Ha Long to the highway

“Are you thinking about motorbikes?”

Hellboy had just finished and we were exhausted. Barely ten pm, it was time for bed. In Ninh Binh, 100km south of Hanoi, Aaron and I were trying to get some sleep in our dingy hotel room. I was. “Yeah, I’m visualising changing gears.”

Cat Ba traffic

It was my first day riding a manual motorcycle. Having driven some automatic mopeds over the course of my travels in SE Asia, I thought the leap from that to a manual motorcycle couldn’t be too much trouble. Yet, when Mr. Minh was trying to teach me and in turn, flog me a motorcycle, I could only manage to rev and stall. Aaron, having driven a motorbike in the past, had less difficulty re-learning the skills. In a back street somewhere in Hanoi thirty frustrating minutes passed and with me still barely able to get into gear, we bought the motorcycles anyway. Celebratory drinks and a photo for his business’ facebook page later, he and an associate were driving us back to the hostel on our new steeds, making a pit stop for helmets.

Aaron, Jess and I were back in Hanoi after a three day boat trip through Ha Long Bay. Limestone cliffs and still water, in the overcast fog the 1969 islands loomed eerily on all sides. Our boat was home to eleven people from our hostel, a Danish family of four with one particularly energetic kid, and two older Singaporean gentlemen who spoke to no one.

Ha Long Bay sans fog

Like most tours it was equal parts necessary convenience and frustration. You need a boat and papers to loiter in Ha Long Bay, something not within the means of your average backpacker unless arranged through a package deal. But in turn this comes at the cost of meandering freedom and un-allocated meal times. Also included, the inevitable bus stop at an overpriced house of tourist tat.

Ha Long Bay with fog

Breakfast is dry toast, spreads and a fried egg. The crew eats far tastier looking pho. I bemoaned the assumption that us western tourists need to be catered to with western food until Aaron had the following question from one passenger in response to Aaron’s claim of having been away for eight months, “Don’t you miss fast food?”

Jess enjoys the cabin

Fishing for squids with a kosher Israeli couple who live in a kibbutz, the fluorescent bulb hanging off the back of the boat seemed to attract only jellyfish and rubbish. They had to bring their own pots and cooking utensils to ensure the integrity of cooking equipment, and could eat very little unless they prepared it themselves. Similarly inconvenienced were the vegetarians, separated from the masses on their own table where various ethical codes and dietary restrictions provided endless fodder for conversation as well as a surfeit of food variously judged as inedible in the ideological crossfire.

Establishing the boundaries was difficult from the outset. In response to Aaron claiming to be a vegetarian the tour guide replied, “Do you eat chicken, fish?”
“No, no meat. But eggs are fine.”
“What about chicken?”

Jess and the captain

The workers on the tour boat went to bed at 9pm. This would have been less noticeable if bed wasn’t the benches in the dining room around the table at which we were drinking and chatting and playing music. It is one way to kill a buzz.

Our tour guide seemed to take untoward pleasure in showing us the “happy stick” in the Sut Ho caves, within which the lascivious minded stalactites and stalagmites had also taken the form of Romeo and Juliet and other couples in states of flagrante delicto. Outside of the Sut Ho cave a monkey was behind a sign, watching the tourists. When someone threw it a candy, it unwrapped it and stuffed it into its mouth. The wrapper lapped on waves against the rock of the national park.

Happy stick

We stayed at bungalows the second the day after a ‘trek’ through the jungle—one which Aaron was able to complete on a broken toe—and some cycling around Cat Ba island. Aaron and I embarked upon some kayaking over the course of which we saw schools of fish jumping out of the water, eagles fishing, floating village folk gutting their catch, and yet more eagles having sex. In accordance with the ethos of kayaking, we sought to navigate every narrow limestone gap and low overhanging cliff in our quest to find more wildlife.

The locals on the floating villages seem wholly indifferent to the trickle of tourist boats that drift by. Women bend their backs to rowing in blue ponchos and reed hats. People squat and repair fishing baskets, clean their catch, play with kids, cook. One man stood naked, holding his crotch, and watched as the Danish girls Sabine and Sophie passed by in a kayak.

Aaron and the tour guide bonding over Chronic 2001

‘I like you,’ mouthed the captain. Four Swedes were posing for photographs on the top deck, the Danish girls and Aaron and I were watching. On the bottom deck Jess was exchanging looks with the captain. He had taken a fancy to her on the trip to Cat Ba Island and was now blowing her kisses. He carried her bag off the boat for her, arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek.

There was an al fresco pool table. Whenever you potted a shot there was a rumbling as the ball went through the makeshift pipe system, a thud as it landed in the dirt. Sitting around the beach bonfire—although closer to a fire—with Sabina and Sophie, we were again playing some music. Some of the locals came over to the fire too, and from their little phone began playing music of their own.

Two foolish men

The bottle of lemonade cost 6500 dong. The change I got for my 20,000 dong was 13,000 and one coffee flavoured candy with a liquid espresso centre. Hanoi also is home to egg coffee, something in which an egg yolk is whisked up with the ubiquitous Vietnamese sweetened condensed milk to make a thick and lusciously sweet foam which is poured over very strong coffee. It sounds kind of gross, but is delicous.

We saw a water puppet show that chronicled the history and traditions of Vietnam. It dragged on. The highlight was definitely the first sentence, “So sacred is the word dong (gao).” People kept clapping unnecessarily, before anything had even happened. After it we went to Fanny’s for some icecream. The puns kept coming. We celebrated Jess’ last night in Hanoi by eating a lot of quality vegetarian food and retiring to a café for tea and brownies where I invented the game Finish The Euphemism, a wittier and more crude form of Pictionary, on the paper table cloths.

Hotel managers slash mechanics

6am and in the quiet and dark morning we waited. We wanted to leave to avoid the crush of Hanoi traffic. The owner of the garage at which we had stored our newly purchased bikes had promised to be open. He was nowhere to be seen. The clocked ticked by. I paced with frustrated rage. Aaron chain smoked. A bowl of pho and a banh mi later. 7am and the sun was up, the traffic gathering, and an irate man banging on the garage door.

Bags strapped down, the first thing I did was stall my bike. Several stalls later, a conversation with some passing British backpackers about where we bought our bikes and for how much for which I was too stressed to be helpful, and we were heading south out of the centre of town. At every light I stalled. After about ten minutes I was getting the hang of it. The directions I had loaded on my phone were pretty simple, but the convenient straightness of highways lends them to peak hour traffic.

Tam Coc

And peak hour in Hanoi is packed. People wear masks over their nose and mouth in traffic. With every gap in the lanes filled with a motorcycle or moped and the buses and cars churning out black smoke, it is obvious why. Stalling here was more inconvenient than at the lights. If you hesitate you lose your spot and suddenly the channel of passage is closed for another interminable set of lights. Traffic backs up across the intersections such that the green light is whenever the logjam from the crossroads has cleared enough for more vehicles to push through, and one side is caught with a red. Highways are up to four lanes wide, some designated for cars and buses only, but this stops no one.

Gradually the traffic thinned and we were out on some open highway. We pulled over to consult my phone in the shadow of a sign with a line through a picture of a motorbike and a bicycle. This was the highway we wanted to go down. We sat and watched a few bikes go down it and decided to do the same.

This is how you row

The police pulled us over five minutes later. Waving their white batons at me and in their khaki uniforms. For a moment I considered driving past, pretending not to have seen them and in the hope they wouldn’t follow. I pulled over. After a consultation over the map and learning that we needed to go to Ninh Binh, we were waved on down the no-motorcycle highway. After about an hour another motorcyclist from a cross road joined us and started waving furiously for us to stop. He insisted we should leave the highway. We tried to explain the police had given us permission, but he understood no English. Guessing the next police mightn’t be as kind as the earlier ones, we begrudgingly followed his directions to the parallel, motorcycle friendly highway, for which he asked for a tip. We rode off.

Size defines whether you give way. I learned this almost being killed by a bus pulling across the intersection. Motorcycles chug along at anything from a leisurely trot to full throttle. This was not the scenic Ho Chi Minh highway, but the direct highway to Ninh Binh where we wanted to go to the inland Ha Long Bay, Tam Coc. 100km later we were checked into a $7 hotel room. On the fourth floor, the bathroom door didn’t lock and had windows open the stairwell and the world. With every gust of wind the door swung open. The shower was a trickle.

Tam Coc

Eight kilometres from Ninh Binh and five kilometres from the Bich Dong Pagoda is Tam Coc. For 140,000 dong a local will paddle you—using both hands and feet—in a shallow tin dinghy through picture perfect rice paddies surrounded by limestone cliffs with the odd worker bent in labour. There is a series of caves through which the river runs, ceilings low enough to require ducking.

“I’ll help you.” Aaron shunted her dinghy away. He was armed with the spare paddle in the boat with which tourists could assuage their sense of guilt at being powered along by an old lady by paddling as well. We had refused the drinks the vendor offered us, floating in her boat at the end of the river section you traverse during the tour into which the unassuming boats of tourists emerge squinting from the darkness of a cave. She had given up and was now insisting we tip our paddler, gently pushing away from our dinghy. Since we felt bad about being heavy white people and since she didn’t press any more tat on us, we did tip our paddler.

My steed

It was 53km from Ninh Binh to the nearest section of the Ho Chi Minh highway. The work of an hour. Soon the highway gave way to a rutted track. It had rained overnight and the orange mud lay heavy and slick and puddles lurked. Soon it coated our strapped packs, sneakers, legs, tyres and mufflers. Almost two and a half hours later, through more limestone-crag dotted rice paddies of buffalo and swaying green rice plants, we hit proper tarmac. We appreciated it in a new way.

The highway curved delicately upwards and between limestone outcrops. Countless shades of green in a patchwork field, edifices fading from green to grey to white into the overcast sky. Dropping down into valleys the sweet herbal perfume of sugar cane hung in the thick, humid air. The forecast had warned of rain, and at last it came. Hurtling through the drizzle I discovered by waterproof jacket wasn’t quite that, and Aaron’s poncho was ripped to tatters. By the time we stopped for lunch at a place recommended by the petrol station at which we refuelled and re-poncho’d, we were soaked.

View from the highway

The women here were greatly amused by our arrival. Aaron has a small piece of paper delineating his meal requirements which we showed them. I was taken to the kitchen. Were eggs okay? I pointed and gave the thumbs up. Then shepherded out the back to wash my hands. A woman squatted on the ground picking leaves from stems. Bowls appeared all around us and we were inundated with food. We were the only customers and the three women took turns in coming over and joining us, staring as we ate. Periodically they would intervene to show us how to use the hot plate and which combinations were appropriate. Fish sauce with the wilted greens. Garlic with the potato and egg. Fry the pickled cabbage. I was informed by a hand raised laterally above a head that I was tall. They tried to make us snap their bamboo bong. We took a photo with the one who took a liking to me.

Rice paddies gave way to lushly verdant national parks and forested slopes. Straight highways hemmed in by hills down which we went like idiots, touching 100km an hour, the point at which Aaron’s speedometer—mine doesn’t work—began to wobble.

One member of our lunch lady fan club

Between the two of us we have one working headlight, one horn, two and a half properly functioning wheels, four bags, four bits of rope, and three hundred and fifty kilometres of varying types of Vietnamese mud. Two breakdowns and one repair session at the hotel we found 18 kilometres out of Do Luong. We tried to ask for a mechanic and all the men waved it off, gathered around the bike, and began adjusting things. On the road makeshift repairs to Aaron’s chain took place variously with a stick and a group of kids. My bike has the throaty grumble of Tom Waits combined with an unsettling rattle. Aaron’s a more muscular ratatat punctured by backfiring enough to be the soundtrack to an episode of The Wire.

People wave if you make eye contact along the highway. At certain times large groups of school kids on wobbly single gear bikes emerge out on the highways. Right in the thick of one on a rutted and slick road, I was forced to a stop. And stalled. They stared and waved and talked as I stomped at my gears.

It kept raining. We passed three men, each with two pigs strapped to the back of their bikes, still alive. One was urinating. Huge trucks lumber slowly in first gear up the hills. The odd local on a powerful bike roars past. Cars and buses honk ceaselessly as they veer in and out of the single lanes to overtake.

In the quiet stretches it is magical. The connection on a motorbike to the world and the highway is intense. Bugs splatter, the rain whips, the air is heavy and fragrant and the kilometres unfold.