motorbikes (details: Minsk 125cc, 4 gears, no speed indicator, no tank indicator, basically a good old engine set up on 2 wheels). As i had never been on one (well, not with gears anyway) it took me a little time to feel it and get used to it (and the clutch) , an hour in Hanoi’s crazy roads did it. We finally left Hanoi mid afternoon, and headed towards Hai Phong in the evening. We had a small night there and were up at 5 to catch the “slow” boat to Cat Ba. Theres only one boat a day were we could get our bikes on, no speedboat for us. Getting our bikes on the boat seemed pretty eazy, getting them off though, was a different story, but some local people helped us gladly for some little cash.
In the afternoon, we rode into the island on nice and empty roads (gave us a good training for going uphill, downhill, hill starts …) in a beautiful landscape, and we sorted out our 3 days and 2 nights “cruise” on a small boat with a dad and his son. The cruise was great, sailing among all those small islands, taking a swim every few hours, eating onboard, sleeping on the deck, visiting some caves, etc.. It was just great!
As we came back late afternoon to Cat Ba (3 days later) we had to spend another night here to catch to (even earlier) ferry back to Hai Phong. Once there, we took a good breakfast, and got on the road, heading to Nim Binh.
Only spent a day and night here, but enough time to visit the temples and old citadel of Hoa Lu, along with the beautiful landscape of Tam Coc. The next day we headed inlands towards the National Parc of Cuc Phuong were we spent the day, had nice walk in the forest, met 30 teenagers on vacation, spent a couple hours with them chatting in the evening. As we woke up, a quick visit to primate center, then we were on the road again, but this time, heading south west to catch the Ho Chi Minh highway.
From there onm we knew there wouldnt be much to visit along the day, so we needed to get as far as we could. But the scenery was amazing, rice fields, mountains, all the way, we did quite a few breaks just to enjoy the view. At some point we thought we were low on gaz, therefore started seeking a station, and what a surprise to have my engine just stop at the top of the hill in the shade ! We lost on hour there, to go get some gaz, but we were back on the road pretty fast, and ended up in a small town called Tan Ky ( which doesnt appear in any of our guides, but is there on the roadmaps we had bought before leaving Hanoi ). We filled up the tanks, and the found the unique hotel. First thing we did afterwards was to cross the street to get a few Bia Hoi ( local cheap beer ). We met a bunch of friends there, 2 young guys ( our age ) with their wives ( and kid for one of them ), they paid us a few rounds, showed us their house, and invited us to a local restaurant. We had a great evening, it’s good to see cool people after facing the crowds in the cities trying to sell you a ride on their cyclo or bikes, or selling postcards.
We left the next day around 9am and started a real trip down to Hue, i wasnt convinced we’d be there the same day, but we finally did it, arriving 12 hours later in the dark.
We drove in the mountains, barely crossing anyone along the HCM highway (which looks more like a “departemental” by the way), but we did cross some workers, coming our from nowhere in their truck, ending just in front of me, had to grip my brakes as hard as i could, but i did finally crash into the back of it, slightly bent the front light of the Minsk, and got a little burn (from the exhaust pipe) on my leg, but i was riding again 10 mins later.
We finally arrived in Hue in the evening, we had a “no bike day” today, visited the citadel on foot, refused all means of transport other than our own legs.
Tomorrow morning we should visit a few more temples in Hue, then head down the coast accross Danang to reach Hoi An were we will spend a night or 2 before moving on again.
I know you are all waiting to see some photos, unfortunately i seem to be having difficulties uploading our photos from the net cafe we are at at the moment, i might try from another later.
Cheers everyone !