Vietnam Motorcycle Trip
In one word - AMAZING
We did a 5 day tour on motorcycles through Northern Vietnam with friends Olga and Duffy and our trusty guide Thang (the company we booked through was Free Wheelin Tours and they were excellent to deal with). Over the course of the 5 days we saw many types of roads from big highways to single track paths to deeply rutted dirt. The area that we spent most of the ride in was mountainous with huge limestone cliffs and fun windy roads to navigate through them. Along the way we stayed in home stays with warm, inviting families that were also amazing cooks, some cooking gourmet meals over a single fire! There are way too many stories and pictures to tell on this blog... but here is a start.
Day 1We left Hanoi around 9am on Dec 21st, driving for the first time in the crazy Vietnamese traffic with scooter and motorcycles everywhere and not necessarily on the correct side of the road! Up until lunch time the drive was on a busy highway but then after lunch we reached the start of the small mountain roads and started to really enjoy the ride. Instead of dodging people and traffic like in the city we now had to get used to dodging water Buffalo, chickens, dogs, bicycles and pigs. Our home for the night was in a Thay village in a bamboo house with the family of the chief of the village.
Day 2This was our long day. It was 250km in about 10 hours. Some of the drive was on roads that demanded a maximum speed of 10km/h and even then our bums got a beating!
Lunch was a welcome break with a local family and terrific view over a a lake and rice fields.
Coming into our home for the night by starlight was a neat ride but a cold ride. It was dinner and straight to bed in order to get warm. Although the houses all have electricity none have heating so in the winter when it gets down to 5-10 degrees at night the family shows up to dinner with toques, jackets and wool socks; if only we had brought warm clothes...
Lunch was a welcome break with a local family and terrific view over a a lake and rice fields.Coming into our home for the night by starlight was a neat ride but a cold ride. It was dinner and straight to bed in order to get warm. Although the houses all have electricity none have heating so in the winter when it gets down to 5-10 degrees at night the family shows up to dinner with toques, jackets and wool socks; if only we had brought warm clothes...
Day 3
This day was a day trip out to a waterfall that straddles the Vietnam/Chinese boarder and then staying with the same family. On the way home we took a detour that led us through a small village on a single track trail with stunning scenery, fantastic!
Day 4
Riding not far from the Chinese boarder we made our way out of the mountains and into a fairly big city Long Son. On the way we went to a boarder market that was very busy passing goods both ways across the boarder. This was the only night we stayed in a hotel, boy were we glad to have some heating for the night!
Day 5This day was us battling crazy traffic heading back in Hanoi in time to meet up with a few friends for Christmas Dinner.
posted by Doug and Sarah @ 8:18 PM
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