Let me talk you through the Vietnamese daily vehicle maintenance schedule. It can be applied to bike or bus, or anything in between.
1. Approach vehicle, kick one tyre.
2. Turn on ignition, test horn.
3. In the event that horn does not work, refuse to operate and take a day off.
4. If working normally, go, and use often.
It had rained hard overnight, and it was still dark and wet when I wheeled the Minsk out of the hotel lobby onto the street. On the fourth day of riding, I decided some maintenance was called for. Mr Cuong, back in Hanoi, had insisted we do this every day. Unfortunately, everything was so tight, such as spark plug and air cleaner, that I dare not force them open or undone, for fear of breaking them. Years of owning and operating an old Land Rover taught me this, fiddle at your peril. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and so on.
So there wasn’t much I could do, apart from test the horn, and to my displeasure, it failed to work. My Minsk, both in fact, have been carrying electrical gremlins along with them from day one. Much of the time, despite replacing bulbs and fiddling with wiring, lights work intermittently at best. You really can manage without lights here; however, a failed horn is as good as a write-off. It is a serious problem. I rooted around in the limited amount of wiring that such a basic machine has, to no effect. Instead, I turned my mechanical skills to the fuel tap, which had been occasionally leaking the odd drop of two-stroke mix. Nobody likes to see waste, especially me, so I tightened the whole thing up.
I refitted the seat, and the horn immediately worked. Not sure what I did, but a job well done.
People might say that last night’s rain was sheer bad luck, considering today’s leg covers the hilliest and roughest part of the route. Well, they would be quite right – two wheels on muddy tracks is never going to be practical, especially when loaded with gear and piloted by a complete rookie. But between you and me, the thought of getting up into that muddy mountain range filled me with excitement. The more rain, the better. Dan agreed, we were so keen to get moving; we skipped breakfast, fuelled up, and took off into the hills.
The first stretch was a mix of surfaced and unsurfaced, uphill and down. Nevertheless, the amount of bright red mud, spread by truck wheels was such, it was often impossible to differentiate between the two. I learned my first important lesson of the day; bikes going down muddy hills are not good to slow down. I locked my front wheel, slid for twenty metres or more, heaven knows how I kept her up.
To make my stories more exciting, and to make me sound even more cool than I already am, I’d like to tell you that Dan and I were the only ones out there, men and machines, working our dirt bikes along the jungle tracks. I would, however, be seriously misleading you, and being the intelligent bunch that you are, I would not dare. The truth of the matter is, I am ashamed to say, teenage girls ride these tracks on scooters. At the same time carrying their grandmother, little brother, assorted farm animals and at least one item of household furniture. In addition, many others ride or drive myriad vehicles, and mostly, they manage well. The thing is, they have been born in or on the vehicles and they know these roads. But I just wanted you to know, we are not the only ones.
An exhausting first two hours or so had covered little ground, but oh what spectacular scenery. I narrowly avoided quite a nasty crash, when a rabid dog ran out at me from a shack wanting to chew my foreign leg. My natural, and nearly fatal, reaction was to swerve left, and I very nearly hit a woman walking on the road. A firearm of some sort would be useful in these situations.
We stopped to try to obtain my daily fix of splendid Vietnamese coffee. Dan is always incredibly patient with this. The settlement was merely a collection of buildings, through which the muddy potholed road passes, where a colourful assortment of minority peoples come to trade. There are no houses as such, apart from business owners who sleep in their premises. Here you can trade animals and produce at the (very smelly & grimy) market, buy any part for any vehicle, and a whole lot more else one needs to survive in these mountains. It had a real Wild West feel about it, and I felt as far from civilization I had ever been, or at least, since I was last in New Zealand.
Predictably, we did not walk far down the street before we were invited to drink tea. A hard looking middle-aged man, wearing US Air force surplus, which I find ironic for a North Vietnamese, was sitting with his mother. We spent some time there, meeting various passers by who stopped for a good look also. He insisted we try his pipe, the same type of bamboo “bung” I have seen used all over. Men plug a wad of local tobacco in the bottom, light it, blow it out, and then suck in the entire contents of the bamboo. It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, it ain’t nice. I only pulled on the thing half heartedly, to show willing, and still it nearly caused me to cardiac arrest.
Our ridiculously slow pace has become the running joke between Dan and me. We pledge to ride hard for a couple of hours; otherwise, we have no chance of making our destination for the day, Dien Bien Phu, 120km distant. With that in mind, we said our goodbyes to the gathered crowd, and rode for, um, say, 2km, before coming across a football match in the coolest of locations. We had to stop and watch. The Vietnamese love their footy, we have witnessed several games, but this bumpy pitch had a spectacular karst backdrop with lush jungle. One has to approach a game carefully, park down the road and walk up quietly; otherwise, the game will stop and everyone will watch you instead.
On leaving, not for the first time, Dan dropped his bike. Inconveniently, the clutch lever snapped, so we taped it up best we could. He managed to ride, jamming it into gear; now would be the time to see just how universally “fixable” the Minsk really is. Less than five minutes down the road, we passed a sign for “Xe May”, meaning something to do with bikes. Precisely six minutes and US$1 later, Dan had a brand new fitted lever. How’s that?
The day wore on, no more rain came, the road switched from dirt to seal and back. We continually climbed, then descended, with each new bend came an even more dramatic landscape. Along the way, tiny villages and interesting people. Each area brought with it a different look and type of dress. I found myself fascinated with, I think the Black Thai people, the women are beautiful but most notably, exceptionally tall for Asians. There was every reason to stop often, and I was even moved to do a video diary, but could think of few words to describe the feeling of being there.
I finally bothered to stop and chat to a cyclist I had passed twice in two days; he was Jeff from Quebec, riding a similar route to us. Bearing in mind all the mountains, I happily concede that Jeff has the moral high ground over us. I did feel a tinge of guilt as I pulled away on my smoky Minsk, but I have to say, it did disappear quickly when I rounded the next corner and was faced by a huge hill. Thank heavens for the internal combustion engine.
By early afternoon, we had arrived at an unknown town, giving us the opportunity to re-fuel and stock up with supplies. We did not know exactly how much distance we had covered, but the reality was, obviously not very far. We were both buzzing from such a great ride, and decided to keep going into the unknown. We were prepared to sleep in the bush, if it came to that. As darkness approached, we followed a spectacular river valley. The flooded rice fields reflected a blinding sun, sinking behind more karst formations. Men and women walked their animals back home after the days ploughing, and gangs of kids on bikes returned from school. My final recollection of that valley was three or four wonky wooden water wheels in line, slowly being turned by a lazy river. It was a timeless scene, and nothing in my field of vision betrayed the 21st century. Even my camera refused to work for the occasion; the power hungry Cannon had drained it’s re-chargeables (and despite packing lots of useless items for this trip, I did not pack my charger).
Just on dark, we came to a tiny village. The dusty road divided chaotic ramshackle buildings, all of which ran alongside the river. I stopped to try to obtain some batteries, and instantly knew this was a town that does not see foreigners often. All eyes were on us. I greeted people, and showed them a battery, each time pointed in a different direction. At length, I purchased two packs of cheap copies, guaranteed to work no more than five minutes, if at all.
When I returned, Dan and the two bikes were sandwiched in a sea of kids. At a guess, forty or more. He was teaching them to high-five – he is good at that, getting the kids laughing. I waded in, and instantly they spotted my earphones; they all wanted to hear my music. It took a while, but two at a time, one earphone each, I got through them all. They all seemed to love U2.
Between us, we had three maps, all of which never once agreed on place spellings or distances. With the help of a small girl, we discovered we were in Bung La, we had covered a mere 60km all day long!
We were feeling fit and awake, but an uncertain road appeared to climb into the surrounding mountains for the remaining 60km. It was almost dark, how much would we realistically cover? Meanwhile, in this strange place with no hotels or restaurants, but surrounded in many happy friendly faces, a decision had to be made. |
