Vietnam

Seeing that we both survived the motorbike trip, we were ready to start thinking about leaving Vietnam. The country has some beautiful scenary, but the people are not nice at all. They generally feel that tourist deserve to pay more for everything and that it should be no other way. For example, the driver on a local (non-tourist) bus threatened to kick us off when we refused to pay more than the local price; don't worry though, we stubbornly managed to keep ourselves on the bus. We thought this "you pay more" attitude was strictly towards tourists, boy were we proven wrong by some villagers in the middle of nowhere during our motorbike trip. Allow me to elaborate, our guide had brought along a stack of photos he had developed for the host at our home stay. As we were crusing along, clumsy Hung managed to drop these photos without realizing, but it just so happened that we had to stop a few meters further to repair the bikes (big surprise!). What happened next might give you an indication of how the a-typical Vietnamese thinks... a villager brought us the photos, SO NICE! Yeh, except that she was requesting a handsome payment of 200,000 Dong (USD 12.5) in exchange for the photos AND this was after she had gone through them and selected her favourites as a souvenir!! Keep in mind that it had cost Hung 120,000 Dong to develop the photos and so the final settlement was that he would develop copies for the lady and hand-deliver them to her on his next trip. In the meanwhile, there was a group of ladies who had come to check out the foreigners and their cameras. As shy as they seemed, they asked Clare to snap their photos and had a blast looking at them, requesting more photos and taking turns to have their photo taken individually. It all came to a shocking halt when they actually had the nerve to ask Clare for money after THEY had asked HER to take numerous photos...What?!?!

Needless to say, this entrepreneurial mentality got VERY tiresome in the long run and we were quite excited to leave the country.

As explained earlier, the British couple (Paul and Clare) had become old friends by now, and since we were all heading in the same direction, we decided to continue our journey together into Laos the following morning. Now, in order to go to Laos from Hanoi, one has a few alternatives. First of all, you can jump on a plane with the infamous and always reliable Laos Airways.. Sounds tempting.. I think not.. Secondly, you can utilize the so called " 24 hour bus ride from hell" (that's quoting Lonely Planet). Apparently, the busses are an absolute nightmare, it may have something to do with the 30+ chickens on the bus or the 35 degree heat without A/C, but we're not sure since we opted for a different and more unconventional route. We decided to cross at the most remote (but closest to Hanoi) border crossing. There was only one problem... This most appealing crossing did not issue Laos visas on arrival and of course H&M had not arranged them in advance. How do we get ourselves out of this pickle? Now, this is how we solved the problem:

Let me paint a picture for you. Mahta, Paul, Clare and Haakon are walking downtown Hanoi about 4 o'clock on a Saturday evening when we decide to take the route described above. Paul and Clare had been planning ahead and had already bought their Visas earlier while H&M were less prepared. Oooops!!! Not a good start for the unconventional route. But hold on. We are in Vietnam, not the western world, maybe the embassy is open? After a long search for the right phone number and some help from a local girl, we get the answer. It's SATURDAY EVENING.. are you crazy... It's not going to open until Monday. DAMN!!!!... hmmm, what to do... Oh, what if we ask one of the travel agencies, they seem to advertise visa arrangements... And sure enough, after a little bit of digging, we found one that could do it in time. We handed our pasports in at 5.00 PM on Saturday evening, paid what amounts to a small fortune in Vietnam, (but really isn't that much) and 2 hours later, we had great, shiny (AND LEGITIMATE) visas in our passports. YEAH, the Vietnamese corruption finally paid off. I mean, where else could you get a visa after the closing of the embassy through a random travel agent...

Now, with the visa situation taken care of, we could start our journey early next morning. Mind you, we weren't able to leave for 3 hours due to the normal complications with Vietnamese people (they "accidentally" bleached Mahta's pants in the laundry and wanted to fight Mahta - yes, that's right, MAHTA - and some other shit), we finally left Hanoi on a local bus by 11 AM. The beginning of the journey went really well, and about 7 hours and 2 bus changes later we ended up in a place called Mai Chau. The whole trip sounds really boring, but believe me, it's way more fun travelling on local busses than it sounds. There is continous entertainment from all around: funny locals doing random things, crappy busses crying for power, blocked roads due to landslides, people suddenly begginging to beg just cuz they notice foreigners around, and other random happenings. Wish I could go into detail, but I think that would be over the top. Anyways, we made it to the village of Mai Chau, and instinctively began searching for a place to stay. Seeing that the town is REALLY small, has no hotels the first option presented to us quickly became our only option. Yeah, that's right, we ended up staying with a local family. They kinda rented us their living room, and we slept beside the son. It was cool though. The house was built on stilts, completely made out of bamboo from top to bottom and all we had was a thin mattress on the floor with musquito nets.. Really cute. Since we were staying with these people, we also accepted their offer for dinner (for a small price of course). Thus, by 7 PM, we were served a delicious home cooked meals with vegetables, spring rolls and other delicious stuff I can't even pronounce. YEAH!! Unfortunately, they didn't speak much English, but we some how managed to ask for the local brew, which in Vietnam means RICE WINE. It's dirt cheap (about 60 cents per litre), tastes pretty bad, contains about 30 percent booze, is done as a shot and is a ritual included in any Vietnamese meal of a certain size. By 11:30PM, Paul and I had polished off 1 litre of this stuff and were just starting to get drunk. GREAT STUFF! Can you imagine the disappointment we felt when the family asked if we could go to sleep at midnight??!! BUMMMER!! Oh well, the family had been really nice, and they had a cozy home.

Coming up in the next blog: leaving Vietnam and crossing the border into Laos, only to find out that there is absolutely nothing on the other side. What happened? Where did we sleep? Did we get food? Find out in the next entry...

When we awoke next morning, the storm had finally passed and the air was fresh and clean. Surprisingly, the day brought little excitement as our goal was simply to get back to Hanoi as quickly as possible using the local highways. The only funny thing was to ride behind the broken Minsk. The bike was still really loud, and people were still pointing and laughing; we HAD to take a one hour break to finally fix the damn thing. I can also tell you that our asses were hurting like hell, and on top of that the backseat passengers were ready to poke their eyes out from boredom! We all arrived safely (and exhausted)regardless of 6 hour hectic Hanoi highway traffic.

Once in Hanoi, we were all asked to sit down with the manager for a drink to talk about our trip. WOW, this is great was our intial reaction, and gladly sat down. That's when we find out that our guide, Mr. Hung had cheated us all along. He had spent way less than the budget on food, and most likely pocketed the excess money. He had also asked us to pay for stuff that according the the managers were supposed to be included in the trip. The managers were in fact really pissed at him. Supposedly they had had problems with him before and told us that he would most likely not be allowed to go for another trip. We felt really bad as we thought he had been a decent guide, but I guess they had been angry with him for a while. Because we hadn't received what we were supposed to, they even offered us a 50 dollar discount. Can you believe it?? A Vietnamese person saying sorry for something.... and offering a discount!!! We were absolutely dumbfounded. Really outstanding service.

We eventually left the office feeling kinda angry about Mr. Hung basically lying to us, but yet very happy with our trip. We had a great time and I would reccommend the trip to absolutely everyone that wants to get off the tourist trail and see some more of Vietnam...

Seeing that we were sleeping uncomfortably on floor mattresses and were tucked in under a mosquito net, we were not the least bothered when we were woken up to the sounds and smells of various domesticated animals... Well, not only our usual kind of domesticated animals like cats and dogs but also hens, pigs and water buffaloes.
Soon after we had taken our cold showers came the most disappointing meal yet. We were served a plate consisting of 10 slices of deep fried bananas to be shared amongst the four of us! We sat around waiting for the real breakfast to magically appear, but it just never came We were hungry before we even left the breakfast table.
Then came our boat trip around Ba Be Lake, we just cruised along which was nice but not so exciting. We did however stop at a little island for a short refreshing swim!

When we arrived back at the house, the family had prepared a delicious lunch which we devoured, but it still never left us feeling satiated. The big chief, happy with his new drinking partners, insisted on more rice wine which Hung had to deny on our behalf simply because there were many hours of driving to come. After soaking up some sun and eating lots of yummy food, we decided a little cat nap would be perfect. And perfect it was! We woke up feeling refreshed and ready for our next leg of the journey.

Seeing that we were only supposed to drive about 70 km in the afternoon, we were sure that we would arrive at a decent time at our last homestay. It may not come as a surprise to you when I tell you that this didn't happened. Instead, this is what happened:

The first 45 minutes of riding was really nice. The terrain was rolley and really scenic. In fact, I think we actually had a little bit of sun for the first time in 4 days. So far, so good.

After 45 min, we leave the main road and hit up a smaller dirt road, leading into the mountains. The road is muddy, but nothing we hadn't seen before. By now, we were all getting accustomed to the bike, mud and water... so we cruised through this part like it was our job. The next obstacle we reach is a river.. he he. yes, there's a river flowing accross the road, and we have to drive through it to continue. Haakon guns the Minsk and heads straight for the river. Helga is roaring and there's water everywhere!!!! But guess what, we make it. Yeah. We got wet of course, but Helga, Mahta and Haakon are safe and sound on the other side without even stopping. (Count of hands: How many people thought we'd fall in? We hate you all!!!)

Because the river was such a fun place, it may not surprise you that Haakon had to go back and do it again. Yes, that's right, he decided drive back accross the river, knowing perfectly well what happens when you try to go swimming with the motorcycle.(Count of hands: How many people think Haakon screwed up and dropped Helga in the river?) Bastards, you are all wrong. We made it! And it was brilliantly executed. LOADS of fun. Since we were all having fun, our trusted guide, Mr. Hung, decided to try something cool. Instead of driving accross the river, he wanted to drive along the river (in the river that is). He leaves the group, and drives slowly up the side of the river, before cutting out onto a small "island". His goal is to drive from the island, down the river and out where we are standing. The whole feat would have been really cool if it hadn't been for him fucking it up. He drives off the the island and into the river looking like he is already about to fall off. In fact, we could predict the outcome before it even happened. No surprise to us, but apparently a surprise to Hung, his front wheel hits a hole, he loses balance and falls off the bike. It was really funny to watch. Paul and I run out yelling "We'll save you Hung" as he tries to hold on to his bike, which is now starting to float down the river. HA HA. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. We eventually managed to get the bike out of its swimming position and onto the island, but it required alot of brute force. I guess you all know what happened next. Yeah, that's right. The bike would not start... We spent the better part of 2 hours waiting for Mr. Acrobat to fix his bike. (I think we were laughing for a good 45 min of it). The best part of it is that he didn't even manage to fix his bike. It really sucked! But everything is possible in Vietnam. Hung simply asked a local tribesman if he could swap Minsks temporarily. He even got the local guy to push his bike to the mechanic.

Well, after about two hours (4 o'clock), we eventually got going again. Hung had acquired a shitty old Minsk, but at least we were moving. I guess it would have been really nice to be able to tell you that after this mishap, eveything went as planned, but unfortunately, this didn't happen. The next thing that occurred was Paul and Clare losing their tailpipe. The exhaust simply fell off the engine and was dragging on the ground. SHIT!! We stopped of course, and Hung pulled his tool kit out yet again. We managed to temporarily fix it, but not for long. 10 min later, the damn thing fell off again, and proved nearly impossible to fix. We eventually had to force it to stay put, but the bike now had a huge cap where the tailpipe was supposed to go. For those of you who don't know, driving without a tailpipe is hell. The bike went from being loud to sounding like a 747 ready for take off. IT WAS SOOO LOUD!!! Even the local people were all plugging their ears as we drove by.. Absolutely hilarious.

We had now covered about 35 km, and it was about to get dark when it started raining. It wasn't much at the beginning, but we could tell that there was a big storm coming. After a quick group meeting, we decide to cancel our original plan, and drive back to the closest village(about 5 min). We found a hotel just as the storm hit. It was raining soo hard that the streets began to flood. 30 minutes after we had arrived, the street was filled with water. I tried to walk through it, and it reached up to my knees... WOW, I've never seen anything like it. Mopeds were stuck in the water, and people were trying to move their cars.

There's not much to tell about the evening. We had our usual crappy dinner with surreal beers before we went to bed.

After another nutritious bowl of noodle soup, we left the homestay early in the morning. The plan of the day was to travel 150 km to a remote natural park and lake.

The first 60 km went by really quickly. The roads were good and the view even better. We were basically riding on small asphalt roads the whole time, but we were still in the middle of the mountains.

At about 11 o'clock, we stopped to rest our sore asses as well as try some local soy milk. A group of 6 or 7 young girls and boys had made an impro soy-milk stand and were selling soy milk to each other. They were super excited to see us whities, and even more excited when we started taking pictures of them. Whenever we showed them the picture, they were all giggling and couldn't believe that this little black box could actually reproduce what they were looking at. The wonders of technology, eh?

Anyways, we now had a choice as to which route to take. 1: We could be really boring and go with the easy conventional route, or 2: We could take the rocky trail with a better view. We opted for option # 2, and off we went.

The first thing we see after leaving the main road is something that could barely be called a path. There were rocks absolutely everywhere and an a steep incline leading off into nowhere. Needless to say, Haakon was excited. The next few hours were spent manouvering through these incredibly challenging riding conditions. Helga was struggeling and we had to keep her in first gear for most of the way, but it was all worth it. By the time we came to the top, we left the road and went to a small field with a view of the valley below. The only other living creatures were water buffalos and a few cows!!! Another incredible memory.

We left the cow-littered field after 45 minutes of much needed rest just to find out that the sky was about to break open and we would get super soaked. The next 2 hours was undertaken in pouring rain but it was still a lot of fun.

We made it to our final destination, a Vietnamese stilt house just by the edge of a gorgeous lake. In fact, the owner was the village chief!!! Just as the previous nights, the evening was filled with good food, rice wine and beers.

When we woke up next morning, we were excited to find out that today was going to be a relaxing day, and infact we were going to stay at the same place tonight as well. Thus, we spent a long time getting ready and eating the now customary breakfast - Pho = noodle soup. No, it did not fill us up.

Todays journey was to consist of a slow ride of about 40km to the Chinese border. We humped along a nice asphalt road (but no cars) and slowly made our way to the border area.

We had heard that there was supposed to be a nice waterfall, but nothing had prepared us for what we saw. IT WAS GORGEOUS!!! The river (which is the Vietnam/China boundary) flowed into 3 seperate and huge falls, with green jungle growing on all sides. It was incredible. Also, we jumped on some sort of bamboo raft and was taken across the river right by the bottom of the falls, into China. It was awesome.. Due to the current being really strong, we couldn't really go swimming, but Paul and I managed to hold on to the raft and go for a quick dip anyways. I can now proudly say that I have pissed in China.

As opposed to the previous day, the day progressed without any funny, stupid or weird incidents, which was a pleasant surprise. We arrived back at the homestay before dark and had a traditional Vietnamese dinner (with rice wine of course) before calling it an early night.