Round-the-World by Bike: Vietnam 'blog

On the whole Vietnam didn't at all live up to the expectations we'd formed having heard friends' glowing recommendations of the place. More so than anywhere else I've ventured, road rights vastly favour might over right. Despite (and compared to) my initial misgivings at the disorganisedness of dodgy Cambodian traffic (if a few dozen rickety, rattly and rusty trucks and the sporadic overloaded Madmax-esque motorbikes actually count as traffic), Vietnamese road-use is a-bloody-bominable in the extreme. I s'pose that I should temper this with the reminder that unlike anyone else from whom we'd heard rumours of Vienam, we were on heavily-laden pushies slap in the thick of it all...

Our first night, having spent a afternoon pedaling through a monsoonal downpour via the somewhat corrupt Viet border post at Moc Bai & their "health check" shenanigans (exiting Cambodia was a cinch), we found ourselves at the only lodgings available – of course another overly & pink'ly festooned brothel, ahem sorry Massage Hotel, given our luck and seeming prediliction for such things...

Something we often encountered were passing motorbikes laden with the odd trussed bundle of pigs on the rear rack. Apparently they give them a solid whack, or three, on the head to stun them sufficiently for a thoroughly ingraceful trip to the local butcher...

It's quite a pity to arrive at such a conclusion of a country, yet coming away from the experience my greatest feeling was that Vietnam and its people certainly wouldn't have been much worth fighting for or over...

Throughout our crazed trip so far, I've come to be really proud of the way li'l Gaby has grown into quite the Energizer-esque cycle-bunny of late - From the dyed hair, polished artificial nails, over-riding German'ly pedantic scheduling, and an insistence on matching underwear when I met her, she's come to be the fit & muscular, coconut, avocado & pomelo obsessed, mozzie-scar riddled, let's-cycle-through-the-night-anyway world-traveller I've got today...

The heroine of the tale...

[Though had she perhaps not been carrying the entire works of Agatha Christie in paperback (and the extra-jumbo bulk bottles of shampoo, baby oil, conditioner, moisturiser <"they're cheaper by the litre!"> as well as all those redundant ridiculously extra-long USB cables etc) on her bike maybe the riding might not have been quite so physically demanding...]

The trip into HCM was unlike anything I've ever seen – it had alrady been a long day when we hit the outskirts – and -POOF- we somehow became part of the thickest, least organised, most organic stream of traffic one could imagine – and even then only when enduring a drug-induced, traffic-themed disaster movie. We stayed in HCM for a week or three or so, hanging out with a friend from home on occasions at the cheap and cheerful ubiquitous bars and otherwise sightseeing and shopping slowly for new t-shirts and books for the road.

The ride to the coast – from HCM to Mui Ne was easy enough and straight-forward, with only one or two nights spent in brothels; otherwise it was the regular local hotels – especially after we worked out how to read the word for 'hotel' in Viet script...

The coastal resort town of Mui Ne is a couple of hundred k's NE of HCM and was a welcome respite from the hussle and bustle of the big smoke. We arrived late into town and, to the amused horror of some suitcase tourists, made short shrift of enough food for 5 at the only restaurant still open at that hour. Not being the right season at the the time meant we got a room (for USD 18) right on the beach, with a great view out over the water and the fishermen in their unlikely-looking woven bamboo coracles. The circular craft are about 1 metre deep and 1.8m in diameter, with a reinforced gunwhale though without a rudder or anything except a coating of tar to detract from the minimal gestalt aesthetic. Steering and propulsion is achieved by means of a single bloke on the forward side with a Canadian type paddle and a 'J' stroke.

In the fishing village to the North of MuiNe town...

From MuiNe we headed inland and uphill towards Dalat. The trip was harder than we'd expected and late in the afternoon, after having met a wonderfully hospitable band of Happy Clappies, we took advantage of a tour bus, labouring up the hill behind us, to get us to the next decent town, about 40km further up the hill. The folk on the bus were the nicest we'd met in the country up til then, and cheerfully looked after us with snacks and drinks. Had we not met them I'm sure the remaining ride to find a bed would have been thoroughly miserable. The following day was a looong one but saw us all the way to Dalat by late into the night, and the cool offered by the elevation was a pleasant change. While in Dalat we stayed at the wonderfully hospitable Dreams Hotel - WiFi, secure bike storage, delicious brekky included, book exchange and friendly staff.

The Happy Clappy Clan we met in a small village up in the hills - wonderfully lovely folk...

Perhaps the most memorable experience while there was the Dalat Crazy House. As a concept I think it's great - the idea would have made Willy Wonka, Mr Topsy Turvy or Mr Kite proud - in theory - but to actually try to actualise the bloody thing...It's a wonderfully creative though unfinished, fibreglass & raw concrete experience; think Antoni Gaudi's worst nightmare, cutsified by Dolores Umbridge, and built as badly and cheaply as only shoddy unskilled Vietnamese labour can achieve...

WTF ? Bear in mind this is apparently a hotel. Would you like to wake up to a maniacal concrete 'roo with glowing red eyes in the middle of the night?

The Dalat Crazy House

At least in principle the trip from Dalat, high in the hills, at 2000 metres or so to the beach at Na Trang (er, sea level maybe ?) should have been largely downhill. BUT NO ! We spent a tiring day taking a 'short-cut' on the more-direct and newly unfinished highway heading NE which kept going up until just 50km from the coast and then plunged down at a ridiculous incline (for not nearly long enough to enjoy it) before undulating its way to the beach. Being the gung-ho early-risers we just aren't we didn't hit the road til 11 am and finally rolled to a stop by the beach at 6 the next morning - 142km and 17-odd hours of riding later... To really make matters even more comfy it was a National Public Holiday, and we had found ourselves at one of Vietnam's top beach holiday towns - so no readily available hotels when we needed one...

From NaTrang we decided to jump a train northwards to DaNang. Depositing our bikes was easy enough at the railway station, though when the staff put them out on the pavement until the train was due several hours later we felt a bit nervous for their safety. Anyway the train trip was provided a Hellish soundtrack by the tinny yet deafening Muzak system onboard playing WTF's greatest hits, which we had great difficulty ignoring. Getting the bikes back out however was a lovely exercise in agonising frustration-restraint. The workers unloading the goods car had already dropped another bike, causing the handlebar to get twisted to one side, and were yanking hard to get the thing right, and meanwhile a few other workers had dropped a bale of fabric onto a motor scooter making it fall over, shattering the headlight and indicators. So I really wasn't all that keen on them treating our bikes in a similar fashion and stubbornly had to press just to get to roll them away myself. Needless to say I refused to pay the paperwork fee being levied by a swarthy mafioso in the carpark.

Hoi An - Caveat Emptor !

Everyone it seems has heard the old "When you're in Vietnam make sure you go to Hoi An for cheap shoes and tailored clothes" but here is a polite'ned account of what those same bums failed to mention until after the fact...

Don't shop here...

Anyway, the whole Hoi An shoes & suits experience – hereafter referred to in only the worst, most impolite, expletive-laden and pissed-off language was quite the . . . . fiasco. To save destroying my keyboard with pissed-off typing rage, here/ now isn't the place, save it to say we 'enjoyed' shonky merchandise segueing into something involving fisticuffs, cuts & scratches, torn clothing, irate hammer & shear-wielding storekeepers, sneaky crooked cops and a host of amused spectators...

The storekeepers off to pay the cops for a favourable outcome...

And while on the way home a teenager on a motorscooter zooming along on the wrong side of the road bumped into me. Neither of us was hurt but that really was the last straw - I was rather inclined to express my dissatisfaction and (oops) somehow his keyring fell out of the ignition and sailed over a high fence into the jumble of a nearby construction site...

So what with Vietnam being far from our cup of tea, Gaby and I just decided to cut our losses there and then, head back to HCM and grab an onwards flight to Beijing to get there a few weeks ahead of the next teaching job.