SAIGON - HANOI 2018
Planning The Trail
Ho Chi Minh Trail on a motorcycle? It’s like over 2000 km! On a motorcycle in the jungle! I thought Janne had gone crazy when he came up with the idea… But after some inspiration from the web (including the Vietnam Coracle page – Independent Travel Guides to Vietnam) I let myself be persuaded and now route version 0.99 is finally planned.
Or almost planned. A version 1.0 won’t be ready until we get to Hanoi… Now it only needs to be synchronized to the guidebook so we don’t miss any tourist traps.
Janne’s text message below is however a little worrying… I wonder if there’s a consistent problem with Google Maps?
Previous motorcycle tours have taught me that there is a specific body part that suffers more than others. The purchase below are intended for a body part located further north but I hope it will do the work 🙂
Let´s Go
Traditional transfer beer at Nội Bài International Airport, Hà Nội. Cheers to an exciting trip!
No trip without troubles! The good thing with early hassles are that things may go smoother later on. Or not…
When we shortly after midnight finally managed to find the hotel we had booked, it turned out that there had been something wrong with the booking and that there were no rooms. Given that we chose the hotel on the basis that it was close to where we would buy the motorcycles and that in turn meant that it was on the outskirts of Saigon, there were not many other options. But as sure as there is always unexpected troubles is that it (almost) always works out. So it did:)
Without understanding what the staff were talking about, we were asked to jump up the passenger seats of two motorcycles. They then drove us a number of blocks and led us into a house that looked suspiciously like a construction site. It turned out that in the middle of the mess there was an apartment that they had just finished and we could stay there over the night. There were still plastic covers on the furniture! Anyway, it was great and the evening ended with Vietnamese beer on the balcony with the view of Sagion by night…
Hit The Road
Time for the journeys most important mission! Get something to drive! Prior the trip Janne established contact with an Australian guy that said he could sell us some really good and priceworthy bikes. Now it was time to see what kind of fancy rides Janne had booked for us:)
Well.. It wasn´t the best motorcycles I´ve seen but neither the worst. It seemed manageable that they would hold it together in one piece all the way to Hanoi so we bought them. Yes, I know … we didn´t have any alternatives.
Now that we had bought the motorcycles, the question of how we would get rid of them in Hanoi became a little more topical… According to the seller, there should be no problem and Janne had an eye on a Facebook page where tourists sell their moto bikes in Saigon/Hanoi. After asking Google what “Do you want to buy my motorcycle” is called in Vietnamese, we felt it was probably going to be okay.
After a last advice, speak only Swedish if you´re stopped by the police, we went off in to the sunset. Or maybe it was the exhaust fumes and all the traffic that blocked the sun..
Without exaggerating, it was a completely unique experience! Like riding a motorcycle in a sardine can. But it went well and we came out of Saigon with no damage to ourselves or the motorcycles. The roads outside Saigon were good but quite busy and with a little more help from our new friend Mr Google we could also get help with directions:)
Well outside Saigon, the road suddenly became four-lane in and apart from a large building that appeared to be a government building, the surroundings were completely deserted and we could not see any reasonable explanation for the road. More than to test our bike´s top speed;)
After about 200 km we´re finally arrived in Gia Nghia. Although this part off the journey mostly was a transport stage, the roads were fantastic. Of course combined with completely crazy traffic but calmer than expected:) The first stage was hot! And it would have been wise to have a little higher sun protection factor.
With experience from our previous trip Cambodia – Vietnam, I had expected the gas stations to either be very small or not available at all. So we were prepared for the plastic-bottle-petrol-along-the-roadside-stations but there were big proper gas stations throughout the whole trip.
Although it so far had been a piece of cake we earned some good rest (and a couple of beer). Good night!
A Breakfast Experience In Gia Nghia
The hotel was good and there was nothing to complain about more than the peculiar breakfast. In addition to Vietnamese coffee they served porridge, which sounded pretty good:) We were a little confused when we had to choose between chicken or eel but we thought maybe it was some side dish. However, it turned out that porridge and chicken were combined in one dish and that we were served chicken porridge. Actually, the taste was ok but the texture.. Not pleasant! Good grace I didn´t choose the eel! After breakfast we visited the local market.
Markets in Sweden are usually local tourist traps and it is much easier to buy what you need at the nearest grocery store. Here the market is the epicenter of the village and everything needed for the household is available for purchase, including puppies delivered in plastic bags (!). Doggy-bag took on a new meaning:)
Ho Chi Minh Trail
It was clips on YouTube showing backpackers driving small motorcycles alongside the Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh Trail from Saigon to Hanoi that were our inspiration for the trip and now we started to feel the wings of history. It was along these routes that the Viet Cong under continuous bombardment, transported troops and materials from northern Vietnam to the front of war.
Actually, the trail consists of lots of roads and paths both in Laos and Vietnam but most of our route is part of what used to be the Ho Chi Minh Trail and we will pass many places where the war was at its worst. It is difficult to understand the horrors that have taken place here when todays Vietnam are offering us beautiful nature, excellent driving and nice people without the slightest trace of the ravages of war. Sure, there are a lot of memorial sites and museums spread around the country trying to keep the memory alive but is that enough to keep history from repeat itself?
Although the roads generally were good the bridges on the smaller roads were exhilarating …
We made a short stop at a national park with some beautiful waterfalls. Seemed to be quite a popular place so it didn’t feel like the outback, but still a very nice place for a break:)
After many hours on paved roads, we needed a little change and went for the smaller roads with gravel. Sure, they were smaller and in worse condition but still perfectly ok and quite easy to drive
The disadvantage of driving beyond the main roads was that it was very thin with coffeehouses.. However, there were quite a few houses that had small local “kiosks” selling various sweets and drinks so; Impossible it was not:) When we at last chose one place to stop at there must have been some alarm setting of, because all the neighbors gathered and demanded to take selfies together with us.
Curious but hospitable was their trade mark and I imagine their perception of us was quite similar to ours of them 🙂
Wild Night In Kon Tum
We had no special expectations when we arrived to Kon Tum. However, it turned out to be a fairly large city (almost 100,000 inhabitants according to wikipedia) with many bars and restaurants. The hotel we had booked was nice and hade magnificent view over the river and it felt really luxurious so the first impressions were positive and it would show out to be a memorable evening:)
Right outside the hotel we saw the first billboards for something that seemed to be the city’s best shrimp restaurant and for those of you who know Janne knows that this means that the evening has a new mission!
Find the shrimps! Sounded easy enough but it almost turned out to be a mission impossible…
Kon Tum had lot of buildings left from the French colonialization and the city centre had some touch of Europe. Among other things, there was an old wooden cathedral that was worth seeing. There were also a lot of neighborhoods inhabited by local communities that the Vietnamese government had tried to assimilate. Unlike the rest of the trip it felt a little, if not threatening, but at least a little tense to walk through those neighborhoods. Guess there’s a reason, not known to us, for that… The peculiar houses on stilts with characteristically high roofs were typical for the region. I think it was a quite nice town that we could have stayed in for more than just one night.
Although we engaged in both sightseeing and shopping, we had not forgotten our mission. To find the shrimp restaurant! After persistent questioning and walking around the whole city, the restaurant was still lost in space.
Then two heroes showed up in our distress (we were hungry and had a ominent lack of beer). The young people who worked in one of the shops not only knew where the restaurant was located (as many other locals also had unsuccessfully assured us that they knew) they also offered to take us there. So up on their motorbikes and of it went and believe me, it was a lot further away than we previously understood.
Thanks for the ride, you´re the best:)
Finally at Kon Tum’s luxury restaurant:) For those interested in fishing, it was possible to catch their own shrimps in the restaurant’s pool. We said: Thank you but no thanks…
The prawns were fantastic and the service was of a different league than in the restaurants at home. In Sweden it is considered doubtful to order more than one beer at a time, two can possibly be accepted but if you order three then you might as well tattoo AAA on your forehead. Here the waiter arrived with a full crate of beer and a bucket of ice. That´s how we like it!
Do you wonder if we were sober when we left? You can guess;)
On our way home from the shrimp restaurant, we passed the shop where our two heroes worked. The shop was probably closed but since the whole family was gathered for supper, they asked if we wanted to come in and eat. Of course we said yes and then it was just to ignore that we already was full after the shrimp dinner and join in. Really nice nice end of the evening.
Once again on the way home, now just a few meters away from the hotel, we noticed that there was a nightclub just around the corner. So, why not? The noise level in there was really completely disturbed! The advantage was that it didn’t matter that we didn’t know Vietnamese. However, when we were offered to buy “services” from girls in school uniform, it felt like we had seen enough and we crawled home to the hotel without any more stops.
A dear diary evening!
The breakfast buffet at the hotel was served against a fantastic background view. I really enjoyed it, but it was a lonely breakfast…
And Then It Went Cold...
It was hot until we got to Kon Tum and we thought we had too much clothes with us but now we learned we had too little… Around 15 degrees in drizzle interspersed with rain in crappy rain clothes made us wish we had chosen to go to the Sahara or the Mojave Desert instead!
Meeting timber transports on small roads is always an exciting experience, but normally the logs are transported in the same direction as the road. Meeting motorcycles with logs crosswise on the bike was unexpected to say the least… You can probably have some opinions on both road safety and the work environment, but you cannot complain about their attitude. I can almost hear them say, “No risk, no gain”.
Dehli Belly In A Lưới
The next morning I was worn but still in driveable condition but then the motorcycle didn´t start 🙁 In stunning Vietnam, however, these problems can be solved in less than 15 minutes as it´s never more than 100 meters to the nearest motorcycle workshop. Turned out to be a burned fuse so the motorcycle was soon enough in better shape than myself.
War Remnants In Khe Sanh
Just north of Khe Sanh lies an old air base that were one of the more famous war scenes of the Vietnam War. The air base is today a museum and although the smaller museums we had previously visited had been relatively boring, this was definitely worth a visit. In addition to the helicopters and aircraft that the Yankees had left behind, there were also exhibitions indoors. Much was built with dolls and artificial environments, but the stands with Viet Cong’s equipment really showed how little they really had compared to the Americans. You probably get to take some of the information with a pinch of salt, but that’s also the case when you watch American war movies. It was interesting to get the Vietnamese’s perspective of the war.
As usual, we seem to attract a lot of attention:) A group of travelers from Laos seemed to find it more fun to be photographed with us than with the planes. Since there were many of them and wanted pictures with basically each one, there were quite a few photos…
Hit the road again!
When the weather was at its sourest, my rain jacket chose to give up. Not so convinient considering it’s not crawling with places with new rain jackets… However, after a number of stops I managed to get hold of a rain jacket that was size extra big. The quality of the new jacket wasn´t 5 star but the flowers gave it a little extra bonus 😉
Come what may!
We probably weren’t the most well prepared travelers you can imagine but one thing that we had thought about and that turned out to be invaluable was our intercom. It was one of the cheapest brands and completely hopeless to pair via Bluetooth but once it was paired it worked just fine. It was more than once that we warned each other of various dangers on the road that had been difficult to detect for the last driver.
Money, passports, visa and intercom then it’s just to hit the road.
The Hotel You Can´t Drive By
Last hotel before Dong Hoi were situated in a really small village. They certainly had both karaoke and motorcycle workshop but that wasn´t unique, every villages with more than three houses had karaoke bar ant a motorcycle workshop. However, there was a hotel here and if we had missed it there would have been another 4-5 hours on a motorcycle before we could have found a new one. The hotel consisted of 3-4 rooms without staff (someone showed up and unlocked and received the payment) but was clean and completely ok. The village in general wasn’t exactly a party place, but it was possible to get food and drink at the karaoke bar, so why complain… However, it became an early evening.
This part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail was really sparsely populated. A little scattered villages but otherwise mostly deserted. The surroundings were, as usual, absolutely fantastic.
Cold, frozen, missed breakfast and with many kilometers on the motorcycles it was a godsend with a glass of Vietnamese coffee. Probably the strongest coffee to date, barely in liquid form but brisk and it almost gave us wings 🙂
According To The Plan It Would Have Been Sun...
When we were sitting at home in Sweden and planning the trip it felt reasonable to also schedule a stop on the coast for some sun and beaching. A vacation from the vacation. Nice coast, beach and a really nice resort were easy to find, no problem! However, we had missed that even in Vietnam there are bad weather and that this time of year it is not entirely uncommon… So, it didn’t get much of swimming in the ocean but the plenty of rest and spa visits weighed the deal up. Dong Hoi may not have been the coziest city we been to but definitely worth a visit. At least at the right season…
Also Dong Hoi had their share of small museums with remains from the Vietnam War. Not the most fascinating museums but ok for some time spending when the weather didn´t gave us much else to do.
If You Ever Go To Vietnam Don´t Miss This!
Even if Dong Hoi didn’t quite turn out as we had hoped, the next stage was more amazing than we could ever have expected. If you’re going to Vietnam, Phong Nha is a must!
Phong Nha National Park is home to some of the world’s largest cave systems, including the Son Dong system, which is the world’s largest cave and Hang Va which is the third largest. In addition to some “tourist-friendly caves”, pre-booked expeditions with a guide are required for visiting the caves. To visit Son Dong it takes five days (!) which does not suit stressed tourists with a tight schedule but the Hang Va expedition consisted of two days, including an overnight stay in the jungle, so it was since long ago already booked.
However, after Dong Hoi it felt doubtful whether it would be particularly fun to hang out in the jungle in rain and 15 degrees plus… The image below is just a taste of how amazingly cool it got 🙂
Phong Nha city turned out to be a backpacker mecca and the main road was lined with bars and cheap hotels. Unexpectedly lively place:) and as usual in the hotel room there was a well-functioning kingsize AC but no heating, which made it easy to choose clothes. Same clothes inside as outside…
The company that arranged the expedition was called Oxalis. They were 100% serious and conducted a proper security briefing before it was time to go out into the jungle. Short résumé:
- Watch out for snakes and leeches
- Watch out for Ivy Trees
- It will be physically exhausting in rough terrain (TRUE!)
- Everything happens at your own risk.
The first stage leading up to cave no. 1 (actually both caves were connected but you couldn´t get through all the way) was initially no worse than a stroll in the park but the last part was no kidding. Steep inclines with sleazy and slippery boulders that would easily have shortened the holiday if you had fallen. It’s a good thing we had to borrow Cambodian army boots with soles of old car tires. The guide told us that a few years earlier there had been an American with huge feet who had gone all the way with flip flops! Feels completely impossible…
When we arrived to the cave the lunch was already prepared and it was probably the best meal so far on the trip. No beer but according to the guide it was a bad idea to drink alcohol now…
Down in the cave it was about 20 degrees in the air and 15 in the water so the fear of freezing came to shame. The cave system consisted of huge halls with up to 50 m to the ceiling and narrow passageways with large boulders and pools of water blocking the road. I guess I have forgotten to write that I suffer from some fear for confined spaces and that I was far from sure I’d would laugh all the way… but the really narrow passages were never very long so it went beyond expectations.
Stalagmites and stalactites were of course abundant, but it was probably the untouched soil that was most fascinating. Over the millennia, the pools of water had formed patterns of dust, soil and lime on the ground. These were extremely sensitive and we were sharply told to watch out for where we put our feet. Overall, there were very few signs that there ever had been people here before us.
The guides illuminated the caves with powerful flashlights so we could take pictures. Even though the pictures turned out well, they can’t capture the feeling of being there IRL but I hope you at least get a sense of it 🙂
After the first day’s cave expedition, we arrived at Base Camp which consisted of a number of tents, Cambodian sleeping bags and an outdoor kitchen. Except from that it was cold as a Midsummer in Sweden, it was an amazing experience.
The preparations for day two made us realize that the first day had only been the warm-up. Now we would be tied together with ropes and learn how to attach the ropes to special attachment points. The guide also talked about how we could expect water levels up to chest height. Made me wonder if life jackets wouldn’t have been more appropriate than ropes…
It turned out that the ropes wasn´t intended for fishing us up. They were used for passing stages that even a mountain goat had had difficulties to climb over without help.
If I was nervous? Hmm… tied to a rope, unknown deep below the ground with a unknown depth just a misstep away and the knowledge that it would take at least 24 hours to get out with a broken leg.
Yes, maybe I was a little nervous 😉
At the end of the day, it was an expedition worth every dollar and more. If you are visting Phong Nha, don’t forget to book a guided tour well in advance and we highly recommend the tour company Oxalis.
Photo by Max Rasche.
To Hanoi
After the caves there were a couple of long day trips to Hanoi. In addition to the stunning nature, the Vietnamese countryside also offered many occasions to get acquainted with the local wildlife. You never knew what was in the middle of the roadway after the next bend.
The roads were good and easy to drive until the last stage before Hanoi. Now it were larger roads with a lot of traffic and we were taught that there were formal traffic rules and other traffic rules (or rather the absence of rules) but as long as you adapted to how everyone else was driving, it went well and the near-death experiences stayed at a reasonable level 🙂
Menus in English were if not non-existent so at least highly unusual, so it was usually wise to order food that contained the word “ga” which meant chicken. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the word “chan” that sometimes preceded the word “ga” means feet… Overall, I’ve tasted most things (sometimes with unpleasant consequences as a result) but I don’t eat food that looks like boiled baby hands!
Hanoi
The last hours into downtown Hanoi was a traffic experience we will never forget. It was like a anthill with motorcycles and all everyone seemed to agree on was that tourists are not given priority but as always, just do as everyone else does. Fuck the traffic rules and hang on someone who looks like he knows what he’s doing.
Hanoi had a slightly different atmosphere from Saigon with many small narrow alleys full of outdoor restaurants and bars. In the central parts, it was like any other tourist-friendly metropolis. A distinctive feature of Hanoi was all the stores selling Northface clothes and bags. Whether it was cheap original products or expensive copies is up to the buyer to decide.
After a couple of well-used days in Hanoi, the end of the journey was reached. Summing up the whole trip in one sentence is not possible but both Saigon and Hanoi are destinations that deserve more days than we had at our disposal. Likewise, it would have been great to take the five-day expedition to the Son Dong cave system in Phong Nha. And we didn’t have time to go to Ha Long Bay, Hue and the northern parts of Vietnam. So in conclusion: Khi gặp lại Việt Nam! Should mean “See you again Vietnam”.
Are you wondering if we managed to sell the motorcycles? If we say like this… It wasn’t the seller’s market but we did at least get rid of them.
Over and out!