the motorcycle diaries

After five months on the road, one of the best experiences that we’ve had, by far, was doing a seven-day motorcycle tour of northwestern Vietnam.  Surprising as it may be, this was not my bright idea.  Nope.  That credit goes to Aman who bought his first motorcycle when he was in college, has been riding ever since, and was bent on seeing Vietnam on two wheels. 

Riding a motorcycle with Aman, in theory, sounded fun enough.  But, as Troy Wegner could tell you, I had my reasons for saying no to the idea of jumping on the back of a bike with Aman.  Let’s see… there was the time that Aman and I went snowmobiling in Vermont.  Aman gladly volunteered to bring up the rear of our group, and used his position as last in the pack to alternatively hang back and then punch the gas to see how fast he could go.  (He only flew off the side of the mountain once.)  Then, there was the time that Aman and I went to Turks & Caicos for a long, quiet weekend.  It took three days for Aman to convince the hotel employee in charge of beach activities that he could handle a Hobie Cat without any prior sailing experience.  The employee’s last words before we set sail was, don’t tighten the rope that connects the sail to the rudder (i.e., so as to avoid going too fast).  Guess what Aman did first?  And, there was also the time that I went jet skiing in Key West with Aman and Troy.  It was a beautiful excursion around the entire island.  I, however, couldn’t walk for four days afterwards – the result of straining every major muscle group in my body for an hour and a half in a serious effort not to get thrown from the jet ski as Aman gleefully chased Troy, and vice versa. 

But, as Aman reassured me months ago, there’s no room for messing around when you are driving a motorcycle.  It isn’t like snowmobiling or sailing a Hobie Cat or jet skiing.  The potential hazards in a third world country (e.g., potholes, errant cows, oversized tour buses that ALWAYS have the right-of-way, drunk-driving tourists) are countless.  And, by the time Aman and I reached northern Vietnam, we had spent enough time together on a motorbike in other locations on this trip, that I was feeling really comfortable on the bike with him.

To get our adventure started, we Aman did a lot of research into companies that offer motorbike tours in Vietnam.  We were initially hoping to do a tour that left from Ho Chi Minh City and went to Hanoi (since we entered the country in the south and were making our way north), but as it turned out, the motorbike tour operators only run trips from Hanoi to HCMC.  So, we had to adjust our plans – to fit in a motorbike tour before leaving Vietnam, we had to take the open bus north from HCMC (which we did), and find a tour that both started and finished in Hanoi.

We ultimately decided to go with a company in Hanoi called Voyage Vietnam.  One of the co-founders of the company, Nguyen, worked with us over the phone for weeks to customize our tour – a seven-day, six-night voyage into the misty mountains of northwestern Vietnam.  We met with him at the office of Voyage Vietnam two days before we left in order to review the final itinerary, get fitted for our gear, meet our local guide, Binh, and test ride the bike.   

Getting fitted for the big ride!

It was a long day and I’ll admit that, at times, I was visibly skeptical about certain details… most importantly, the bike.  It was late afternoon by the time the bike was ready to be inspected, and we were standing outside Voyage Vietnam’s office on a chaotic, narrow street in Hanoi’s old quarter.  Whereas I was expecting to be introduced to a 150cc cruiser, I found myself staring at a 250cc Yamaha dirt bike.  It was absolutely huge.  We’re going to ride this for seven days, I asked Aman, eyebrows raised.  You’ll be fine, he replied assuredly.  Let’s go get a beer.

Two mornings later, Aman and I were back at Voyage Vietnam’s office, packed and ready to hit the road.  What we needed for the week was packed in our smaller bags, which we stuffed in saddlebags or covered in tarps and tied down to Binh’s bike.  (Everything else we stored in the office.)  Even with my hesitation about our bike (that couldn’t be shaken, even after a beer), we were both pretty excited.  We waited patiently as Binh made some last minute adjustments to our bike and then FINALLY, we were off!

We made our way out of Hanoi’s old quarter, and quickly on to a main road/highway that would eventually take us out of the city.  (NB:  I’m not sure how to classify a four-lane road/highway that didn’t have traffic lights, but did have pedestrian crossings… but, that’s essentially the road we were on, for the most part.)  I hadn’t appreciated how big Hanoi was until we started driving out of it.  Traffic was a busy, disorderly mess until we hit the interchange for National Road No. 6.  We had the option to stay on this road for most of the morning.  Binh, however, told us at our first coffee break that we could take another road – one that was a little more challenging, but a little more scenic.  Aman and I replied in unison that we would take the more difficult route.  We turned off Road No. 6, just as mountains began to appear in the hazy distance, and from there, things just got greener and greener.

Along the way, we drove through small villages surrounded by fields and fields of rice, sugarcane, fruits and vegetables.  There were few shops that sold anything other than food stuffs, as folks in these parts venture to the nearest town should they need anything special.  The road was mostly paved, but it was narrow and pretty much devoid of any other motor traffic.  Locals drove the few motorbikes on the road, and – more often than not – they carried chickens and pigs on the back as their passengers. 

For lunch, we ate in a small roadside joint that was typical of the region, the kind where you order either “lunch” or “dinner,” and wipe your utensils and plates with a tissue before using them.  But, make no mistake, the food was still pretty good.  We dined on the same dishes as everyone else in the place, and talked to Binh about the small village where we were staying that night, Mai Chau. 

A popular place to see one of the many “hill tribes” (or ethnic minority groups) of Vietnam, Mai Chau is inhabited mostly by the White Thai.  Hours after lunch, we caught our first glimpses of their colorful village from the top of a steep, misty pass that we spent all afternoon climbing.

As we descended into the amazingly tranquil valley, we passed banana trees, women on the slopes beside the road collecting brush to feed their cows, and groups of women working together in the rice paddies.

We spent our first night in the home of a local family, which is known as doing a homestay, a “must-do” while in northern Vietnam.  It was one of the most amazing highlights of our motorcycle journey.  The particular house where we stayed was a traditional Thai house built on stilts.  Our quarters consisted of nothing more than a large room with a roll-up mattress laid on the floor, but it was clean and comfortable, and we had a stunning view of the rice fields that blanketed the valley floor outside our window.

The house where we stayed:

The view from our window:

Also, the family that hosted us was unbelievably welcoming.  We couldn’t believe our good fortune to be sitting atop cushions on the floor in their living space, eating a homemade feast that they spent hours preparing for us.  Spring rolls, slices of pork prepared in a wok, various plates of cooked vegetables.  It was simple, yet this is not the type of village where you pick up groceries at the supermarket for dinner – i.e., everything was outrageously fresh, and really tasty. 

We ate dinner and drank homemade rice liquor that, we thought, tasted a lot like sake.  It was served in little shot glasses.  Before drinking, we raised our glasses and jubilantly said chups-a-hoi [sp] to wish each other good health, per the local custom.  Binh taught us that one.

The next morning was beautiful.  After saying good-bye and thank you to our hosts, we jumped on our bikes and motored through the village and the rice paddies where the local Thai were already hard at work in the basin of the valley.  There were women in conical hats dotting the fields, mountains surrounding us from every side, and complete quiet other than the sound of our motorbikes.  Beautiful.

Binh had asked us, the night before, whether we wanted to take another difficult road that morning.  He told us that the difficult road was nothing more than gravel and dirt, unless it was wet, in which case, it would be mud.  He said it would be very bumpy and much more difficult to navigate than the road we took the day before.  Since this sounded way more fun than a paved highway, we said we would do it.

We encountered the turn off for our route about an hour after leaving Mai Chau.  In the lower reaches of the mountain, the road was gritty, rocky and rough.  We weaved in and around the dips and bumps of the road.  When Aman downshifted, I could hear birds singing, but nothing else.  We stopped in small villages that consisted of nothing more than 10 or 15 houses, out in the middle of nowhere.  In between villages, we passed groups of little children walking down the side of the road who screamed HELLO!! as they waved and smiled.  We laughed and waved back.  We didn’t see another tourist all day.  Only locals. 

Lumberjack:

We spent the entire morning climbing up the mountain, which was very steep at times.  As we got higher up in elevation, it got cloudier, the air became more saturated, and the road got unbelievably muddy.  Binh kept a close eye on us.  He would tell us later how impressed he was with how well Aman handled the bike; it slipped every now and again, but we didn’t fall, get stuck or break down once. 

We finally emerged from the mud road at a very high altitude and, literally, in a cloud, which we watched blowing across the road off the slope of the mountainside.  After stopping for lunch in a local restaurant similar to the one we ate in the day before, we continued on, through cascading terraces of rice fields and rolling hills of green tea plants, towards the Black River.  Not all of the mountains that we passed were green – a lot, in fact, had barren brown sides, waiting for the next season to be sown.

Contrasting landscapes:

Reaching the edge of the Black River, we took an interesting-looking ferry to the other side and started heading up the neighboring mountain to Bac Yen, where we would spend our second night.  Along the way, we passed tribeswomen dressed in traditional, colorful clothing walking from the mountains where they worked all day.  Many of them had baskets strapped to their backs full of chopped wood.  Every now and then, we would stop for a little bit to hang out on the side of the road and soak it in.  We were invariably on some deserted stretch of road at a high elevation.  The air was fresh and it smelled like pine.

Bac Yen, once we reached it, was unfortunately nothing spectacular.  In fact, it was probably the lowlight of our motorcycle tour.  We stayed in one of only two hotels in town – if that gives you any sense of how remote our location was and the relative size of Bac Yen.  The place was what Jim Rogers would call, a five-flea hotel, and it would be an understatement to say that we were incredibly grateful to have our Cocoon TravelSheets® that night.  These awesome sheets were farewell gifts from a group of awesome friends before we left New York – thanks guys, you saved us.

We drove out of Bac Yen the next morning, descending through the mountains and heading further north towards Son La, where we would have lunch.  Spectacular landscapes all around us, we snaked along the road, a series of s-curves and hairpin turns.  Livestock running around everywhere.  As we approached Son La, we saw women on either side of the road harvesting maize.  We stopped in Son La briefly to eat and also, to visit a former French prison.

Back on the road, we were heading towards Tuan Giao, where we stayed our third night.  The ride continued to be amazingly bucolic.

Pulling into Tuan Giao, we encountered the busy main center of town.  For a small town, there was a fair amount of activity in the late afternoon.  And, heads turned as Aman and I pulled in on our 250cc monster!  We were over 500 kilometers from where we started by now, and the length of time that people stared in our direction seemed to have a directly proportionate relationship with our distance from Hanoi.  The further we went, the more they stared in curiosity.  This was totally fine.  We were staring in fascination too, as the further we drove, the more colorful the tribal women were dressed, and the more elaborate were the cylindrical turbans that they wore on their heads.

We followed Binh to our hotel, which – hold on – looked frighteningly like the one we had stayed in the night before…  After inspecting the room, we told Binh that we’d like to check out some other options.  We tried the place next door, which was no better than the first.  But one of the friendly employees told Binh to take us to the place across the street, which was apparently the most popular one in town for Westerners.  It was a precious little family-run hotel with a pretty courtyard and clean rooms, and a huge improvement over the place across the street.  Better still, one of the family members spoke…  English! 

After deciding to take the room, we sat down to relax after a long day on the bike.  We ordered two Bia Hanoi, and not long thereafter, we were asked what we wanted to eat for dinner.  We chose from a menu of items (a rarity), and then watched from our terrace as one of the women downstairs walked to a garden across the alley from our hotel and start picking vegetables for our dinner.  Outstanding!

Dinner was amazing.  In addition to the food, we were served homemade corn wine (it didn’t taste that much different than the rice wine we tried two nights earlier).  Aman and I impressed our host with our knowledge of chups-a-hoi, and learned a new local custom – after saying chups-a-hoi, you shake your fellow drinking mates’ hands as a sign of respect.  Many handshakes later, the owner invited downstairs to the hotel's karaoke lounge.  I innocently explained that I had never done karaoke before (crazy, right?), but I would go along strictly to observe.  I had no interest in singing karaoke, but I couldn’t stay behind when (a) Binh was proclaiming to be a Vietnamese Sinatra, and (b) Aman was betting him that he (Aman) could sing better.

The karaoke room was quite nice with new equipment, a wide selection of cheesy American ballads from the 80s/90s, and a comfortable sitting area.  To his credit, Binh was pretty darn good.  And maybe, since there was no one in there when we arrived, I even joined in to sing an off-key duo with Aman.  After a few songs though, about seven Vietnamese guys piled in the room.  The owner explained that these guys had a reservation.  They didn’t mind sharing the room with us, as long as we didn’t mind sharing the room with them.  Of course not!  The night only got more hilarious from there.  The Vietnamese guys (none of whom spoke English) were good-natured kids who smiled a lot as they cheered on our performance.  We cheered them on in return and, in between all the cheering, we squeezed in a chups-a-hoi.  Of course, when Aman and I reached out to shake hands with them, they went wild and we had to chups-a-hoi all over again.  Ridiculous.  This scene repeated itself several times throughout the night.

Of course, the next morning, Aman woke up singing (to no one in particular) Groovy Kind of Love by Phil Collins, as he packed.  By the time we had a bowl of pho for breakfast and hit the road, the both of us were belting out Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You by George Benson, into the empty mountaintops.  It was just one of those special moments.

That morning’s ride was a tough one.  The road that twisted along the side of the steep mountain disappeared and turned to dirt in spots, usually right as we went around a tight corner.  But, after a few hours, we were motoring down a better road, at a lower elevation, that wrapped around a huge lake.  After lunch, we started climbing (again) another mountain.  This one was covered in rubber plants, as far as the eye could see. 

We ended the day in Sin Ho, a remote yet scenic village that sits high in the mountaintops.  The road into town was completely unpaved, despite obvious signs of active construction efforts.  We slipped and slid around ditches created by the oversized tires of heavy trucks, and made muddy by the climate.  It was an exhausting day of riding, and the kilometers (about 700, at this point) were starting to wear on us.  After a quiet dinner, we made it an early night.

We woke up the next morning excited, because our destination that day was SAPA!  Originally established as a French hill station, Sapa is arguably the biggest tourist destination in the northwest due its spectacular views and magnificent surroundings of mountains and cascading rice terraces.  And, while we had been thoroughly enjoying our time off the beaten path (we hadn’t seen another tourist since Mai Chau), we were ready for a change of pace for the night.

The ride that morning was easily one of the best legs of the trip.  At one point, I remember looking at the perfectly, puffy green treetops on the mountainside next to us, and thinking that they looked as though Bob Ross himself had painted them.

Sapa sits at 1,700 meters above sea level and, although it was not the clearest of days, it was still amazing to be winding around the dirt/gravel mountaintop roads, which we had mostly to ourselves, at such a high altitude.  Sapa is home to many different hill tribes, most notably, the H’mong and Red Dzao people.  And, as we made our way into town, we saw so many different tribeswomen – more than any other previous day on the road.  Their cultural dress varies according to tribe, and within each tribe, their group.  For example, we saw these women at a primitive roadside “market” on the way to Sapa.

Flower H’mong Woman:

Black H’mong Woman:

 

And, here is the butcher:

Once we got to Sapa, it was time to unwind and explore.  Aman and I spent some time that afternoon visiting Cat Cat, which is a tiny village about 2 kilometers outside of Sapa inhabited by the H’mong people.  It’s a little touristy, with plenty of shops full of clothes and crafts for sale.  But, if you can politely ignore the pushy shopkeepers, there is a great hike where you share a (steep, endless) staircase down the side of a mountain with local women carrying brush and firewood in the baskets on their backs.  And, the kids from the village are quite entertaining as they play and run around.

We also spent that afternoon saying goodbye to our awesome guide Binh.  Due to scheduling issues, Binh was taking a train back to Hanoi, so he could get a few days rest before starting another long tour.  Before leaving, Binh introduced us to his colleague and our new guide, Tan, who had taken the train from Hanoi to meet us in Sapa.

 

Me, Aman, and Binh:

After spending some time getting to know Tan, Aman and I went out for the night.  We found an excellent pizza place (Delta Restaurant), which gave us a much-needed break from the awesome but starting-to-get-repetitive routine of spring rolls, fried pork and assorted vegetables that we had been eating for four and a half days.  We also found a fairly cool bar (H’mong Sisters), which was packed with an interesting mix of locals and tourists.

Waking the next morning, I looked out the hotel window and saw nothing but white.  It was a cloud, as opposed to the very distinct view of the mountains that we had the day before from our window.  This wasn’t good, we thought.  We walked outside and felt a light rain.  Even worse.  It was the first morning of our motorcycle trip that we needed to pull out the rain gear that we brought.  As we drove out of town, it was impossible to leave the visors of our helmets down (because they didn’t have windshield wipers) or up (because the air was so cold on our bare faces).  We pulled out the little facemasks that we bought before leaving Hanoi – the ones that the locals wear to keep the pollution off of their faces and out of their lungs.  Now, we were really starting to blend in.

From Sapa, it was a quick descend down the twisting wet road.  We rode carefully and, thankfully, the weather improved though it would stay misty all day.  Given how close we were to the Vietnam-China border, we stopped for tea that morning in a nearby town called Lao Cal, which sits on the border. 

Fascinated as were by the narrow river that divides the two countries and serves as a natural border, we did not stay long in Lao Cal.  There was a very long drive in front of us that day – 230 kilometers to the next village, Vu Linh, where we would stay our last night before heading back to Hanoi. 

Lao Cal is a pretty big town, and the roads leading to and away from it were paved and pretty good.  But after about an hour, the road narrowed and got worse.  Still, we passed through beautiful villages, limestone mountains, and rice and palm fields.  We also passed by a stretch of brick factories. 

We spent the afternoon driving around Thac Ba Lake, which is pretty massive.  We were coming from the north, and Vu Linh sits on the eastern shore.  For most of the way, the road was lined on either side with sheets and sheets of timber that had been cut and were now air-drying.  The timber would be cut into smaller pieces and mashed together to form plywood that would eventually be exported to China, Tan told us. 

 

We made it to Vu Linh by late afternoon.  Vu Linh is an incredibly tiny village (i.e., you will not find it on a map) inhabited by the White Trouser Dzao people.  It was our last night on the road, and we were spending it in another homestay.  Based on our first homestay experience in Mai Chau, Aman and I were pretty excited about it.  We expected that certain aspects of it would be similar to our prior experience, but at the same time, Vu Linh and Mai Chau are two very different places inhabited by two very different tribes of people.

We entered the village through a very narrow dirt road that twisted and turned between the traditional houses, which were all built on stilts.  The family with whom we would be staying – such nice people, greeted us underneath the house.  They showed us upstairs to the large room where everyone slept on roll-up mattresses in curtained off sections.  Aman and I unloaded our stuff, and then went outside to check out our new surroundings.  There, we encountered the grandmother of the family who was working quietly in the garden.  She had on a traditional blouse that tied around her neck with metal hooks.  And, her lips were stained red from eating beetle nuts, which the Trouser Dzao people see as a sign of beauty. 

We passed the evening on the floor of the great room eating dinner with our hosts and a group of Belgian tourists who were staying at the house next door.  The food was again amazing – crispy spring rolls (you find them everywhere, but they are never made identically the same), plates of fresh vegetables, tiny little fish from the lake, chicken and mushrooms, and of course, pork (pork is perhaps the most popular meat in northern Vietnam, at least from what we could tell).

Me and Tan:

Unsurprisingly, the family broke out some homemade rice wine that we shared over dinner.  They introduced us to their local custom of saying – not chups-a-hoi – but bozo!! as a toast to our good health.  Following the toast, we would shake hands and say homie do!! (thank you) to those with whom we drank. 

Before getting on our bikes the next morning, Tan took us for a walk to check out the lake.  It was remarkably silent all around us.  We hardly saw a soul, except for some children from the village playing on the side of the dirt road. 

The lake itself was blanketed in a morning mist, and serenely quiet.

We took a short cut back to the house through the family’s rice fields, which sat adjacent to the house.  And, after saying thank you and goodbye to our kind hosts, we were back on our bikes for the final leg of our journey.

The house where we stayed:

Our host:

The ride back to Hanoi was a relative easy one that, at times, followed an elevated dirt road.  Rice fields and duck farms sat to one side below us, as we drove past grazing cows. 

When we got closer to Hanoi, we took another elevated dirt road that ran alongside a small lake.  We passed more grazing cows, as well as local women running a busy open market on the side of the road.  Traffic gradually started to increase all around us and, by the time we reached the city limits of Hanoi, the roads were packed.  We maneuvered around the larger vehicles along with all of the other two-wheelers on the street and, not long thereafter, we were back on Luong Ngoc Quyen, the familiar street where Voyage Vietnam is located.  We were back.

It felt great to be back in Hanoi after an amazing week.  In all, we traveled almost 1,300 kilometers up and down some pretty difficult roads.  You wont find a lot of them on a map, but they’re there and they will bring you to some of the most amazing places that you will ever see.