The whole day was full of wet. I woke up around 6 am and heard it pouring on the roof, I lazied around hoping for it to stop but it didn’t change one bit. So around 0930 I finally made the decision the just do it.
From the moment I left water creeped into all my clothes. I had a plastic cover but the big holes for the mirrors and the intensity of the rain made sure it got into everything no matter what.
Concerning signBrown muddy river complemented the gorgeous green jungle.
I wanted to make it as close to the Laos border as possible but because of the rain I couldn’t drive nearly as fast and only made it about 2/3 of the way there. I stopped at a restaurant on the way where I got a coffee and relaxed for a moment. It seemed the only moment the rain stopped was when I was there enjoying my coffee, the only moment where it didn’t matter.
My guest. Threw his some bones and he thanked me profusely.
I went on and on and the rain got worse and worse. The water was warm and cleansing but after countless hours of flying through it on the motorbike I started to shake and get hypothermic.
Never seen more beautiful sights.Sometimes it just be like that.
There was a stretch of road though about 50 km long that winded around mountains and was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. Then in the low straight parts there would be villages with chickens, cows, dogs, goats and lots of farms. I just started to see some rice farms. Surely a place I wouldn’t mind retiring to.
Day 1! I got started around 9 am this morning after a little breakfast and alone time with Steff. We went downstairs to the bike just to see that the bike had leaked fuel out all over the ground again so I knew there was still some enormous issue with it. I bought this bike from some rando in Da Nang selling it for about $100.
So at 9 the first thing I did was drive to the mechanic. I had had a similar issue with a bike before where I could fix it by shooting some compressed air up the little drip thing from the carb. I have yet to really know if it is fixed or not. There is a shutoff switch so I will use that from now on. I started driving straight west as it seemed there was a border crossing there for me. By going straight west I would be going through gorgeous lush rain forest rather than passing through the beach cities that I have driven through countless times now.
Quick stop to eat a snack. This shows all my gear I carried.
It really only took about 20 minutes of driving west of Da Nang for the driving to seem pretty rural. As I journeyed further and further the roads steadily got narrower, there were more pot holes and tons more animals around the roads. Much of the drive followed a windy brown river that subsisted on the waterfalls that splashed their diamond clear water across the roads. The jungle was so lush it was bursting out into the road . The trees were tall and enveloped in vines. As I got further and further from Da Nang I could see more and more surprise on peoples faces as I passed. It was obvious that I was one of the veeeery few foreigners that had journeyed down that road. I should have seen that as a sure sign that at the end of that road would not be a border crossing, but I chose to ignore those thoughts on the way.
The brown river beautifully contrasted the green trees
About halfway to the border I stopped at a gas station where the attendant spoke pretty good english, I filled it with gas as an old lady walked by with a big sack of little round brown fruits. I had never tried them before so I ordered a sack that’s about 2 kilos for 85 cents. They are now one of my favorite fruits. When I passed kids that seemed in awe of how weird I looked to them I offered them some of these fruits and they were always excited to get some.
Little fruits. They were super sweet and sour on the inside.Traditional Vietnamese house.
Next to the gas station I stopped for lunch, ordered some Bahn Xeo and sat down. I stood up to plug in my phone and this man ran up to me and stood weirdly right next to me. There was another guy he was talking to and laughing with and I figured out pretty quickly that the one that ran up to me thought he was taller than me and ran up to me to prove it. His buddy who was a very silly small guy was laughing and making fun of him because he was still a good 4 inches shorter than me. I sat back down, ordered a beer, and 2 beers for those guys who already seemed to have had quite a few. They invited me over to eat with them so I did.
A little drunk..
They knew very little English and my Vietnamese is rough at best. I tried using google translator but the guys just couldn’t understand how to use it, so we just stumbled through some conversations about things. I finished lunch and headed for the border, another 2 hours of driving and I was there. It was such a magical place on the way there. All the people seemed so happy and the all smiled or yelled HELLO!! As I rode by them. Right at the border there was a lot of construction going on and I realized almost instantly I wasn’t going to get through. There was one guard and when I approached him he looked sad. He told me it was only a border for Laos and Vietnamese people so I had to drive another 10 hours out of the way to get to the international border. I was a little pissed but realized there was nothing I could do so I started driving back, It would waste about 5 hours of driving having not planned better, but that is the story of my life. It started getting dark and I started getting hit will little spurts of rain, nothing bad though. I found a local hotel where I am now. The family offered me dinner and I ate with them. The 7 year old son knows some English but no one else does. The dinner was great, their chili sauce was soooo f*cking good. When I asked for the recipe they said it’s just chili, garlic, and lemon but that’s hard to believe.
We spent day one driving our champion of a motorbike from Danang to a beach near Hue. I bought the motorcycle in Danang from another foreigner for 3 million Dong which is around $120 or so dollars. It’s semiautomatic and a goddamn champion. We bought it with 22,000km on it and she purrs like she was born yesterday.
Quick pit stop to eat!
Stuff – On our trip we are bringing a medium sized bag that holds 2 sleeping bags and tent, a medium sized bag that will hold all the clothes and food, and a backpack that will hold the computer, drone, and other electronics. We bought a rack that goes across the back and I strapped the back with the 2 medium bags with one of us sitting on the one holding the sleeping bags while wearing the back pack and the other driving with minimal space up front. The entire drive I was crouched over with my knees touching the front panel while my right ankle continually burned themselves on the extremely hot engine.
Baby cow
The trip from Da Nang to Hue passes “Hai Van Pass” which is considered a dangerous drive. To be honest there really isn’t any point that seems dangerous to me. Unless you lost your brakes on the way down the road is in great shape and none of the turns are that sharp. There’s also rails to keep you on the road for the parts with a steep drop off. And the views are absolutely spectacular.
We made it all the way to Hue where we found a beach that we thought would be a good spot to spend the night. We set up the tent right next to this restaurant that had a sweet old lady that let us park our motorcycle at the restaurant for the night. The waves lulled us to sleep very early(around 8pm) as we were already exhausted from riding. We were woken up almost instantly by children sprinting by our tent. They spent the night sprinting back and forth by our tent at what seemed to be very high speeds until around 2 am. Then there were crews of people that would drive up, pack sand in some bags and leave. When we finally woke from our slumber we ate some coco crunch, dragon fruit and started on our way to Phong Nha.
How to get a motorcycle in Vietnam – We bought our motorcycle(Honda Wave 110) using the facebook buy and sell page for Da Nang, the city we were in. Another way to get a bike is to walk down streets near hostels and look for bikes with for sale signs on them. A lot of travelers will be selling their bikes for very cheap. You can expect to pay 3-5 million dong minimum(about $120 to $200) for a pretty shitty motorcycle.
