5 guys with 5 old Russian Minsk motorcycles and about 2000km to cover. This was no doubt going to be an adventure!
Preparing to leave Hanoi
The first of many breakdowns for Red Fury
On route to Mai Chau
My bike was nicknamed Fizzy Pop due to the sound of its exhaust. pop pop pop!
We left the hectic traffic of Hanoi on the 4th of January on a grey day – infact everyday had been grey since we arrived. Not long after leaving the city we realised Mark’s bike clearly had some power issues but we carried on towards our first nights stop. As night fell we reached a mountain pass and ascended into the thick grey mist that seems to cover the whole of Northern Vietnam. Lorries headlights loomed out of the dark mist, overtaking the lorries crawling up the hills was dangerous due to barely any visibility. We reached the small town of Mai Chau wet, hungry and tired.
Men working on the paddy fields
1km out of Mai Chau
We spent the next morning fixing problems with the bikes that the previous day had brought up. we set off around 2pm only to get 2km down the road and Mark’s bike broke. We spent till 6 trying to fix it then towed it back to Mai Chau where the local mechanic fixed the bike within 10 minutes.
The village drunk. Pat had to distract him before he broke the bike even more.
1km out of Mai Chau
Minsk mechanic fixing Red Fury.
The next day started off well, we were making good progress through muddy mountain roads and paddy field carved valleys. As we drove children ran out from there houses to wave at us. I nearly had an accident when a calf ran out right infront of me, I was convinced I would hit it is so I put my leg out, luckily I just missed it but ended up kicking it.
Rickety bridge
View up the river.
Mark being a “Geoffrey”
The roads in Vietnam are dangerous, small roads, big trucks, cattle, potholes that will swallow your bike the list is endless. Not only these problems but not one of our travel insurances would cover us if we crashed as it is illegal to drive without a Vietnamese license. Anyway I digress, at around 12 we stopped to take some photos and the local builders invited us into their camp to have lunch with them and drink rice wine. After saying fairwell to our new friends we hit the road again. A little later we were waved down by some people who invited us in for tea. Its amazing how friendly the Vietnamese people are outside of the cities. At 6pm Mark’s bike broke down again, luckily outside a mechanic’s but he said it wouldnt be done till the morning and that there was a hotel 5km down the road so off we went.
Paddy fields.
Group shot and then….
A local builder turned up.
Having rice and stew with rice wine.
Mark on the old thuoc lao
Another random tea and thuoc lao break.
We pulled up outside a big wooden well lit house, not sure if it was a hotel or not we walked in and found people sitting around a table drinking tea. We asked if we could stay here, they looked at each other and then said yes no problem we asked how much and they said free then off two of them went and brought back eggs and noodles which they cooked for us and gave us whiskey. It was at this point that it dawn on us that this was just some ones house.
Having dinner at our “hotel”
Mine and Dan’s room for the night.
Some of the inside of the house. The owner built it all himself.
A sculptor the owner made.
The outside of the house.
A table he also made
In the morning the mechanic “fixed” marks bike and we drove on to a town called Thai Hoa, By the way people looked at us it seemed they had never seen a westerner in their town before. As Mark’s bike was still playing up the next day we found a Minsk mechanic who we later named Mr Miyagi. He said he could fix it but it wouldn’t be ready till the evening. So it was that we spent another day in Thai Hoa.
Cat and dog at the mechanics.
The Thai Hoa drunk who bought us a few beers.
We set off in high spirits the next day and Mark’s bike broke about 1km out of Thai Hoa. By this point Marks bike had earned the nickname of “Red Fury” I’m not sure why but maybe because it made us all pretty furies at times. We towed it back to Miyagi and he fixed it only to break down about 6km out of Thai Hoa, a local guy on a Minsk managed to get it fixed. We managed to get to Vinh by around 8.30pm and checked into a 3 star hotel.
Another breakdown for Red Fury.
We spent the following day just sleeping in and wondering about visiting the old gates of Vinh, the city had been heavily bombed during the war and not many of the old buildings had been left.
Bomb craters. I’m not sure what this place was but it was clearly important as there were pictures of it in the war museum in HCMC.
Patty cakes.
They had some planes and other things there.
Unexploded american bomb.
After setting off and having a few more problems with Mark’s bike which meant cleaning the spark plug everytime he turned the bike off we made good progress infact maybe too good progress as we got pulled over and 2 of us were fined 300,000 dong each thats about £10 for speeding. As we were driving along a dirt track a guy driving beside us invited us back to his for some tea so we followed him to his house where him and his family who were farmers lived. They fed us dinner and rice wine and invited us to stay the night so we accepted.
At Mr. Lings house.
Mr. Ling serving up some homebrewed rice wine shots.
Stu harvesting some strange root which was boiled and served with molasses for desert.
We had to go to the local police station to have our passports photocopied. They were all nice about it and gave us cigarettes.
After one of the most uncomfortable nights I have ever had on a bed which was just wooden planks we set off and reached Cou Lac, a little tourist town on the edge of the Phong Ne Ke Bang national park.
Time to get our telly tubby macs out.
Dan on an old airstrip that is now a very long straight road.
Relaxing.
Cou Lac
We spent the following day preparing for the jungle run, a 250km drive through the national park where there are no houses shops or petrol stations.
We had been told that the guards would probably lower the barrier and not let us into the park and we should duck under it and carry on but to our joy they opened it for us and we travelled on. We reached another checkpoint luckily without a barrier and the guards waved us down but we just carried on. The road wound up the mountains into the mist where Dan’s bike decided to break down. We ended up towing it East out of the park to Dong Hoi, only 20miles from Cou Lac where we had started.
In the jungle.
DK mobil about to be towed.
River in the jungle.
The next day Dan’s bike had decided to start working again so we drove West and back onto the jungle road. This road was one of the best rides of the trip winding up and down mountains with spectacular views. Everything was going well until the sun started to set and my bike broke. We took the rear wheel off and it turned out the rear sprocket had sheered completely off, so we towed it 10km to the town of Khe Sanh. We booked into a guesthouse and went out for dinner where we met a local English teacher who we planned to meet the following day to eat dog meat. After alot of beers and rice wine the guesthouse owner rode up to us to tell us the police wouldnt accept my friends passport photocopies and that we had to go back and talk to him. He told them they had to leave. At this point it was around 1am. as it is illegal for bikes to be towed I pushed my bike up the hill and rolled it about 2km down to the North/South checkpoint where the others caught up with me. Pat and Stu then towed my bike and I rode Stu’s bike which had not headlights and neither did Dans. After about 20kms we were pulled over by the police. We were drunk, towing one bike and two bikes had no headlights. Luckily the police didnt seemed bothered and said we could carry on. Dans bike broke down a few times but we managed to limp the 60km to Dong Ha by about 5am and checked into a hotel.
The weather cleared up nicely.
click to enlarge
Stu.
The next day we just slept and lazed around. None of us wanted to acknowledge the fact that my bike was very broke. The following morning I got up and managed to find the only Minsk mechanic in town. who fixed the bike and worked on the other bikes aswell. That evening he invited us to play football with him and his friends in the Dong Ha football stadium.
Us with Master Mechanic Tien
Me on one of Tiens custom Minsk’s
Testing out his custom Honda
We made it to Hue the next day the only problem was Pat’s bike had a puncture but it didnt take long to fix. We spent about a week in Hue just drinking. It was the first time we had seen many tourist since we left Hanoi. It was also the first time we had seen the sun in weeks.
We did actually find a couple of hours one day to visit some sights.
Living statues.
Me and Mark looking abit bored.
Giant Vietnamese flag in Hue.
Hue Citadel.
Us at the best bar in Hue we spent so much time there we got free t-shirts and our photo on the wall!
After Hue we drove down to Da Nang. It seemed that the problems we had had with the bikes had ironed themselves out apart from Mark’s bike struggled with the hills. We drove over the High Van Pass unfortunately the sun was setting so we missed the best of the views. A lorry had driven into the ditch on the side, it had been full of pigs which were now either impaled or running around wildly on the road, it was a horrible sight.
Not long before the High Van Pass.
We spent a day in Da Nang which is a big city but didnt seemed to have anything to offer tourists.
The next stop was Hoi An which was only a 30min drive down the coast. Hoi An is a beautiful old trading town. Colourful paper lanterns hang from old buildings and paper boats with candles float down the river. We ended up staying here around a week again.
We drove down the coast to a city called Quang Ngai where we spent one night. We got up early the next morning determined to drive to Nha Trang. This was the most dangerous part of the trip, 400km along Highway 1 the main route that links Hanoi and HCMC. It’s the road all the lorries and coaches take. We had more than a few near accidents on this stretch. You would be driving along with a coach coming towards you and then another coach would overtake that coach and you would have to quickly swerve onto the hard shoulder. Anyway we survived it and made it to Nha Trang at about 10pm.
Seaside.
This was at some deserted beach resort in the middle of nowhere.
We all loved Nha Trang, beautiful beach and great nightlife. We spent Lunar New year there partying on the beach. Unfortunately we spent too long in places like Hue and Hoi An. Stu was due to fly home from Bangkok on the 26th and it was already the 12th, we stilled had to get to HCMC, sell the bikes and see Cambodia. So we made the decision to take the night train with the bikes to HCMC. It was sad to have come so close to finishing our goal and not quite completing it but we had no choice, frankly I’m surprised no one had any major injuries along the trip and no one was too keen on doing another 200 odd miles down the treacherous highway 1. If we had taken Highway 1 all the way to HCMC it would have been far less miles than we had already covered anyway.
Panoramic from our penthouse in Nha Trang. click to enlarge
Panoramic of Nha Trang Beach. Click to enlarge.
Eating lobster on the beach.
We arrived at 3.30am on my birthday and couldnt find a hotel till around 10am. we had a sleep then tried to go out to celebrate but it didnt seem like HCMC had much to off in the way of nightlife. We spent the following few days sitting outside a bar trying to sell the bikes within 4 days we had sold them all. Next stop Cambodia.
HCMC and the end of our motorbike adventure.
Before we left Hanoi we were told that Minsk’s always breakdown but looking back on it I wouldn’t have gone with any other bike. Some of the best experiences we had were from the breakdowns. Along with trekking in the Himalayas it was one of the best things I have ever done. Also big thanks to Mark, Stu, Dan, Pat and everyone we met along the way, it wouldn’t have been the same without you.
I had my digital camera stolen on a bus in Cambodia and hadnt backed alot of my photos up so some of these are my photos and alot of them are Pat’s.
A Tramp In Asia 