There is a certain television show made by the BBC, based very loosely on cars, and featuring a massively outspoken Journalist, a vertically-challenged Brummie with an unsavoury fetish for shopping at Morrisons, and a man who says the word “cock” a lot. You may have seen the show before, and if so, may be aware of the time they rode motorbikes across Vietnam, and the delightful time they had doing so.
Bearing all of that in mind, it didn’t take a lot of persuasion to get me on the back of a motorbike in this glorious country. I may not have taken their epic route all the way from Saigon to Ha Long city, but the 130km I did do is enough to know that everything they said about how brilliant it is to bike across Vietnam, is true. And then some.
I left the smog of Hanoi several nights ago bound for Hue. Being a last minute kind of guy with travel plans, I was too late to book a soft-sleeper carriage on a train, and so had to make do with a sleeper seat on a bus instead. I wasn’t looking forward to this, especially after the monstrosity of a journey I endured on a shitty Khaosan Road coach all the way to Surat Thani.
I was pleasantly surprised however. The bus was comfortable, moderately roomy, and with good aircon. Not only this but it was barely 1/4 full, which, although did little in terms of allowing me to stretch out, did mean that it was a peaceful, quiet trip. No Christian Bale films or Mexicans shouting at each other across the bus.
At night – bus turns into scene from Tron!
Bleary eyed at the other end, I got off at Hue, and immediately was pounced on left right and center by hawkers. Hotels, motorbikes, tours…I shook them off and stumbled into a coffee place, where I had a much needed caffeine fix and some sublime fried eggs and bread. It was only after a few minutes however, that another local came and introduced himself and asked if he could sit with me.
He began explaining his job as a motorcycle tour-guide, who often did the route to Hoi An and much further beyond. I was about to send him off with the other product-pushers when he showed me two notebooks, filled with handwritten testimonials from previous customers, in all different languages (including English of course!) and then showed me a photo album of the route, the places, and of many of the travellers he had previously taken. I just had a feeling it was something I should definitely do, so agreed to meet him later on for a day tour just around Hue, and we’d see how things went.
An hour or so later we left my hotel and began riding around the town. After just a few minutes we were off the main roads and onto the narrow, twisty ‘local’ streets, the places you simply can’t drive down unless you’re on a motorbike. And with the motorbike being Vietnam’s chief vehicle of choice, there were a lot of roads like this!
We started off with a quick stop at a nearby temple where a full Buddhist prayer session was taking place. I was allowed to enter, shoes off first of course, and watch the monks as they chanted and played strange percussive instruments whilst kneeling in front of their large elaborate shrine. The chanting had quite a powerful effect, there was something very primal and energising about the sounds they made.
I left after a few minutes and after walking around the grounds and seeing where the monks ate and slept, we headed back onto the road outside. My guide pointed to a small pagoda-like building and said it was a place people take their broken Buddhas to – being an object of sacred imagery I imagine to throw one in the bin, even when broken, would be akin to deliberately smashing it in the first place, so having a ‘graveyard’ area for such damaged items seemed a logical idea, as well as a very respectful one.
We took in more sights that day including several temples, a huge palace complex, and a market where I saw incense and traditional conical hats being made. There are photos of all of these in the gallery – to write about them all here would take too long!
That night as I walked around Hue I stopped at a restaurant called Mandarin Cafe. The owner, a Mr Cu, is a photographer, and a pretty damn good one at that. The restaurant was filled with canvas prints of all his own work. It was an impressive collection, and as I left I bought a set of his photos in postcard form. Those of you whose addresses I have will be getting one in the post soon – I thought it was a nice personal touch to be able to send some great postcards home put together by a guy I actually met on the road.
Mr Cu’s impressive photo collection
I walked around for an hour or two later to take in the parts of Hue I didn’t see on the motorbike tour itself. I have to confess I wasn’t blown away by the town itself – there is a lot of history in the Citadel / old Imperial City, but much of it is just decaying walls and buildings, riddled with bullets from the American war. If you were travelling around on foot with a knowledgeable guide I’m sure they could breathe life into the area, but as my guide (sadly) didn’t take me around this part of town in any detail, it was all a little lost on me.
That isn’t to say it wasn’t an interesting walk. Being the only foreigner strolling around, I was the constant center of attention. Old people frowned at me. Adults stared. Children smiled and giggled, constantly running past crying “Hello!” at me. It seems strange that the people in much of Vietnam are still so unfamiliar with westerners, and that we are still such a great source of interest. I’ve truly lost count of the number of times I’ve said ‘hello’ back to local kids running around me, and they never seem to get bored of it!
On the second day we set out early, on the first part of the 130km journey to Hoi An. We stopped quite soon after for the first sight – another huge temple complex. To be honest, I was getting a bit temple-blind by this point – there’s only so many you can see before they get just a little bit samey! I take nothing away from their majesty of course, every place I went to had incredible architecture.
Back on the bike later and we carried on until reaching a fishing village further down the road. There was nothing much going on here, as the locals were hiding from the fierce midday sun, so I took some photos of the very picturesque area and we moved on again.
Fishing village
‘Elephant Waterfall’ was the next big stop, and it was a sight to remember. The locals had basically converted a fantastic river / waterfall / pool area into a public swimming center, by way of adding a few bridges and sun-shelters and charging entry! It felt great to jump in the fresh water and sit underneath the waterfall, and although it was quite peaceful, the locals took even more interest in me – a white face, not only in their neighbourhood but swimming there too!
We stopped there for dinner – I was told I could pick the chicken I wanted for dinner, which at the time was still clucking in a pen with its friends. I didn’t like the idea of playing god over the animals and choosing which one would be killed and prepared for me, but fortunately the cook had already selected the unlucky bird and was starting work on it as we spoke. Totally and utterly hypocritical of me, of course, much like most meat eaters – it’s easy to forget where your dinner originally came from when it’s bought from the frozen-food section of a supermarket with no discernible body parts still attached. Anyway, that’s another debate…
Elephant Waterfall was the last stop for us that day, and we finally arrived in Lang Co town for the night.
I rested up for a few hours and performed my daily chore of washing my clothes in the hotel sink. It was just after I’d put them outside to dry that the sky lit up and the most colossal thunderstorm began. Within minutes the road outside the hotel flooded, leaving local traffic to drive through a good 18 inches of rainwater. I was told by the hotel staff that my guide was unable to take me out to a good local restaurant that night as planned, owing to the rain. I was then told that he’d gone out on his own anyway, which seemed a bit rich really, but soon after he came sloshing back down the road with his poncho on, and explained that he was just checking the ride ahead was ok for us. After handing me a similar rain-garment of equal sexiness, we made our way to the local restaurant he had planned.
I arrived to a feast set up for me – king prawns, fried rice with mixed seafood, a huge pot of mussels, and half a dozen beers next to my chair. I grinned a happy grin and tucked into my delicious dinner.
An hour or two later, when I felt able to move again, my guide took me back to my hotel and, clearly on a promise from a woman at the restaurant who’d been at our table all night, went straight back there!
I went to the reception to pick up my room key and one of the young guys working there was behind the desk. We began talking about travel in-and-around Vietnam, him giving me some good pointers and advice for the rest of my journey. He then began talking about some of the hardships Vietnamese people face on a daily basis, things like not having the freedom to travel their own country like westerners can. “Foreigners are very lucky”, he explained, “as they can come here and travel anywhere they want to go. We aren’t allowed to do that”. He didn’t go into too much detail, just mentioning the Police, but it all sounded at bit odd. He went on to say how Casinos are built purely with westerners in mind, and that if you are a Vietnamese citizen, you aren’t allowed to use them!?
I didn’t probe too much into this side of things as it didn’t feel right to do so, but from the sound of it they don’t exactly have it easy, living in their own country.
As I was about to head up to my room he said he and his cousins and friends (all hotel staff and local workers) were going next door for drinks, and they’d like me to join them. I was happy to agree, and followed them to a table next door, filled with more delicious local food and beer!
I wasn’t hungry at all after my recent feast, but these guys were so friendly, and so generous in their hospitality, that I forced more tasty food down me. They seemed delighted to have a westerner sitting down for dinner with them, and they all laughed heartily at my silly drunken humour, excitedly told me about local life and asked about my own, and took immense pleasure in hearing me join them in their drinking toast of “Alo quat!”. I didn’t have a clue what it meant at the time but it tickled them all greatly to hear me say it with them. (I learned from somebody else the next day that it is “something young people say when drinking, and something a gentleman would never say when raising a glass”! No wonder they thought it hilarious when I said it with them!)
I woke up for breakfast early the next day, having had little sleep due to there being a power-cut in the night and so the room being boiling hot from a lack of aircon. After a much needed coffee and some fried eggs I got back on the motorbike and said a fond farewell to my new Vietnamese friends from the night before, all smiling and laughing as they waved and shouted “ALO QUAT!” down the road behind me.
The first part of our journey that morning was the famous Hai Van pass – the amazing coastal road the Top Gear presenters were so utterly gobsmacked by. I was particularly looking forward to seeing this. My guide explained to me that recently a tunnel had been built that bypassed the mountain road completely, and buses and other public transport took that nowadays rather than taking the slower, but far more impressive, coastal road. This alone made it worth going by bike!
We stopped off several times on the route, including the exact spot where Clarkson and co did…
Top Gear fans: imagine this scene at sunset, and with Clarkson waxing lyrical over how the modern bridge and the old-fashioned boats sum up Vietnam for him. Look familiar? =)
…to say it was an impressive ride would be a grand understatement.
Later on the pass we pulled over at a quiet stop with just a few market stalls set up. My guide pointed up the hill where there were two American bunkers and a French bunker still standing. Completely untouched by tourism, travellers, or renovation, they stood exactly as they did when they were originally built and used. I took a stroll in and around them, the only person on the hill save for a few local children who sat playing amongst the structures, no doubt oblivious as to their history or significance.
It was eerie to stand inside the American bunker and see things as the soldiers themselves did, but it was a massive treat to do so. It’s things like this that impress me the most when it comes to history – it’s all well and good visiting a museum where every thing has been gathered and neatly displayed behind glass in an air-conditioned building, but to see the original artifacts and buildings themselves, untainted, in their original location, is something else entirely.
We finished our ride down the amazing pass and entered Da Nang which, in all honesty, didn’t blow me away at all. I may as well have been in Spain, and although we pulled over for a few photos on the way I wasn’t overly keen to stick around and observe the high rise hotels, tourist-attracting casinos, and the soulless beach. We moved on.
The final stop that day before Hoi An was the famous marble mountain. A massive hunk of, well, marble…a network of caves and temples carved into the rock itself. After starting off at ground level there, which was home to dozens and dozens of statue and statuette shops (remember James May’s dear Darcy?) I took the steps up to the caves themselves. There were lots of steps, and after my trekking in Sapa I was in no rush to climb anywhere fast!
Inside the caves it was refreshingly cool, and the Buddhas and other carvings made into the rock were a real spectacle.
I took in the caves, before heading around to the other side and the way back down, which was located amongst more temples (all of them pretty, but my temple-o-meter was running on red by now!) and headed back to my guide so we could continue our journey.
The road from marble mountain to Hoi An was fairly dull, and I was looking forward to just chilling out at my hotel and taking a swim. We stopped off at a Tailors in the town which my guide recommended and the sales pitch began. They were very friendly in there and gave some good clothing and suit advice but as of now I remain unsure where I’ll go to get my clothes made. I can’t help but think that there was just a bit of a commission-grabbing thing going on with my guide – in the later part of my journey I felt like every time he opened his mouth it was just to promote himself more, constantly trying to regale me with further stories of past customers and how much fun they had. (Apparently one guy went with him for 11 days, and was ‘desperate’ to do more, but my guide couldn’t as it was Christmas and he had to go back to see his family in Hue…!) It would have been nice for him to spend a little less time selling his product, and just talk openly instead, and so I’m left undecided whether or not to use the Tailors he took me to.
Before I’d even got to my hotel here my guide was talking about the next part of the journey. “I think you should go to My Son next. We stay here tonight and set out tomorrow, OK?” I had to tell him no. Biking it across the country is a fun thing to do, but there was a definite clash between his financial interest in getting me as far across the country as possible in a short space of time, and my desire to take things slowly and actually see certain places for more than a few hours. So after shaking hands with him and thanking him for the adventure up to here, we parted ways.
I’ve now been in Hoi An for three days and so far I’m loving it. There’s news to tell from here but that can wait until my next blog entry. I’m feeling really ridiculously lazy at the moment, today especially, and finding it hard to muster up the energy to do anything more exerting than swimming in the pool, writing up my adventures to-date in my hotel, talking little walks around the beautiful picturesque town, and sitting by the riverside in the evening with good food and a few glasses of whisky. The whole thing is making me feel a little bit guilty, truth be told, as if I should be out there 24/7 packing as much “stuff” as possible into my remaining 7 weeks, but I have to remind myself that this is my trip, and I have nobody to please but myself. I might choose to spend a whole week here, doing nothing, seeing little, and eating everything. That’s not exactly a bad thing though…is it? 
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P.S. On my last day in Hanoi I visited the Army Museum – I haven’t had time to write about it (nor would I have too much to say) but those of you who have an interest in that sort of thing can see the pics I took on the photo albums page!
Tagged: Hai Van pass, Hoi An, Hue, Lang Co, Vietnam