I wake up and notice my stuff is the level of damp that is usually attributed to something spilling. I climb down from my bunk, which I guess is closer to the height of a volleyball net than a normal bunk bed, and grab my bag. Damp, as well. I walk outside and notice the morning dew has covered everything in water, so the doors must have been open the room and let the water in. A necessity in the quick stopover type travel required for our time limited motorbike trip through Vietnam is that anything wet be dry before we leave for the next city, so this doesn’t help. I shrug it off as beyong my control and head outside for breakfast.

Back to Being Tourists

For the most part, the maximize the use of our time by shooting from place to place in a city to try to see as much as we can. In Trang An (the area of Ninh Binh where the cool stuff is), we find five or six suggested things and estimate we can do about three of them before we run out of sunlight. We start with a popular boat ride through some caves.

The problem with doing very touristy things lies in their objective. The experience needs to be simple enough that anyone can do it, so it essentially amounts to being herded through an experience for however long they decide it should take. That is not ideal for maximizing the use of your time. We are given a choice of four routes, two of which contain a filming area for the movie Kong: Skull Island, but we choose the route with the most caves.

We hop in a boat with two British girls and a small Vietnamese woman rows us down the river. Normally, Ryan and I do not hesitate to do physical labor, but we are far past doing labor when we have paid tourist prices for things. We soak in the view of the limestone karsts as we head into caves. Each passage through the caves requires precise navigation from our guide and usually reminds me how grateful I am that yoga has made me flexible enough to fully fold forward as rocks narily miss me. As we weave in and out of caves, we stop off at small temples.

The downside of the ease provided by the touristy activities is that we are stuck in the boat long after we have fully taken in the views. We have no option to speed the trip up. Nevertheless, after we finish, we thank our guide and speed off to Bai Dinh Pagoda.

We arrive to the gate that Google has marked as Bai Dinh Pagoda and it is closed, but we see some nice views and decide to stop off to take some cool shots of our bikes. Afterwards, we roam around until we find a parking lot. Everywhere in Vietnam, you have to pay to park. The place to park is a decent walk from where we want to actually be. A short walk takes us to a ticket office where they offer to give us a ride in an electric car through the pagoda or to go down a road and just walk it. They say it is about three kilometers, so we opt to walk.

The initial walk is through a gauntlet of little shops selling the same stuff as you walk all the way down. We walk up a long, gradual slope until we reach the Bai Dinh Pagoda and grab some pictures. Honestly, we thought this was the only attraction in the complex until we looked over and saw a giant Budda statue over on the hill. We walked up some stairs and saw some signs for other things. We continued moving from attraction to attraction until we reached the area with signs that the electric car could drive us back. It was about a dollar to not have to walk the three kilometers back, and it went through a perimeter road that let us see some other things, including a beautiful garden area they had made around the perimeter. Just a bit more tourism and we could call it quits.

The next ride took us back past our homestay to a mountain called Hung Mua. After some touristy shops and restaurants, there is a set of stairs leading up to two viewpoints, one with a pretty cool dragon on top. The steps were all uneven and there were more than a few of them, but a little quad burning never killed anyone. As we reach the top, we see people in full wedding attire up there taking pictures. Kudos for not sweating through that stuff. As we reach the top, we see plenty of people have climbed up to the dragon. It doesn’t look particularly safe, but I climb up to get a view of the sunset. Other tourists are trying to push past each other near the dragon, where there is about enough room for one person on either side and a straight drop down if something happens. We head back down the mountain and go home.

I acknowledge that we have a timeline for the trip and want to see as much as we can, so I sit down with dinner to map out our desired route and figure out things like driving time and distance between cities. With this information, I figure out what days we should be arriving in each city, when we will need oil changes and how many days we can stay in each city. This takes significantly longer than I had planned and I realize our next day of driving will be about ten hours to our next destination, our longest day of riding. So to sleep I go.

Jumping in the Deep End

Our first big day of riding being the longest day was not particularly ideal. The route I had mapped was a scenic one that kept us off of the highway (QL1) because that’s boring and pretty dangerous with how wild the trucks are. About two hours in we stop to check out a UNESCO world heritage site and then continue through. A few more hours of riding and we stop for lunch. We get some delicious fried rice Vietnamese style and see some signs for “Happy Full Month” with what looks like a birthday cake. A Vietnamese man at the table tells us the party is for him and offers us some beer. We drink with the group before heading back onto the road. A few more hours of riding and we hit some beautiful mountains but it’s starting to get a bit dark.

We have about an hour left, so we decide to power through. We stop for gas and it gets darker faster than we anticipated. We continue and everything turns to black, the headlights don’t do too much. As we continue through the mountains, it starts to get colder. So now we can’t see and we are shivering. Going faster makes us colder, so we are torn at what speed to move at. Nearing one of the many sharp turns, I see a dark figure move from the left and realize it is a cow running into the road. I slam on my brakes and swerve around the cow at the last second. We go a little further before I motion Ryan to stop. The cold and darkness has significantly decreased our speed, so our estimated arrival is getting later and later. As we decided to find a hotel, a light turned on and a dog ran out of a house towards us. As we took off, I looked behind me to see the dog just barely missing the back of my bike.

We hadn’t seen any civilization in about thirty minutes, so the hope of a hotel felt slim. About two hundred feet after the decision was made, we see the sign for a hotel. We pull in, the owner locks up our bikes and offers us dinner. We put all of our stuff in the room while he prepares dinner. I head out of the room to get food and the owner is sitting with another man. The man reaches for a handshake and as I reach out my hand, the owner is typing into Google Translate. Out of his phone comes “This is a Vietnamese Police Officer”. Welp, this is the end of our journey, I guess. Technically, it is a little less than legal for us to be riding bikes through the country since it is close to impossible for a non Vietnamese citizen to get the necessary license. The owner then informed me that the officer was her to fill out temporary residence information, something we have to do everywhere, but never with an officer before.

We fill out the papers and are led inside for dinner. The owner pours us shots of alcohol and we take two as a group, including the officer, so we can check that off the bucket list. We eat the traditional meal of rice, morning glory, pork and tofu while the owner’s wife puts us on Facebook live. Enough of that and we finally get to sleep.

Time With Locals

We finish the ride to Phong Nha in the morning and arrive at the hostel just in time for the morning information speech. The hostel employee runs through pretty much everything to do in the area. We had already decided to check out some of the caves while we got oil changes because some of the best caves in the world are located in that area. It was going to be a pretty pricey day but the hostel offered a group trip to some of the less expensive caves for even cheaper, so we did that. The first cave was a boat ride through and then a walk out an impressive cave. We had sat on boats and seen smaller caves in Trang An, so although more impressive, it felt like more of the same.

For the second cave, we hiked up about four hundred steps. Catwalks led us through the cavern in a setting that looked like it was ripped out of Gears of War. We made our way back to town and grabbed our bikes from the shop and got lunch. The girls in our room had mentioned going to something called the Duck Stop so we decided to head there.

Google led us to a bumpy dirt road and we found the dirt road. The first sign as you enter reads “Donald Trump’s Office”. We parked our bikes and an eleven year old Vietnamese boy told us to sit down. He cracked open some peanuts, grabbed a few pepper pellets and a red powder and put it into my hand. Delicious. He handed us a menu and told us to pick an option. The available options were one free drink, one traditional vietnamese pancake, a garden tour with a view, a duck massage and riding a water buffalo through the rice fields. The choice was to do all of them, or to do everything except the water buffalo. For about two dollars difference, we chose the water buffalo.

The boy led us through the garden, explaining what everything was while we tried to guess at what vegetables he was trying to say when his impressive level of English happened to fail him. After that, he gave us some oddly feminine shoes and a straw hat and sent us into an area called “Duck Heaven”.

We entered and were greeted by at least twenty ducks. The man in the area had each of us stick out our hand with food in it and lower down to the ducks. As the ducks ferociously slammed their beaks into your hand, it created somewhat of a massage. Then he had us do a few more tricks before having us hide food under our feet while squeezing them together. The ducks again smashed their beaks towards the food creating an intense massage. As a finale, the owner showed us how to hold the ducks and got a cool slow motion video of us tossing them into some water. Now to meet our main man, Donald.

Donald Trump is a water buffalo who lives on the farm and does very little work. He worked on other farms for years before coming to the Duck Stop. I was a bit worried about riding him, after all we had learned about riding elephants, but as I hopped on and felt the amount of muscle, I realized he was unphased by me. I rode him through a bit of water and then did a little photoshoot with him before hopping off.

We looked for our original Vietnamese friend to say goodbye and were told he was at the viewpoint, which he didn’t take us to. So another Vietnamese boy, about eight, took us to the viewpoint to say goodbye. The younger boy was much more playful, so we raced up the hill and joked around as we got up to the viewpoint. He asked for my phone to take a picture, and as soon as I handed it to him, he found a game and started playing. Impressed, I taught him how to play the game. On the way down, Ryan offered him a piggyback ride, but he opted for my back instead. A quick farewell to our new friends and we were off.

We hopped in the pool at our hostel and searched around for food. The hostel had a pretty decent looking burger, so I chose that and we grabbed some drinks while making friends. It has been interesting throughout our trip that every country we have gone to, we see patterns of people from the same countries. Thailand was Dutch, German and Russian. So far Vietnam has been mostly Americans and British. While we ate and drink, our table slowly filled up with British people until it was the only accent you cold hear. After a bit, we decided to get some sleep for our ride the next day.

Adaptability

Our ride to Hue was to take about nine hours, plus we wanted to stop at the Vinh Moc tunnels, which would add about an hour and require some highway driving. After some research and finagling, I managed to find a route that took us through the beautiful Phong Nha area for a bit before shooting us down the coast to Vinh Moc and then further to Hue with minimal highway time.

The Vinh Moc tunnels were an amazing experience. Essentially an entire village lived in and out of the tunnels for about six years while Americans dropped seven hundred tons of bombs. Again, these sites are sort of an awkward situation to be American, but after learning our biased history of the war, it’s interesting to hear theirs. We have been saying it would be interesting to see what a non biased country teaches about the war. Regardless, the tunnel is made of clay, covers several kilometers and consists of three levels. The first level contained meetings and higher ups, it was only about ten meters deep. The second level was about seventeen meters deep and contained all of the living quarters, each of which consisted of less than a three square meter room for an entire family. Each level contained slides down to the next level in case of a bomb dropping, they could get deeper into the tunnels. The third level was used for storage and was over twenty meters deep. These numbers did not calm me.

Descending into the tunnels was quite the experience. Vietnamese people are a bit shorter than me, so the ceiling of most of the tunnels was about five foot six inches, Crouching required. The bigger rooms were of a height that Ryan and I could both stand comfortably, but the through tunnels definitely left some clay marks on my shoulders. About an hour of being led through the tunnels by an English speaking guide and hearing about the not so nice things America did and we were headed back down the coast.

A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted

We arrived in Hue and checked out the city. For the long rides through Vietnam, we see no other white people and get to see the real culture. Every city that we are suggested to stop in is filled with westerners brought in by the buses. Most of these people will likely never see the real Vietnamese culture. Hue reminds me of what it would look like if you just told someone what tourists like and they tried to recreate those ideas without ever seeing them. It works though, it was filled to the brim with tourists. We spent the first night checking out the city and making a plan for hitting the tourist spots the next day.

I woke up early and Ryan wanted to sleep, so I decided to hit some of the spots alone. My bike wouldn’t start, so I decided to kickstart it. Kickstarting wasn’t working. It was already hot, so I was already sweating. Vietnamese people are helpful, which is great most of the time, but some of the time, they are a bit pushy with their help and the language barrier limits a polite way to ask them to stop. The front desk girl at the hostel came out and proceeded to blast me with questions about the bike that I had already checked. She grabbed the ignition and repeatedly tried to start it, which sounded like it was just making things worse. I finally managed to get her to walk away and another man walked over, looked at my bike and immediately started it. I said thank you and he turned it off, then it refused to start for either of us. He offered to take me to a mechanic.

Frustrated and sweaty, I agree. He pushes my bike into the street, rides alongside it and tells me to get on. He then puts his foot on the bike and then pushes my dead bike through insane traffic with just his foot. A wild experience I won’t soon forget. He takes me to a mechanic and they diagnose a few problems. He tells me an exorbitant price, but at this point, I’m so frustrated with the bike that I just agree to pay it. They tell me it will take an hour. I come back in an hour, mind much clearer, and realize that I wildly overpaid. I ask for the man who spoke to me about the repairs, they say he is not there. I decide to just come back.

I ride about ten minutes, the bike sputters and dies in the street. Again in the sun, my bike will not start. I take it to another mechanic,and thanks to Google Translate, we diagnose a problem that will take a few hours to fix. Frustration increases as our plan to leave the city that day come to an end and I hop on Ryan’s bike to check out the tourist sites.

We ride to an abandoned waterpark and reminisce about Geauga Lake. A three story dragon that used to house an aquarium is now filled with broken glass and graffiti. We snap some pictures and see some more of the park before headng off.

We both decided we don’t want to spend money to walk through more temples so we skip some. We head to the pagoda dedicated to Thich Quang Duc who self immolated himself in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam. The pagoda is beautiful and contains the car he drive to Saigon, which can be seen in the famous picture of his immolation. We depart to grab some roadside lunch and have the locals laugh at our attempts at Vietnamese.

A quick stop to the Purple Forbidden City, which we decide to just drive around since we don’t really want to pay to see more tourist stuff. As we are leaving, we see an entire area filled with American military vehicles obtained during the Vietnam war. We stop to look through all of them and notice all of the signs refer to America as “US Imperialists”, awkward. Enough tourism, time to head home.

We head to a local coffee shop to grab some egg coffee, a Vietnamese treat which whips an egg into coffee. The first sips is a frothy, sweet custard and both of us quickly exclaim our joy at a coffee we both like. As I get about halfway through, I taste a sharp bitterness. Most things in Vietnam are brought to you in a visually pleasing way and then require you to mix them. The coffee was no difference. I had already consumed most of the sweet part, so I mixed the remainder and then suffered through the extreme bitterness of Vietnamese coffee. Lesson learned, time to go get my bike.

We head back to the shop, I pay even more money and grab my bike. It seems to be working, so I ride back to the original shop to get some money back for the lack of repair. As I have a back and forth with the two remaining guys at the shop, Google Translate fails us. A nearby Vietnamese man walks by and talks to the mechanics. Then he informs me that the original man that I dealt with had nothing to do with the shop, took all of that money he said the repairs cost and then paid the mechanic what they said the repairs cost. In all my travels, the first time I have been scammed. I am not happy, but the consequence is low when the buying power of the US dollar is so high here, so I take it as an expensive lesson.

Top Gear Style

The ride to Da Nang contains the Hai Van Pass, made famous by Top Gear as one of the best coastal roads in the world. We whip around sharp turns up the mountain, overlooking the ocean on all sides. We arrive at the top and find buses of tourits. We find a road that goes to an even higher vantage point. My usual downfall kicks in and I get overzealous about how well my bike has been working. We begin going up the steep incline and my bike is chugging along before coming to a complete stop and refusing to start again. We leave my bike and Ryan’s takes us both up the hill.

The view is nice but it is just higher, not worth killing my bike. I make it back to the bike and ride it straight down the hill with no engine. I sit there and try to kickstart it before another traveller comes over and says he is a mechanic. He walks up and just starts the bike. I tell him he’s not the first person to do this and he runs me through a checklist of things that usually fix a bike not starting and then we take off down the hill to Da Nang.

ExPat Heaven

We get into Da Nang and hit Rom Casa, a two building shipping container hostel, complete with shipping container pool. As we explore around Da Nang, we find it is a city size similar to Cleveland. Ex Pats find it as a good mix of culture and metropolis, so there are quite a few. We grab out ball and hit the beach. We pepper in the extreme wind and finally get some touches in for the first time in weeks. The sand here is nice and volleyball is more fun than tourism.

For dinner, we hit up a place called Pizza 4p’s, which looks very upscale. A japanese restaurant that makes pizzas with such precision that we sit at the bar and watch them make pizzas for almost two hours. Although it looks extremely fancy, three pizzas and a pot of tea cost us about twenty American dollars. A short ride from the pizza place we hit the dragon bridge, a beautiful center of the city. The bridge supports make a giant dragon that changes color every few minutes and on weekends and holidays, it shoots fire and water. We find a volleyball group and agree to play at 7am.

We go and play some volleyball, which isn’t the best we have played on the trip but it is better than nothing. After playing, we find a row of burger places and hit the highest rated one. Easily one of the best burgers I have had on the trip, but I am still hungry, so we hit the cheapest of the burger places and I grab another good one. Da Nang caters nicely to the western taste buds.

Ryan heads to a vegetarian restaurant while I make some friends at the hostel bar. One of the guys I meet is another American, and after a bit of conversation I found out that he had been traveling with one of the guys we had been hanging out with on Koh Phangan and had been in contact with to set things up for when we return at the end of the month. The world is oddly small.

I invite him to come with me to try some Mi Quang noodles, a local specialty. We eat and discuss similar career interests before the other people we met invite us to a live music bar. A half Colombian half Israeli duo plays covers on a guitar and saxophone while we hang out with the local ExPats. Getting away from the tourism is pretty relaxing.

The following day we will head to Hoi An, back into the tourism, and then further South.