Hoa Binh to Mai Chau

Sat 30/11/13, 72km

Earlish start albeit then slowed by coffee and breakfast and I was on the road. Nice and sunny to start with, almost immediately the road started to climb, which set the time for much of the day as did encountering hoards of young Vietnamese mostly in couples out in what looked like little gangs on their scooters. Hypothesising about this and having been told that Mai Chau is a local tourist spot I began to be a little concerned they were heading to the same place I was leaving no rooms at the inn. After watching them for a while I noticed they had little sigils on them, day glo rectangles or triangles on their helmets and mudguards. One group had small red flags a-fluttering from their handlebars.

I got to speak to some after a bit and they are little bands our on their scooters, off to Moc Chau as it's apparently regarded as an ideal season for some of the foliage, so not quite a mods and rockers scooter run then. This mollified my accommodation worries and allowed me to appreciate the beautiful scenery more because it was stunning, as scenery tends to be when you're on an almost constant 5 to 10% climb. The ride was punctuated by my scooter driving friends who enjoyed waving at the mad white guy on the bike and insisted, when I stopped at times to admire the view, on taking photos of and with me.

Eventually I crested a summit and lost most of the 1000 meters I'd climbed. I think most cycle tourers would agree that going downhill is not something one relishes as it means you have to make every bloody meter back again. Still, stunning view on the way!

When I finally got into town it transpired that not all those scooters were headed further on as the first four guesthouses I tried were full. The fifth though had room which was a relief. I'm just hoping all those folks will be heading back to Hanoi tomorrow, otherwise I may have the same plight then. We shall see.

And who else should turn up at the guesthouse but my recumbent riding French friends Stefan and Manu! We went out for food to a place that had offered me a special veggie feast! Egg soup, spring rolls, rice and mashed potatoes. Er... Yeah, that's special all right, just not in a good way.

Random photos below.

Hanoi to Hoa Binh

Fri 29/11/13, 82km

On reflection only one set of footwear (to whit a pair of cycling sandals) isn't really enough so before setting off today I went out to get something to wear when not on the bike, although at first it looked like this might be difficult when the first merchant just cracked up when I told him the size of shoe I was looking for.

Once that was seen to I was ready to set off, or so I thought. Being stuck on a six way highway for 10km soon left me feeling less ready however once I managed to leave it I was feeling good again. Some absolutely stunningly beautiful countryside today, although I had to join highway (Highway 6) again and I will be following it for a while. However out here it's less horrific... So far...

Bumped into a French couple on a recumbent tandem as I neared journeys end and we've ended up in the same guest house swapping tales over beer and food this evening. They've been on the road for six months now.

Anyway, should be heading generally northwards and eastwards now, towards Son La, possibly Sa Pa then double back to Dien Bien Phu and across into Laos. 

Haiphong to Hanoi

Thurs 28/11/13, 115km

Ended up with a late start, pushing nine, before I got properly underway. However as this was a return journey it was a known quantity so much easier. Not much to tell on this, the highway wasn't quite so bad when it wasn't raining but it was still pretty shite.

When I got back to Hanoi I checked back into my old hotel, the Art Trendy, went out, grabbed some food and hit the sack. Interesting to see the Christmas decorations in sale in Hanoi although salient to remember they have a significant Christian community thanks to the French years.

Cat Ba to Haiphong

Wed 27/11/13, 50km

The weather forecast cast for the day was rainy so I was pleased by a dry start to the day. Original plan was get the 10AM ferry however on closer questioning it transpired that this left from from Phu Long and went via Cat Hai, a small island on the way to the mainland. Still, although I had to catch a later ferry at 1PM it allowed me to cycle across the island for one last time. Also proved to be a damn site cheaper at only 14000 dong (as opposed to 150000).

Unfortunately by the time I got to the mainland it was raining which combined with a lot of dirt on the road led to an inch or two of slurry on the road... Dammit, wish I'd left those mudguards on! The road back into Haiphong went passed miles of active docks. Not pleasant cycling in the rain although I did manage to pick up a rain cape when I got into the city.

Stopped at a different hotel (forget the name but address was 20b Minh Khai) which for $20 was great, particularly given the amount of muddy water I was shedding.

Cat Ba

Sun 24/11/13 to Tues 26/11/13, 48 easy km around the island

Spent a few days on Cat Ba touristing. Went round the island by bike, took a boat trip to Halong Bay, saw what sights there are, mostly war related it seems, and generally chilled in nice weather.

I also took a good long hard look at the weather forecasts for the North of Vietnam and in particular the North East and decided to approach Laos more directly than I'd planned, so I'm going to backtrack on myself and head back to Hanoi.

Haiphoung to Cat Ba

Sun 24/11/13, 55km

Was in bed for over nine hours, must have needed it! After a quick breakfast I loaded up the bike, checked out and headed for the ferry "terminal" (OK, food stall and ticket office round the corner from a tiny jetty). As I arrived a lady jumped up from the food stall and tried to sell me two tickets, one for myself and one for the bike. Forewarned on the internet that a lot of petty scams go on at this office I declined, parked my bike and proceeded to queue in the local style (i.e. I elbowed my way to the front) and got the
single ticket I needed.

By now the sun was making it's first appearance of the trip and welcome it was too. The ferry put in at Phu Long 45 minutes later leaving me a leisurely 25km cycle to Cat Ba town where I found a hotel, dropped my bags and set off exploring on the bike! Very taken with the island, scenic and virtually traffic free.

In Hanoi

After the stress of getting gong on this trip and in order to let myself acclimatise I'd booked four days in a nice little boutique hotel in the old quarter. On reflection this may have been a little too long... I mean, Hanoi has a lot of character and a few things to do but it also has more scooters than residents, or so it seems, and bloody narrow streets.

Now, people have told me that Hanoi is like Saigon when it comes to crossing the road. Courage, cross slowly but steadily and they'll part around you as if by magic. Kind of works in Saigon but in Hanoi too many of them were busy texting to bother to look. Seriously.

Still, had a few nice days wandering around in the gloom (very very grey skies with occasional drizzle) but finally it was time for me to go and I was chomping at the bit! I'd got me maps (if you need them there are some OK bookshops selling road atlases on Trang Tien, south of the post office).

Photo should be of my reconstructed bike and one of the chaps from the hotel (shout out for Art Trendy Boutique Hotel, lovely crew working there, great breakfast to boot). I say "should be", photo upload is being a pain at the moment.

Getting to Hanoi

Alas, this is a rewrite of a lost post and as I'm playing catch up it's liable to be brief.

Boxing the bike proved to be "fun" particularly when I found one of the stem bolts was corroded in and stripped the head of it trying to remove it (go Bill). That'll have to be drilled out... Still all was done in the end and after many last minute panics and shenanigan's I was safely delivered to the airport in time for my flight.

The flight to Doha was, on the whole fine. We set off a little early and got to Doha ahead of schedule, only to be put in a holding pattern for over an hour: I warrant I'm something of an expert on Doha from the air by night now. I had an hour and a half for my connection however my neighbour and many others had less than an hour. Not sure what happened to them, I'm hoping they held their planes as mine seemed to be delayed 20 minutes to get us (and others) on board.

I snoozed pretty much all the way waking only to be fed and to admire waiting on the runway at Bangkok. At Hanoi it should've been a simple disembark, stamp in, collect bags and into waiting taxi of the driver holding my name on a card. Ah. That hurried connection? I waited around 50 minutes for my bags and was beginning to wonder if they'd managed to sprint as fast through Doha as I had. At this point I asked a person on the desk who told me one last load was to come and to wait ten minutes. On mentioning the connection she asked my name and on being told it was Mr Watson, William Watson said they'd had word my bags might not have made it... Nooo, they were too young to die! Oh. You mean delayed to the next flight?

And with perfect comic timing a bike in a box loomed behind her and two panniers came onto the conveyer belt. Nice to see the bike ran for it as well!

Hanoi to Haiphong

Sat 23/11/13     110km

Up early and with a forecast of rain. And me without a waterproof (seriously). Had a very large breakfast and was on the road shortly after 8AM.

Having got some reasonable maps and having asked around it looked like my best bet was to cross the Red River at Long Bien as this is foot and bike traffic only, then shadow Highway Five along roads running along the railway track. Long Bien bridge is a box girder affair constructed by the French between 1899 and 1903 as a railway bridge. Apparently it played quite a key role logistically during the American War being repeatedly bombed to little long term affect. Getting to the bridge was OK, with the traffic not being too insane and the day I've cat but not raining.

After the bridge finding my roads wasn't too difficult (offline Google Maps and GPS helped) and I cycled merrily away starting in an industrial zone which gradually became progressively more rural, albeit with artisan brick factories studding the landscape at first. As it got steadily more rural so the number of people saying "Hello!" went up... when I went past a school with the kids on parade in the playground I was half expecting a literal explosion to take place. The road gradually narrowed and then became a dirt track. Delightful though this was I diverted onto a main road at the next small town and continued on until Hai Duong. Originally this had been my "bail out" point if I was having problems as it was about half way and contains a decent selection of hotels. However, as the cycling was going well I decided to press on.

Unfortunately at this point it became apparent I was going to have to at least a brief stretch on Highway Five. Now, points in it's favour are there's a hard shoulder for scooters and bicycles, and the drivers on it are used to two wheeled traffic. Points against are there a lot of really LARGE fast trucks, sometimes the hard shoulder is blocked so one has to swing out into the main traffic and on this occasion it was starting to chuck it down. When smoke started to drift across the road from rice stubble being burnt (how they kept it going in that weather is a mystery) I just stopped the bike and laughed. Seriously? Heavy traffic, rain and now smoke?! Luckily it was a scant couple of kilometres from here I found a turning that dropped me back on country roads. Soon after the rain eased and I was happy again...

Haiphong was OK, found a hotel without any problems although it was nothing to write home about (blogs don't count). Having said that I met another cyclist who'd come down from Hanoi, albeit following the Highway all the way. Thank goodness for maps is all I'll say, didn't envy him one bit.

Today's photo is from a coffee break.

Here we go again...

Been a while coming, however tomorrow I should be boarding a flight to Hanoi after which I'll have four and a half months of meandering around South East Asia by bicycle before flying out of Kuala Lumpur at the start of April. Circumstance has left me temporarily mortgage free and with an unpaid sabbatical from work so time to carpe that diem. The original plan was to cycle Cairo to Cape Town however recent events in Egypt have put me off that idea, so a few gentle months in Asia beckon instead.

I'm a bit ambivalent about restarting the blog. The first time I went travelling was backpacking in Africa in 1990/ 1991 and part of the romance of travel lay in the only contact with home being a six week turnaround in letters being picked up from post restantes in far flung cities: "If you're writing to me in April, address it to Post Restante in Kampala, I should pick it up in June". Travelling then was far more of a intensely personal thing, nowadays it's easy too pick up ones email on a daily basis and that isn't really getting away in my books. I was in Asia last winter and my travelling companion was on Facebook every day... I mean, really?! You're in Angkor Wat and you're glued to instant updates? Seriously?

However, all that being said, I will blog away and probably occasionally Facebook to boot. The world has moved on and continues to shrink. And some folks genuinely want to know what I'm up to as well, so the old blog is reborn. Stick with me on this, it could be fun.