Tha Shiznit

Apologies for the long entry to come...
So, we had heard about motorbike tours around Vietnam, and by sheer luck we noticed something very interesting on our way back from the bank. There was a motorbike tour leaving in 2 days headed for a 6 day trip around Northeastern Vietnam. We got all the tour info and decided to sleep on it for the final decision... We walked in the next morning confident on booking our tour for the following day, only to find that the tour had already left, in fact we watched the tour drive out of the shop!!! SHIIITTT. After a quick talk to the brilliant guys at Voyage Vietnam, we decided that there would be no problem, we would just have to speed things up a bit, and leave within an hour to catch up with them! So, within this hour we had to a) check out of our hotel, b) go to the bank and withdraw money 6 times due to the max limit, c) provide Haakon with his first encounter with the front seat of a motorbike, d) prepare Mahta for sitting on the back of a bike for the 6 days to come. What a scramble.. We were running all over the place just trying to get all the stuff together, but in the end we managed pretty well. After a total of 90 minutes, we were ready to go on a 6 day long motorcycle ride in the Vietnamese mountains. What a thrill!!!

Before we get started on telling you about the trip itself, let me give you an intro into the bike we were to use. The bike is called a Minsk, and is an old Russian motorbike. It is a 125 CC, meaning it has no more power that a regular moped, but obviously has more torque. The max speed of the bike is about 60 km/h, it weighs a whole bunch, and comes without any gauges (ie speedometer, fuel gauge etc). Having said that, the bike is unreal. It is called the mule of the mountains and has such a simple design that a monkey with a hammer and a stone could fix it. Well, not really, but pretty much any Vietnamese male over the age of 30 will know a Minsk inside and out. Our Minsk was nice and blue, and she quickly acquired the beautiful name of Helga. We also had full protective clothing, meaning motorbike jackets, pants, gloves, helmets etc. Ok, back to the trip.

Off we went, but first we had to get ourselves through bustling Hanoi traffic which can be challenging enough when you're crossing a street on foot. Haakon, the experienced biker that he was, popped a wheelie just as we were pulling onto the highway but managed to pull himself together and we successfully drove hard to catch up with the others. Driving at our max-out speed of 60 Km/hr , the wind and bike vibration forcing our face to move in ways we didn't know were possible, rice fields and mountains began to appear in the horizon. The sun was bright and hot while the wind was cooling our faces. What a feeling... We were finally getting a taste of the real Vietnam.

We drove hard for about 3 hours before finally stopping for some drinks at a local roadside cafe. By this time we were told that we actually passed the group and decided that we should just wait for the others to catch up. It was a good chance to rest from the whirling world on a motorbike. Soon enough, our new guide, Hung, appeared with an English couple - Paul and Clare - and we were finally introduced to the people which we were to spend some incredible days with.

After a quick lunch, we carried on at a pace that almost seemed boring compared to what we had been doing earlier till we reached an old "communist" hotel which was to be our home for the night. The hotel looked like it had been built in the mid 60's, with huge rooms of shitty quality. Oh well, I guess it was worth it for the scenary. The town we were in (and the hotel) was set right in between 5 or six large tree-covered mountains. Absolutely stunning!!!

After parking our motorbikes, our guide went out to find us some dinner while we refreshed ourselves in the communist hotel. 20 minutes later, we were all ready to go for, what we thought would be, a nice filling dinner. First the good parts: it was Paul's 27th birthday that same night, and we were all in a great mood to celebrate! Ie, the drinking was good. We got our hands on some Portugese wine which Hung believed was potentially made in China and quickly polished it off. The next thing on the menu was some local rice wine (moonshine) and finally, after 2 long hours of bad wine we got some cold beers. MMMmmmm, so far so good right?
Now, for the bad parts:. We can't say much nice things about the meal but we'll try to paint a picture for you anyways. First of all, they had freshly killed a chicken for us which was really nice, but they have the tendency of just hacking it up in chunks with the bone which is not so nice. Inaddition, the chicken is was boiled and not fried, which made for really grosse meat. For the rest of the dishes, Hung had decided everything and that may have included a plate of boiled cabbage, the water from the boiled cabbage (which was to be eaten as soup), rice, vegetables and some other stuff. All in all, the meal was highly unsattisfying and did not fill us up at all. We also asked if it was possible to get beef,, but received a negative response, as the town was too small to eat a whole cow before it went bad. HA HA... what a disappointment.

After the scrumptious meal, we took some beer back to our room to continue the celebration and eventually fell asleep around midnight, stoked about another day of motorbiking.

P.S, you can go here: http://www.minskclubvietnam.com/thebike.html if you wanna look at the bikes we were using