Vietnam :: Hanoi to Saigon :: 2011 : Part 2
Day 6 - Dong Hoi to Hue (the hard way) - Where Eagles Dare
I will never forget this day, looking back I feel it was like a rite of passage of sorts, a test, a bloody-dangerous-fun test, a defining day in my life.
I rode South to Dong Ha on standard crazy roads with big trucks, wobbly mopeds and murderous tour buses.
Then I headed out West past Camp Carrol, then Hien Long bridge where I had a snack of sesame and syrup cakes, coffee and 2 bottles of Huda beer with some lovely local blokes who insisted on photos.
In spitting rain I headed up to Laos border where I was chased around by two huge dogs. Then I headed back to Khe Sanh to take tourist photos of memorials.
I crossed a bridge onto the HCM trail again, bound for Alouri, where I would then head East for Hue. Although immense fun and extremely challenging and rewarding to ride, the road was slow going. It started getting dark long before I got to Alouri.
The rain was steady and riding through clouds and the humidity of the dense jungle just got me soaked. I felt great, I was well out of my comfort zone, a long way from home up a mountain in a jungle on a motorbike, completely knackered with a long way to go. I did not see people for hours, and I knew I could be in trouble. With 'Where Eagles Dare' by Iron Maiden rattling around in my head I couldn't give a dam either.
After manically beeping through a herd of buffalo I found the road out of Alouri towards the coast. The surface was one of the worst I had seem, which is saying something, the daylight was nearly gone, it was getting cold. It looked bad. I stopped to gather my energy at the top a steep descent into the heart of darkness.
It got a lot worse before it got better as construction across the hillsides had turned the roads to mud and caused huge landslides. Large vehicles had created ruts deep enough to swallow my wheels and the rain was creating rivers across the roads. Add potholes, fallen branches and bowling ball sized wayward rocks.
Arms, back and bum aching, as the road descened further into chaos I shouted at myself 'you are f*cking up for it!' repeatedly. As if waiting for some hideously cruel cue, no sooner had I finished boosting my resolve than the heavens truly opened and I found out just how heavy rain can be.
Riding through the pitch black, villages were sparse, riding insanly difficult, my headlight attracting attention from the untold millions of flapping nocturnal jungle denizens, many of which I would have to pull squirming from my the gap between my helmet and head.
After hours without seeing any traffic and very few people, after darkness fell here was more traffic. Ancient trucks with malfunctioning lights and badly loaded wood cargo slowly struggled up and literally slid down the muddy tracks.
I entered a small village, but like the others before it seemed dead. Then as if from behind a shroud a shining LED speckled café appeared from the darkness. I squelched and dripped my way to a comfy seat where a wonderful young lad, Lao Minh, sorted me out with a coke and some hot tea which he gladly refilled. I was a spectacle for the local teens hanging out there watching football, listening to hard house, drinking tea and chain smoking. Part of me wanted to stay, but with Lao Minhs helpful advice I thought I could get to my destination, Hue, in half an hour.
After 20 minutes in the dark on heavily potholed roads in pouring rain, dodging oncoming scooters without lights, some Vietnamese guy on a well beaten ped pulled up beside me, pointed somehwere in the distance and shouted ‘Hue!’ I nodded and replied ‘Hue!’. We rode together all the way to Hue, him on my left or up front, constantly on his horn. My own entourage! We passed an accident where a logging trucks cabin has folded itself around a huge tree, spilling logs onto the road. A lone policeman stood staring up into the cabin.
I offered my mystery companion a beer so we stopped at a little café on the outskirts of Hue.
Neung introduced himself and we got pretty smashed on Huda beer. The lady at the cafe kindly grabbed me a plate of very tasty rice with shrimp and spicy diced veg from a place down the road. Neung and I had difficulty communicating but would shake hands a lot and laugh at general things. Four of us ( we were joined by the café owners toddler ) sat and watched some football, drank and ate.
I felt very privileged to be in the company of such genuinely lovely human beings. The lady and her family of 5 sleep on a single mattress behind a stack of shelves from where they sell the drinks that buy them food and clothes.
I am not a writer so it is hard to express how and why when I considered their life and their personality in comparison to my own, and most English peoples, I felt a rather rotten. I think a lot of people go on holiday to these places and if they can even bring themselves to communicate with the peasants it’s a brief and fleeting affair. Documentary photos are taken, the sort that say nothing other than ‘a rich person took a photo of a poor person at some point in the past.’ When the traveler leaves, the peasants no longer live in a filthy shack, struggling for the basics every day, they exist only in memory. I’m not above just for recognizing it.
After thanking our host, offering a fair tip, Neung and I headed into town together and parted ways on a bridge overlooking the bright lights of a busy central district, it was actually kind of romantic! I found the Crown Hotel where they looked on in thinly veiled terror as I parked my soiled bike in their pristine bike lot and then dripped, splatted and squelched my way across their lobby to ask for a room. I slept very well.
After my epic day 7 riding, the next day I just chilled in Hue to allow blood back into my ass and let my boots dry out. I munched 24 custard muffins and watched movies. The restaurant at top of the Crown Hotel building served decent meals too.
Day 9 - Hue to Hoi An - Riding the cliffs
The lads at the local Yamaha garage changed my bike’s oil for free, which was a good start.
From Hue I boosted to Danang on a great coastal road, which wrapped itself around steep cliffs, sometimes with turns greater than 180 degrees, which was fun.
At the top of a tall cliff I stopped at the ruins of an old American fort. There were plenty of tourists but they scarpered in and out of their tour buses fairly quickly. A lovely local lady wanted to take a pic of me and feed me some fried rice.
On other side of Danang I spotted a huge white figure on a cliff so I headed over there. Danang itself seemed like a busy dusty mess and so knowing I was heading straight through felt right.
At the base of the giant I found a big monastery with serene gardens and monks chanting.
I arrived in Hoi An by late afternoon, the first thing I noticed were the foreigners, I hadn't seen this many Western faces since Hanoi. The sight of them waddling around pointing enormous DSLRs at locals minding their business was enough to make me want to leave. I soon found a decent cheap hotel just by cruising around the tight busy streets. I did meet a few nice travelers, most memorably a lovely Australian chap called Kim who had traveled a lot in his retirement. He had learned a lot about how Vietnamese live and work, from building concrete boats ( something I had already seen in China ) to skill fixing motorbikes. His advice and knowledge was much appreciated.
