Today we just wasted time waiting for our laundry because of a misunderstanding. We understood we’ll have to retrieve our laundry at 2.00 pm but in fact the guy from the laundry service meant 7.00 pm. So we’ve been waiting until 2 o’clock just to get the information to be too early. So we went to town in the afternoon to visit the Vietnamese Women’s Museum. On three floors this museum highlights the participation of women in Vietnam’s history especially their role in military conflicts and the family. Their role in the family was actually the most interesting thing for me. There are huge differences depending on the tribe from patriarchal to matriarchal everything can be found. According to the family system the groom’s or the bride’s family has to pay a marriage portion - apart from some silver or copper jewellery mostly practical things like animals or tools. Most of the other information we got I’ve already read in the travel guide. Summing up the museum was worth it to visit. Every description is given in English and French as well and there are many nice photos and traditional dresses, jewellery and tools from the minority tribes.
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The ride home is barely worth mentioning. The roads were fast in the beginning and have gone back to a near crawl once we came closer to Hanoi. The driving was also becoming more and more belligerent as the traffic picked up. As we’re participating in this madness it becomes increasingly clear that it’s probably time to stop all of this. I guess we picked up some bad habits in the last few weeks which will probably take at least 5 minutes in Switzerland to get rid of again. And some completely unfounded hate for cars…
This morning it was hard to get up. The beds were probably the most comfortable ones we had since we started our trip. Nevertheless we left the hotel at half past seven. Since we lapsed 1000km again we had to do our third oil change. This time we asked them to grease our chains as well. Actually I wonder why we even had to ask to do so. For a mechanic the look of our bikes must be horrible. Everything is just dirty. Nevertheless they greased the chains and did the oil change quickly.
Originally we wanted to follow parts of the Borders and Back-Roads tour from the excellent Vietnam Coracle. After some discussion yesterday we decided to take the road to Lao Cai and decide where exactly we’d want to go from there.
The road was a pretty good driving road for the most part with some excellent turns. The traffic was okay-ish but with the occasional truck or bus blocking our way. It was over pretty quickly though and we arrived at Lao Cai.
This week started with a horribly bitter coffee. I think they meant well but they killed us with kindness by filling the drip filter with at least four tablespoons of coffee powder. Nevertheless we were woken up for sure to start our today’s trip after eight.
The forecast wasn’t that good but the weather stayed surprisingly sunny the whole day. Lucky us it turned to a outstanding tour. Passing the rice fields in the valleys and coffee plantations at the mountainsides we’ve seen many small minority villages again. Most of the mountain tribes Montagnards people don’t live from the wet rice cultivation as the other Vietnamese people do. They live from mixed farming, stock-breeding as well as nomadic cropping, often by fire clearance. The bigger villages we’ve seen are a mix between Montagnards and Vietnamese people which are settled by government to connect the mountain region to the rest of the country. Last but not least because of the natural resources of the north. As a result the Montagnards have become a minority in their territory as well.
06:30, the alarm rings. As always, we’re both awake already. The sun rises around 5:30 at this time of year over Vietnam, so this is quite normal if you leave the blinds open during the night. We paid our stay and left the hotel through the basement where we parked our motorcycles.
After leaving Nghia Lo the sat nav told us to follow QL32 for 133km. Even though that does not sound like much, with the slow speed on Vietnamese roads and the stops this ride took us over 4 hours.
After a quite noisy evening - the US couple finally decided to leave because of the slow wireless network - we finally had some sleep. Because of the humidity our clothes were still moist. Next time we’re going to tumble dry them. However we left Hanoi at about 7.30 am.
The first two hours on the road were just to let Hanoi and its agglomeration behind us. We’re quite skilled now driving in the cities traffic. Let’s say we lost our fear but will never loose the respect.
The first night at our Hanoi home base was a pretty long one. We slept in until past 8 and started the day by making some coffee. We’re getting better at brewing our Vietnamese coffees every time we try…
We left the house at 11:30 and took a cab to the old town. Nearly 30 minutes of taxi driving cost a bit less than 4 CHF in total. After arriving in the old town we checked out another local brewery called Pasteur Street Brewing Company. The beers were okay, but not worthy of the 4.7 rating it got on Google Maps. The imperial stout called El Vietnamo tasted too much of ethanol for our liking.
The day our motorbikes decorate the living room… But let me start at the beginning. Attended by two dogs we ate our first English breakfast here in Vietnam. Untoasted toast, sausages and a fried egg was not that meal we expected to have but OK. We would have preferred to get one of the dogs cooked Vietnamese style.
After heaving breakfast we jumped in our still wet clothes. The problem of water resistant shoes seems to be in the time they need to get dry. So we were a bit freezing the fist hour on the road. Shortly after Mai Chau we had to go over a pass. I don’t know the name of the pass but foggy pass would fit perfectly. We just followed a truck seeing about 20 meters ahead. The pass was too steep for many overloaded trucks’ brakes. We’ve seen them smouldering.
This morning we decided to do another test of our footwear. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. The feet didn’t feel worse after 5 hours through the rain than after 5 minutes. The downside? They were already dripping 30 seconds after the start.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a very brief abstract of our day. We started at 8 from our hotel. It was raining. We stopped at 11 for a coffee and a bit later for lunch. It was raining. We arrived at our new hotel at 3 in the afternoon. It was pouring.