Day 34 – Driving in Vietnam; the art of staying alive

So the last blog post was quite long, but there were still a few things I forgot to put in... Apologies again for writing a lot, but the rainy days and nights give us little to do, so I sit writing these things to alleviate boredom, then publish when I can get a connection :)

Firstly, I got myself a suit made in Hoi An! A brand new tailored shiny suit (my first ever!), made from cashmere wool in dark grey, fits like a charm – they made it in 7 hours, and I tried it on the very next day. Looks smashing. Getting it posted home. 30 quid! Bargin!

Secondly the computers we were using in our hotel were really bad, and infected with a virus that caused the machines to mess up enough that I lost all my media on my iPod (so now it's useless until I return home and update it again), and Lukas lost a few hours work resizing images and typing his blog. We managed to blow one of the machines up completely (something we seems to manage almost everywhere we go), and the rest made us so frustrated we almost threw them into the street. They're mostly around 8 years old, and the connection speeds slow here, so it can be a little painful and frustrating at times... How did we used to cope? ;)

The bikes were in need of fixing up a little again too. The hungry pony needed new rear brakes (I'd worn them down to the metal so they no longer worked without locking like a handbrake), Peter got his brakes done too and Lukas needed some wiring to make his headlights work. Once all this was done we felt safe enough to hit the road again.

Back to driving...

Now that we've covered nearly 2,500km since buying the bikes (including the everyday use and getting lost a lot, not just our journey-progress) I wanted to take this opportunity to write a little about the roads over here, and what an experience it is to drive on them.

You drive on the right over here. The first rule is size matters. The second rule is, there are no more rules...! The only kind of priority on the roads is one of scale: I'm bigger than you so get out of my way or I'll squash you. That's it. Everything else is just survival of the most aware. And considering how aware you need to be to stay alive, its amazing to see most divers not looking around them or using their mirrors.

The traffic on the roads consists of:
90% motorbikes (most of which are 100cc or smaller) and bicycles
5% HGV's, trucks, buses & coaches
4.5% assorted vans
0.5% cars
The roads are not limited to vechicles. You'll also encounter some people on foot, and every type of animal imaginable including chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, pigs, cows, and oxen.

Whizzing past cows freely roaming on the road


Families of goats often appear on the more mountainous roads


A bike very rarely has just one person on-board. Its much more common to see at least 2 people, and we've seen as many as 5 (a whole family!). Even when there's 2 people, the one at the back if often carrying something rediculously large, like a large plate glass window.

Family (of 4) on bikes


Some bikes are loaded with furniture, or have tens of ducks or chickens fastened (still alive and quacking/clucking) by their feet, likely destined for some market. We've seen bikes with at least 6 goats (hopefully dead) tied to them, doing 60kph down the motorway! Adn the other day a bike with 2 large pigs (still alive) strapped upside down to the back. You even see mothers with a new born baby cradled in one arm, driving the bike with the other. Push bikes are often used to move large amounts if materials around, and when the load gets too large to move under man power, just use a motorbike to push it along the street.

Man on bike with chickens


As you approach any junction you encounter you always need to be aware and slow down as with no priority given to traffic going in any particular direction, you get this cross-hatching effect where the bikes weave in and out of each other trying to avoid an impact. Any vehicle turning onto one road from another never stops to check if its clear... Instead, without even looking, the driver swerves onto to road, expecting drivers already in the flow of traffic to avoid them. If you are currently being overtaken by someone on your left this often gives you no choice but to slam on your brakes and hope to avoid a collision. Drivers crossing traffic don't stop either, they simply drive right at oncoming traffic (sometimes for hundreds of metres) until they see an opportunity to swerve onto the correct side of the road. There are traffic lights at a few major junctions in larger cities, but the red signal still doesn't stop a lot of people. There is this nifty countdown timer telling you how much time remains on the current colour, but nearly all use this as a way to skip the lights prematurely.

Indication when turning is not seen as a necessity and drivers often swerve wildly across traffic to make their turning. Seeing someone slow down is often all the indication you get. Most bikes don't have working indicators, some drive at night with no working lights, and nearly every bike has no juice in the battery - requiring the bike to be kick-started to get things going (including ours).

Cars, being larger, can do whatever they wish, and often block roads with maneuvers forcing all traffic to grind to a halt. You can even see coaches doing a three-point-turn on a motorway!

There are 3 main types of environment to drive in, the most manic of which are cities. The centre of any city is always really busy, and gets worse at rush hours. You're usually sharing your immediate personal space around the bike with 4/5 others. If you're brave enough to walk you usually find yourself relegated to the gutter as pavements are often coated in stuff from shops or more bikes parked up. They have zebra-crossings here with a sign and everything telling drivers to be aware of pedestrians, but pedestrians are smaller than bikes so the bikes just plough on through.

Average volume of traffic in Siagon at junction


Motorways are a real mixed bag. At times they can be flat, dull, and rammed with coaches and large slow moving trucks filled with some raw material. Often covered in dust, dirt or sand, you get filthy whether it's wet or dry. Other times the traffic clears, you have the roads to yourself and the drive and quality of scenery just blows you away (usually the highland roads). Wherever you are there's always random animals to avoid, wandering across the road without a care in the world. Sometimes entire herds are ushered down the road for kilometres by children with sticks, likely moving them from one grazing site to the next. Others just seem to be wondering freely. We saw a pretty horrific accident where a bus had just collided with a bull. The front of the bus was pretty smashed up and bits of it were scattered across the road. The poor bull looked paralysed, only able to move its head. Sat on the middle of the motorway with a petrified look of pain in its eyes, wanting to crawl away and die on its own somewhere. Instead waiting while crowds gathered, probably only a few minutes before someone came along to put it out of its misery. We were guided past with the rest of the traffic. Was pretty sad thing to see, but inevitable with the road conditions out here.

One example of some stunning scenery passed along the journey


The final type of roads consists of everything else; smaller roads outside cities that range from anything from a half decent tarmac road that comfortably fits a lane of traffic in both directions, to a mud path that is so wrecked you struggle to get out of first gear. These can be the most fun to drive along, but are always to slowest!

No road - just mud path


The road conditions I think I've mentioned before - they really are pretty bad, but steadily improving as we travel north. Avoiding potholes has become so commonplace, that I'm thinking of turning pro. Road works and giant sections of missing tarmac, that appear to have been extracted from the earth by UFO's, are just the way things are here - always in need of repair, and you just have to pay attention to where you're going more.

All in all, compared to the driving experiences we're used to at home - it's vastly different here. But somehow, despite all the additional dangers, and carelessness of the drivers on the roads - the people here make it work. There are more accidents yes, and we've seen the aftermath of many on our travels (mostly flipped trucks forced off the roads by buses overtaking other large vehicles at 100 around blind corners), but the cow is the only casualty we've witnessed. Cities you have to drive slower due to congestion, and although impacts are frequent they are at such low speeds that it's almost impossible to get hurt. As lawless and crazy as it seems to us, they make it work, and because of the additional dangers that exist here, in some respects, I'd say most drivers are better than back home. And apart from the bad weather, there hasn't been a second of the experience of driving here with our own bikes we haven't really enjoyed. I'm so glad we decided to see the country this way - it's made such a difference, and given us so much more freedom than if we'd simply used coaches to jump from A to B.

Continuing with our journey

So we made it to Hue with no problems, and our updated visual-journey plan, can be seen here.

It was another lovely journey (started off a little wet, but improved as we progressed) where we traveled north along the coast, past glorious looking beaches (well they would be if the sun was out), sleepy towns where everyone waves and shouts hi as you pass, and mountain ranges that lift you up into the clouds (it's cold in those things!). We had a lot of fun on this journey!

A friendly cloud stops by to say hello as we drive through it, ascending up into the mountains


Hue was a lovely place - really old city right in the centre of the country - near the DMZ (demilitarised zone) that split the country in two along the river Ben Hai. Unfortunately for us the weather didn't improve, it got worse. The rain continued to fall, and the sun didn't come out at all. It was pretty miserable - visibility was severely restricted due to the constant drizzle, and it severely impacted our sight-seeing and travel plans. Luckily for us there was plenty to do in walking distance, and the restaurants around our hotel were really nice, so we were well fed, and occupied enough for our 2 days there. While there we explored some ancient tombs of Emperors of old, and the large citadel in the city centre; surrounded by a 10m thick wall that encompasses the old-town, with an inner citadel that used to be the residence of an emperor about 200 years ago - ruins are all that remains now, some badly restored sections and buildings, and a tennis court? Both excursions were more examples of poor restoration and care-taking of the countries historical treasures. Pictures sucked a little due to the weather, but it was good to be out and doing things.

Inside the wet citadel - sprawling acres of ruins, temples, and dwellings of the Emperor


After a look at the weather forecast - it seemed a little bleak - temperatures were falling, and there was no end in sight to the never ending rain. We had to keep moving, we had a long distance to travel to reach Hanoi (the countries capital in the north), and so did some shopping to buy a couple of rain macks - well more like colourful capes that all the locals seemed to wear to protect themselves while driving in the rain. Proud of our new purchases, and convinced they'd help protect us from the elements, we rested in temperatures cold enough enough to see your own breath (this is inside our hotel room!), packed up and set sail again. As predicted it continued to rain pretty consistently, and our new waterproof attire seemed to be doing it's job - only the bottom of our legs were getting wet (these things are full-length on Vietnamese people, but just cover our knees) - a vast improvement!

After a few tens of kilometres, the toll of the pounding rain and strong winds started to show on our capes. They simple started to fall apart and the rain started to leak into the newly made tears... It was pretty funny really. Lukas's was clearly the worst. By the half-way point he looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a tiger - his cape was completely ripped to shreds. I was laughing for at least half an hour driving behind him as pieces tore off and flew past my head at 60kmph. Hilarious! Our optimistic target for the day was over 200km away, and the conditions after 3/4 hours started got worse, and really started to get us down, it quickly became unbearable again. We had no choice but to stop at a town called Dong Hoi - a small midway town where they're definitely not used to seeing tourists, and there was very little to do except wander the streets. We made the focus of our time there finding new waterproof capes - better ones! We also bought some gloves to protect our hands from the bitter winds, that weren't water proof at all, and died our hands purple. And after a sprint around the local market, we found what seemed to be much better jackets. A dinner, sleep and breakfast later, we were back on the road with our improved jackets. We stayed drier, and the jackets stayed in one piece - it made things a lot more bearable.

Lukas' rain mack after a frew hours of wind and rain - the back looked much worse! :)


Again we drove as long as long as we could bear in the rain, to the next stop-over, a place called Ha Tinh; again nothing to really do except check in, get a taxi to a mediocre restaurant, go to bed and prepare for more of the same as our journey would continue the next morning... After another soaking experience we made it to the next big city - Vinh. Updated visual journey progress.

Vinh was another town not used to tourists, and finding a hotel was as difficult as ever. Once settled, we sat down and decided that there simply was no way we could continue in this weather another day - we'd just had enough, it had beaten us. We needed a break, and we were in the middle of nowhere (this section of the country has little to offer travelers of any kind), with 2/3 days of driving (at bike pace) to reach our target destination of Hanoi. We decided we would try doing the bus thing again - stacking the bikes on the roof and pay to be taken the distance. So off to the bus station where we found a really helpful chap, who spoke English pretty well after spending some time in London with his friend who is a black-cab driver. We were able to make a deal to take us and the bikes to Hanoi, although this time they removed rows of seats from within the bus and put our motorised stallions inside - the bikes were much happier for it.

No snakes this time, but a similar deal - where the guy hung from the moving bus soliciting fares from the street until the bus was bursting. The driver was so mad, that you couldn't bring yourself to look out the windscreen - it was just too terrifying. You just had to close your eyes and thin of something else.On-board we met a handful of Australian travelers this time who we shared the back seats with. Two friendly girls who had just arrived from Laos, at the back-end of their travels finishing in Vietnam before returning home, and one guy called Jeff, who had been cycling (yes you heard it - cycling) from Barcelona, back home to Oz!!! He has crossed Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia, again just arriving from Loas, he was hitching a ride with his bike to the north of Vietnam (again to avoid the weather), before traveling it's whole length from north to south. He'd clocked up 18,000km since April when he left, and he has more than 6 months before he's thinking of returning home. He carries a tent with him and camps wherever he wants en-route, only using cities to sleep when he needs a break. I couldn't quite decide if he was an inspiration, or just crazy, either way he seemed like a nice chap, and made the bus journey pass quicker. He sure had some tales to tell! :)

And so we arrived in Hanoi. Updated visual journey progress. We're here for a good few days now - getting clothes washed, eating some good food, doing some sites, and waiting for the Chinese/lunar new year celebrations that are in about 3 days time - should be good!

Poor old Lukas got bitten about 5 days ago in Hue in the night, and it had swelled up quite large. It didn't go away and got bigger and bigger, until yesterday his entire arm was swollen to about 1.5 times it's usual size, and the epicentre was starting to ooze some pretty horrible liquids... A bit worried we took him to the hospital this morning to get checked out. Fortunately he'd improved overnight thanks to the antibiotics Peter had bought with him, but it still needed looking at as he pulled a centimetre square lump of solid puss from it this morning (YUK!!!), which left a rather sizable hole in his arm that needed properly cleaning and sealing. So that what's we did at the hospital, where we were told he had a soft-tissue infection, and he was given a pile of new antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory tablets to take for the next week.

Lukas and his gamy arm - eeeeewwwwww :S


He all good - not to worry. We're all just glad he's on the mend. Ahead of us we have a trip to Halong bay which is supposed to be stunning, but we need better weather really. And we've some tough decisions to make regarding the bikes - do we sell up at this point and continue by bus, or can we find a way to get the paperwork needed to cross the boarder into Laos to continue the journey how we'd prefer - at our own pace, on the back on my Lady Pony, with the boys in my mirrors tearing along mountain roads (well I'm usually at the back - I drive too fast apparently). Tune in next time to find out! TTFN.


And yes Bazza – they really do eat that shit! And worse!