Gooooodnight Vietnam!!

Hello Hello!!

I was updating our blog yesterday, and after about an hour of typing, i pressed a wrong key, and the whole bloody thing disappeared!! Couldn't be asked to type it all again, so gave up, and am starting again today.

Anyway, last time i gave some news, we were in Hanoi, thinking of doing a few days bike tour in the North, in the end we opted for the south of Hanoi, to visit a national park 155kms from the town, and a tribal village called Chau Mai west of the Nat Pk. Well, we didn't see either the national park, nor the tribal village. As we were happily riding along on our Minsk bikes on the Ho Chi Minh trail, my bike decided it had had enough. And stopped.

With my extensive knowledge of bike mechanic, i knew exactly what to do... "STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE!!!!"
It turned out it was the electric, we changed the spark plug, nothing, open countless boxes, generators whatever, nothing. After about an hour in the sun in the middle of knowhere, about 15 vietnamese guys were around trying to help. They ended up towing the bike to a nearby village, where a mechanic fixed it... not for long!

500 meters down the road, the bike is caughing like it's going to die again. I say it's not right, but one of the "helpers" that we had to take back home said i should let him drive... Yeah right, like i had just ridden 150kms, but i still didn't know if the bike was going well or not!!

Anyway, after dropping him off, we're on our way again, but not for long. The exhaust is backfiring, it's getting on my nerves seriously, night is falling, we're still in the middle of nowhere, we end up stopping at the next house we see, wake up (they're always sleeping) the mechanic. He replaces the electric box again saying that the other guy before gave us an other faulty one... grrrr Mechanics, they're the same everywhere. That one also opens the generator, checks it then closes it again. Magic, the bike is going again.

We ride in the dark on the little road to the hotel that this family indicated to us, check in, and head for the closest bia Hoi seller (fresh viet beer).
That was well needed, but at least we thought, now it's going well, we can go tomorrow and enjoy the rest of the tour.

That evening, after the beer, we asked our waiter (in our lovely broken miming vietnamese) where we can find some food. He takes us down the road to a little restaurant that serves some kind of meat "brochettes". Just to make sure, we ask what kind of meet it is.. hum hum. They point at the dog who is looking at us with his sorry eyes that seem to say "please don't eat my brother, or i'll be next!!!" ARGHHHHH!!

Quickly we get out of there, and head for an other place, the waiter next to us laughing away... Barbarians!!

In the next place, we mime: "No doggy?? waouf waouf..." The woman smiles and say no, we are a bit reassured, but when she serves us our Phu (noddle soup with meet and herbs) well, that meat still doesn't look like anything i've seen before. She assured us it was no dog, so we ate a bit, but mostly we ate the noodles. I have to remind you we left Hanoi at 8.30 after a ham and cheese sandwich, and had nothing else the whole day. Well, god knows what was in there, we try to forget about it, and go back to the Bia Hoi place to help.

Next morning, fresh and early, and in good mood, we open the door of the hotel room. Argh again... It's pissing down with rain!!!
Nevermind, we're off anyway (after a 15 minutes effort to start the bloddy russian Minsk and killing our feet on them both). We need some breakfast, so we stop in the next town. We ask for Phu with pork, and get served just that. It smells really nice! We eat away, although the meat is a bit chewy, so i only eat a bit.

Later, after a few cafes cause the rain is still pouring down, Steve goes to the loo at the back.
When he comes back, his face looks somehow disturbed, and i ask him how are the toilets (civilised or hole in the ground full of mosquitoes?) second option.. ok we're used to that. But at the same time he also says "well, it's quite an eye opener at the same time" I look at him: "What do you mean??" and he looks down at the remaining of our Phu in the bowls... Oh dear!!!! not again!!. For you mum i won't give you the description Steve gave me, but you can imagine what we think we've eaten... again.

Light headed, we leave the dog eating town, and decide we want some civilisation. Head for the beach town of Sam Son. Well it's raining but who cares, it will be quiet, we can get a massage and some civilised food.

One hour down the line, guess what. My bike breaks down!!! Again!!

This time, Steve manages to fix it, and it appears that our last mechanic had closed the generator on one of the cables, and melted the flipping thing... arghhhh . Steve cuts it short, somehow manages to fix it, and off we go.
We hit the national highway one, full of suicidal and murderers, but make it safe and sound to Sam Son.

Haha, Sam Son, the town with the Vietnamese who have a british spirit.
We arrive there, and there is some sort of festival. About 10 000 people on the beach, in the cloudy and windy and actually pretty cold weather, all nethertheless in their swimming suit, all goose bumped hehe, and obviously, we can't find a hotel under 20 $... Well, we book in there anyway, ask where we can find an ATM, there aren't any. ARGh and ARGH again... I'm telling you, this is proper travel experience!!

We explain to the hotel that we'll ride to the closest town in the morning (30kms there and back) and pay them after. So in the evening we're left with very little money to eat, and have some rice and bony chicken (but i saw the whole chicken beeing cut in the kitchen, so that was better.

We spend the night quite well in the end, Bia hoi costs about 10 p for a pint, so we can drink, and practice our vietnamese with the locals. It turned out Sam Son was a touristic place, yes, but not for westerners, only viets... hum. People are really nice though, so it makes up for all the bad stuff. Actually, even the dog eating people were lovely, and everyone that helped us on the way..

Right, so my bike has broken down 3 times in 2 days. I come to hate the bloody thing. When it goes it's ok, eventhough it does sound a hell of a lot like a lawn mower, it's really nice, but when it stops... argh, as i said.

So the next morning, without a shower cause it's freezing (20 $ room remember, but not the luxury that goes with the price usually) we decide to head straight back to Hanoi. We set up, and what do you know, 1 hour after, not even, guess what. YES, it breaks down again! By that time i'm calling it every name under the sun, and am very tempted to send it to the scrapyard.

Again, some nice vietnamese mechanic helps us, and after two hours of going through the manual and every possible electrical problem, it turns out the lovely little plastic plug that goes into the electric box was... dirty!! we clean that up, and it's 4pm. about 200 kms from Hanoi, we set out again, decide not to stop the whole way. We're riding up that suicidal and murderer's road, and decided against it, and go back west to the dog eating towns districts, to take the nicer and quieter Ho chi Minh trail. We rode all the rest of the day, and a few hours in the dark, going through strips of road, no sorry, mud tracks, that were great fun really, and drove back side by side to get more light on the non lit road. At 10.30 about we finally hit Hanoi, with an amazingly sore bum, and achy wrists and feet, and oviously, get lost for about 1.30 hour turning around that crazy town's road system. We get some directions in the end and finally find our quarters, the old quarters of the town.

The bike shop is obviously closed, but we know that some australian guys, Digby and Dan, that work with the shop, are usually at a bar called Highway 4. We head there and find one of them who is basically singing the praises of Minsk Bike (load of bullshit if you ask me!! I mean we have so many jokes about Ladas, why the hell didn't we go for Japanese Honda!!??)

Well, after a few beers, we get our sense of humour back, and realise that this was THE travel experience.

By the time we get out of the bar, still with our minsks parked outside, it's 1am and we need to find a hotel. Surprise, magically, the hotel prices go up in the evening, and so we can only check into an 18$ room again... Well we made it, and tomorrow we know we'll go set fire to the bike rental place, and then go enjoy a nice french croissant in our favourite bakery...

We go back to the rental shop, and they decided they'll only charge us 1/2 day extra (we had paid for 3) i'm well against it, but Steve gives the money anyway, and in the afternoon, we see a westerner girl on the same flipping bike, and god, i feel ever so sorry for her...

So the day we came back to hanoi was the 30th in the evening. Our visa expire on the 3rd, which is today. We decided to stay in Hanoi and recuperate, and book a bus to Laos, which we are hopping on tonight at 6.30pm. We just chilled for 2 days, drinking plenty more of Bia Hoi, (basically getting drunk for 1 pound or less, amazing, the paradise of beer drinkers!), did a bit of shopping, and reading about the next step, Laos, where we should be staying about 2 weeks, as a 30$ visa at the border will only give us 15 days. Then the plan is to head back to Thailand, forgetting about the North of Thailand as we'll probably do some trekking in Laos, and apparently, Laos's north is nicer.

Wel, that's it for Vietnam, it is an amazing place, so much to do, not enough time to do it in a month, something for every taste, definitely definitely recommended to everyone. Every one would find some great things about it.

Been typing for a while now, so will stop now...
Take care everyone!
Can my family kindly tell me when i could call home (which home?) to talk to everyone at the same time??
Pierre Petra, Gert, i need to know when you are all flying, so we can maybe book our tickets now.
Leanne, last night we were drinking beer with a kiwi that had exactly the same accent as you, ie i didn't understand a word hahaha...
Laura, haven't had news in a while!! how is it going?

Hope everyone is doing good,
Lots of love from the two of us!

xxx Jenny & Steve xxx