My South East Asian adventure almost finished before it began when, the day before leaving, I discovered that my Visa On Arrival, organized several weeks previous, had me down as Australian rather than British. My accent's drifted a lot but I suspect I would have struggled to pull that off with my UK passport. So my last 24 hours in Australia included a mad scramble to get another Visa arranged and pack up boxes for home. Even when I try to be organized I somehow manage to stuff it up.
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| Possibly the worst map of South East Asia! |
Fortunately, I was completely disorganized about the rest of the trip, I'd read that a tent would be useless, so had shipped it home, but stupidly still carried my sleeping bag, Thermarest mat and other bedding that it turned out simply stayed tied to the top of my bike rack added some less than welcome weight to my bike up and down the hills.
I'd also read a few blogs / books about people cycling vaguely along my anticipated route, so I bought a map and considered my planning compete… Maybe it would have been a good idea to look at the map and read more about the monstrous mountains I'd face on dirt or washed out roads, or simply to realize that my map was terrible, with no names in local script, half the town names wrong, or in the wrong place and a splattering of inaccurate point-to-point distances. When it came to planning a route / distance for each day it was really a bit of a stab in the dark, all you could guarantee was that it would involve some climbing!
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| Shopping for toys Hanoi style |
Arriving in Hanoi, my Hotel pick-up appeared a little surprised by my box and took a few minutes to scramble a car big enough to carry it. Hanoi is hectic, but I took some time on the way into the city to assess the road "rules". First, they drive on the right – I'd no idea on this before. Second, they drive wherever there's space on the road, bikes and motos crowded on the shoulder and overloaded trucks powering up the middle of the road. Dust and car fumes were everywhere and I pretty much decided there and then that cycling out of Hanoi would be a bad idea. In the bustling old quarter the scooter ruled alongside plentiful use of the horn, for no reason whatsoever, combined with the fumes, heat and humidity, it gave you a constant dull headache. Everything happens on the scooter here – courting, talking on the phone, shopping and a whole lot else I'm sure. Pavements have become scooter parking zones but fortunately if you walk on the road, the traffic generally moves out of the way for you. It's crazy but somehow seems to work.
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| Heading back from the Perfume Pagoda |
I gave myself 3 days in Hanoi to acclimatise to the heat, humidity and crazy roads. Most of my time was spent wandering the streets of Hanoi but I did manage to catch up with a family friend and do a day trip out to the Perfume Pagoda, where I was the only one to refuse the $3 charge for the cable car and choose to walk up the mountain instead, it's all training right. Mind you I had it easy compared to the little old lady that rowed 8 heavy westerners an hour up the river in the rain and then back again. In Hanoi's old quarter, hawkers were incessant but getting lost outside the old quarter was one of the best experiences to be had, normal life returned with small street markets selling everything you might ever need and plenty you don't, backstreet barber shops and more cafes than you could hope to ever eat at.
I also run into a Dutch couple who've just cycled up from Saigon, they recommend I write down all my destinations on paper as they'd never been able to pronounce anything correctly – should make ordering food interesting! The rest of the time I try to plan my cycle with little success, but eventually get a response from a cycle tour company that suggests at least some of the roads I'm looking are probably passable. Armed with another tourist map for North West Vietnam I feel I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
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| Cruising the river near the Perfume Pagoda |
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| My bike arriving for the night bus to Sapa |
On the 3rd day I'd scheduled for a minibus to pick me up and take me to the Bus Depot for the night bus to Sapa. Unfortunately as it turned up it was immediately clear that there was no space for the bike, no worries, ever resourceful, two staff from the hotel jumped on a moto with the heavy bike between them and hand delivered it to the bus! Arriving in Sapa, I temporarily lost all my luggage as the bus driver unloaded it at an earlier stop; fortunately there was a very kind American Vietnamese girl on the bus who helped me recover it.
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| Rice paddies in the valley below Sapa |
Sapa's another destination on the tourist trail and I immediately picked up a couple of followers – including a tiny old lady dressed traditionally who would have weighed significantly less than the sum of the luggage I was carrying. I avoided the offer of guided tours to their villages and handicrafts and instead put the bike together to explore the surrounding country by bike. Heading down a valley road, I quickly realise the roads here may be challenging as I'm hard on the brakes to gingerly cross several washouts between hairpin bends as the road drops some 2000ft in 10 miles to the end of the road. Villages were out working together on their rice paddies, ploughing with water buffalo or planting by hand. As I descended out of the cloud, the deep valley opened up below me providing a spectacular backdrop to the roads tight hairpin bends. Obviously the downhill passed by in a flash but on the way back up I was forced to enjoy the view a lot more as the steep grades slowed my pace to little faster than walking.
The rain scuppered any more tourist rides in the afternoon and instead I tried to find out more about the hill tribes by visiting the local museum with its fascinating displays on the differences in local dress and customs. Over dinner I met Skye, a cool guy from Colorado and together we caught the end of a traditional show put on for drunken Vietnamese tourists that largely outnumbered westerners. We also met Jürgen, a sketchy German guy who's been travelling Asia for 2 years. Exchanging travel stories he kindly informed me, in that straightforward way that only Germans can, that the "USA doesn't count".
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| Cold & Sweaty in the Silver Falls Car Park |
My bike ride proper started early the next day, I was up at 5 with the rising sun and packed up ready to leave at 6:15am. Breakfast included some lovely donuts with strange yellow stuff (bean I presume) in the middle. Out of Sapa the road headed straight up, a seemingly helpful sign directed me onto a rough (and steep) shortcut which I ducked out of after about a mile – I should have seen this as a sign of troubles ahead. Again I was climbing through the clouds, 1,500ft up to the Silver Waterfall. Set up to accommodate hundreds of tourists, at 7:15am I was the only one there. I still got shouted at for wheeling my bike onto the viewing platform; presumably I was supposed to park it at the oversized car park 200m down the hill.
I continued over the pass at 6,850ft (my highest point), still shrouded in cloud and unable to see more than 20m ahead. After the pass the road immediately plummets down steeper than anything I've seen before, in fact I descend over 4,500ft in 12 miles. I'm forced to go slow as not only do I have to dodge several rock falls, navigate a muddy construction site in the rain and handle the frequently washed out road surface, but my brakes are too soft to handle the gradient and riding above 12mph might have meant not being able to stop! As I descend out of the clouds the view is stunning, even in the rain but it's hard to appreciate through the pain in my cramping forearms (from braking) and having to concentrate so hard on the road. Halfway down I meet a Malaysian guy cycling uphill, he's cheerful despite taking a month to get here from Vientiane, Laos and the fact I'm the first cyclist he's met so far!
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| A typically washed out road on the descent from Sapa |
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| Believe it or not, this is in fact the main road down the mountain |
The road is terrible, reduced to a washed out river bed in places, covered in rocks with foot deep gullies. Frequent landslides remind me of the dangers of these mountain roads. It's fortunate I'm cycling at the start of the rainy season as I suspect this would be impassable in a couple of months' time. All of a sudden, the mountain track turns into a 6-lane highway, I've hit the first town where the government it seems have decided to invest in multi-lane modern highways for a couple of cars rather than the roads that link the towns to each other. Cheering and waving locals encourage me up the hill out of town, which as least gives my hands a rest from braking. The road deteriorates to Lai Chau, the county seat, where of course it turns into 10-lane tarmacked highway with absolutely nothing built up beside it. A couple of blocks north I find what must be the old road and find somewhere that looks safe for lunch. Over a steaming bowl of Pho Bo (Beef Noodle Soup), Vietnamese parent and grandparents introduce to me to their young children who are terrified of me; a small baby cries whenever he's carried within 5 metres of me! The Vietnamese are always keen to help solve any mechanical problem and I have to ride off before a local mechanic destroys my brakes as we try to tighten them by the side of the road.
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| This road sign was special even for Vietnam! Note also the wide empty highway |
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| A lone motorbike cruises down the 6-lane highway in Phong Tho |
On leaving Lai Chau the road turns from 10-lane highway to single-track mud lane immediately at the town boundary. More hard climbing over mud, rocks and gravel are really taking it out of me, but by 3pm I'm well on my way to Phong Tho, my targeted overnight town. "BANG"! There goes my back tyre – the 38mm marathon racer may be great on rough tarmac but a rock has sliced a half inch long gash in the weak side wall. Fortunately I carry a spare, but it's only 35mm wide (not really wide enough for this terrain) and this is not a good sign on day 1 where replacement tyres are impossible to find. A Vietnamese family beacon me under their front porch just in time to dodge a biblical downpour. The following half hour is hilarious as we try to converse in a combination of English, that they don't understand, Vietnamese, which goes way over my head and sign language. I gather that they are intrigued by my beard, at a week old it's already way beyond what they can grow, the size of my legs and shoulders which they prod and grab much as they would have done at an African slave market and my height which they estimate at 2m plus. Finally, we get onto my leg hair; my new friend promptly plucks a few hairs from my shin, sticks them to his hairless leg and dances around, much to the amusement of the whole family (and me). After the rain subsides, we part as good friends; I roll on into Phong Tho with little incident, other than almost falling off a ridge in the road. I'm greeted by another 6-lane highway and the choice of a couple of guesthouses, no idea who stays here though; I suspect they can't survive on wandering cyclists alone. Settling down to dinner as the light fades, it must be rush hour on the 6-lane highway as a small herd of water buffalo saunter past.
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| Rush Hour on the 6-lane highway in Phong Tho |
My introduction to cycling in South East Asia has been tough – 66 miles took almost 7 hours with an average speed of just 9.5mph, despite over 9,000ft of descent over the day compared with 5,400ft of climbing. In America I'm have easily knocked off 100 miles in that sort of time, but the heat, gradient and road conditions and humidity are all beating the hell out of me. It's going to be a tough month; my pre-conceived ideas of a gentle 1,000 mile ride through Asia seem a long way away right now and to top it all, the language barrier means I can't really share the experience with anybody.
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