12/2 After my walk around hanoi in the morning, I met my motorbike guide, Hung, and the owner of mototours asia. We sat down for some green tea before taking off. This was to be a for real motorbike tour. Not one of those wimpy ones on a scooter or a semi-automatic bike. No, this one was on an old soviet minske bike. Fully manual, no gauges like odometer, fuel, etc. We got decked out in motorbike pants and a motorbike jacket, loaded up saddle bags and headed off. It took us an hour to get out of hanoi, and it was one of the most exciting and nervewracking thing I have done. You remember in a previous blog me describing how crazy the traffic was. Well I went into it headon. Good thing Lucas had taught, way back in the Philippines when he burned his leg, me how to drive a manual or I could have been in trouble. Of course the good news is that the other drivers are so skilled it didn't matter if I didn't know the rules (or the unrules) of the road. But before long I was weaving in and out with no problem.
The first day was mainly just driving on flat roads through the red river valley. We passed lots of countryside and agriculture and women working in the field sporting the infamous conical vietnamese hat. Just like the vietnam that you always think of. For lunch we had dog bbq. Yep, that's right, DOG bbq! I asked the name of the dog, and it was little Fluffy. Just kidding! They actually have farms for dogs, just like we have for chickens or cows or pigs. Crazy as it was, it was one of the best meat dishes I had eaten in Asia. Truth is, in all liklihood,I had eaten dog before in asia b/c it's a common food and lots of times when ordering things from pots set out by street vendors, you just point and then eat it. You try and figure out what it is, but usually they don't know english, and our english sounds for farm animals (moo, quack, oink, baa-a, ruff) aren't the same in their language. So you just eat it. Probably have eaten horse, snake, lizards, and other such things as well.
This motorbike trip was actually one of the best tours I had done in Asia. And one of the great things was the food. For lunch Hung always took me out to a local joint and ordered a plethora of things. Instead of the attempt at "western" asian food (what I mean by this is asian food that guides always assume is the only thing we can eat like fried rice or noodles and beef or the like), he ordered very vietnamese food, and not just the food they had out for display, but ones only a vietnamese would know how to order. Also had some other unusual things like chicken feet, fish poppers, duck embryos. Also at every lunch we had other people in the restaurant come up and offer to buy me beers and rice wine. We'd usually accept a couple, but then as we had to drive, we'd decline the rest. The locals were always so interested in me and they'd come up to talk (translating through hung with his excellent english)...and just so friendly. I of course had worried a bit about hard feelings towards me as an american visiting a country they we fought, bombed the heck out of, and is still suffering the effects of agent orange. But this was pointless worry. They loved americans and were so happy to meet me, shake my hands, share some rice wine with. SOme of the homestay people had maps and wanted me to show them all the nice places of america. (my version of the nice places of american probably differs just somewhat from most: Estes Park, Stanley Idaho, Jackson hole and the geysers, the grand canyon, the big trees of california, moab, aspen, etc). You could just see in their friendly eyes their true interest and enjoyment with talking to me. And always offering me rice wine, beer, and green tea (which is their social after meal drink that is drunk at a different table than where the meal is. It's also a welcome drink at homes and a drink to share when you meet new people). And Hung was really great b/c he would do a great job of translating and when we'd meet teachers or other educated people, he wouldn't let them speak in vietnamese for basic english conversation. On this trip I really felt like I got to know a lot of the people. But even on my little bit of independent travel I did get to do while in vietnam, I found the locals so nice. Always willing to help me out or just go out of their way to try and offer me the better spot (for my long legs) on the bus, or get me to the right bus, etc.
Each night we stayed at the home of a hill tribe minority group. The ethnicity of vietnamese makes up 90% of the population of vietnam. The rest of the 10% is made up of westerners and the minority tribes in the north such as the tay, white tay, black tay, and hmong. They each have very distinct dress, languages, and houses. The homestays were great. They would cook an amazing meal and we'd have an unlimited amount of rice wine. As is tradition, you first get out the rice wine, where you take little shots and saying jesuquay before taking it. In the Tay minority they'd also shake hands after each shot and say howmaydo (thankyou in Tay). You'd take several shots of the rice wine before it was time to start eating and then continue while eating and then after eating until it was time for the green tea. With the first family they brought out a 1.5L old coke bottle of rice wine. I was really feeling it when we finally finished it, and I was quite relieved, but then, the father went back and brought out a whole other bottle! At first I thought the rice wine stuff was only being done for me as the tourist, but he said they always do it, and it's true that I would notice everyone in the restaurants with their bottle of rice wine. One of the really great things about this trip and the homestays was that the family would eat dinner with us and then attempt to talk to us via hung the interpreter. And I was actually staying right in their house, so with them all the time. I have done quite a lot of homestays on this trip and with most of them you stay in some specially built shack for tourists or on their deck. Rarely inside the actual home. And also usually the family doesn't eat with you, and neither does the guide b/c they instead eat their everyday local food and give the tourists that western asian food I was talking about. So I really felt like I got attached to the family and got to know them.
The first night we stayed in a little village called Ton Tra with a white tay minority family who were farmers. They lived in stilted houses that could be open to the air in the summer or closed up in the winter (which it was now) for warmth. That night the vietnam soccer team was playing thailand in their first pool game of the SEA games. The South East Asian equivalent of the olypmics. They're the two best teams in SEA, so it was a tough match with plenty of rice wine that ended in a 1-1 draw. We woudl also along the trip watch the next 3 games as the vietnamese were really into their soccer. Amazingly Conrad and Whitney who were flying out of Vientiane, Laos where the SEA games were being held attended the Vietnam/Thai game and I'm assuming were rooting for vietnam as well since in their pictuers they were wearing red shirts with big yellow stars.
On day 2 we headed out on a small dirt single track to check out a lake. We then continued further north through more rural areas and some hills. This was the start, but definitely not the end of endless children running out to wave and shout hello. They loved to come bounding out to shout hello. But even all the women endlessly walking or pushing bicycles on the road carrying loads of agricultural stuff would smile and wave. And all the highschoolers on bicycles going back and forth from class (it always seemed like they were going back and forth from class) would come say a bold hello and then run back away shy and giggling to their friends. And of course the men sitting drinking beer or just hanging about would wave and smile. You'd hear shouts from high up on the hills or high up on buildings as you'd go by. And anyone passing you on a motorbike would slow down to wave and smile. I just loved all that. I don't think they get many westerners in the area b/c it's far of the tourist track. In the whole 6 days on the trip I didn't see a single westerner. Mix all the friendly locals with the great scenery and the unique little agricultural fields and villages and it was just great riding. That night we stayed in a Hmong minority house on the shores of Ba Be lake. Of course had a great meal and plenty of rice wine.
On day 3 we did a couple hour boat ride on Ba Be lake in Ba Be national park checking out the mountain and jungle scenery and watching monkeys along the lake shore. Today was a day of riding over big mountain passes with amazing scenery in order to get to the town of Cao Bang. From Cao Bang it was a short ride over another pass and into a magical land of towering limestone karsts and rice paddies and little villages. Of course this unique landscape came with so many smiling and waving people. It was like travelling back in time to days gone by. There was absolutely not machines save for a few passing motorbikes on the road. Water buffalo were used to plow the field, all the harvested crops (along with anything else imaginable) was carted off on bicycles or on shoulder yokes carried by the women. All the fields were being handwatered by people carrying large buckets on shoulder yokes. Definitely no irrigation here. And no tractors to help harvest the various things. Just huge groups of people. The students coming in on their bicycle would soon join the group working out in the fields. Old women were in the little huts cooking on fires. It really looked like something out of the middle ages or 16th century china or something. I just really loved riding through here b/c it was so unique and the karst scenery so absolutely amazing. If you've heard of the famous guilin tourist destination in china, this is what that is like. Something else unique about this area was that being winter and farther north and up in elevation a bit, it was cold. So everyone was out in coats and wool hats and gloves. I hadn't seen that in Asia yet of course. I figure the cold (not that cold maybe 50's to 60's as the lows) helped me to begin my acclimitization towards the cold colorado winter I would be returning to. That night we stayed in Quang Uyen with a Nung An minority family that had the funniest and happiest grandma I had seen and a cute little daughter, who was 3 or 4, who was always so happy to share her fruit and water with me.
Day 4 was an amazing amazing day of scenery. Add the scenery to the sunny mild day, the cool little farming villages, all the happy, waving people, and the great food and homestay, and the day definitely made it into my top 10 days overall best days in asia. I can't even imagine how incredible it would have been had we been there during the wet season when the rice paddies shimmered green instead of being harvested and brown now.
We drove for several hours through the amazing karst scenery up little passes between farming valleys. The woman at the gas station accidentally didn't mix the oil with the gas, which is what needs to be done for minske bikes, so we had some engine issues, which was the only slight damper on the day. But after a while Hung with the help of other guys on the road was able to get them going again. We took back roads arriving all the way at the chinese border in the north. The border is a river, with a beautiful and very wide waterfall at one point. The falls are called Ban Gioc. Once there, we took a bamboo raft along the river to get right up to the spray of the falls. I had crossed borders on this trip about every way imaginable: boat, plane, train, automobile, walking, but I hadn't swum across yet. So I wanted to do this. But Hung told me that one of the signs written in vietnames said no crossing over to the border. Had Hung not been with me, I probably would have done it, b/c a. I couldn't read the sign, b. there weren't any police or anything around, just women selling wares and men poling bamboo rafts, and c. I could have dove deep and held my breath the whole way across so they wouldn't have seen me anyways. But I decided to not get hung in trouble so I didn't do it. But it was kind of funny b/c on our side were the vietnamese tourists (no westerners) and on the other side were chinese tourists. We could wave at each other, but not go across to the other side. In fact a chinese tourist through me a chinese apple from his boat to my boat. Delicious! I was able to get the boatman close enough to the chinese side that I was able to quickly jump onto a rock on that side and jump back, and can now say I've been in china. I would of course end up in Hong Kong later via airplane, so it didn't really matter. I don't know if you've ever noticed at chinese or vietnamese restaurants (or maybe it's only the ones i've been to) but the paintings and drawings of the steep mountains (limestone karsts) and waterfalls flowing onto rice paddies. Well, that's basically what this was. Wow! So beautiful. On the way back to Quang Uyen we took a different way and just as scenic. At one point we took a steep dirt road up to the top of a mountain (where they were currently erecting a monument to the unknown soldiers who had died in the american war) that had great views down to the river and across all the mountains.
Day 5 we started off early, but about an hour into it my bike broke down most likely due to residual problems with the unmixed fuel. I had to get a tow back to the town which meant that Hung drove his motorbike with one leg extended while he pushed me. After several hours, it had appeared they had fixed the bike, so we continued on. Up over a really scenic, sweet and rough dirt pass. At the very top my motorbike died. Luckily I was able to coast the next 12km to the town at the bottom (no different than mountain biking really.). Another couple hours later the bike was fixed (and this time for good). We had obviously made poor time that day, so we wouldn't be making it to the destination and homestay we were supposed to and would instead have to take a shortcut, or at least faster and easier way. Hung still wanted to get a bit closer to Hanoi, so we drove on into the night. Now with all the fixing of my bike going on, the headlight had lost power. So Hung bought me a flashlight and I just followed behind him, which was fine. An hour later we arrived in That Khe where we stayed at a guesthouse
Day 6 We continued on to Hanoi through Lang Son and more nice scenery before arriving in the crazed traffic of hanoi. Since we still had day light left, Hung showed me some sights in Hanoi like where John McCain's jet had crashed and he'd been captured, the wreckage of a B52 bomber shot down, and the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. We later sat down for some sugar cane juice and to wait for his wife so that I could meet her. She was all excited to practice her english with me.
But wow! what a great tour and an amazing way to see the beauty and friendly people of north vietnam.
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