Top Gear Style Road Trip
I think most people have seen the Vietnam episode of Top Gear, one of their Christmas specials. The three troublemakers travel through Vietnam on motorbikes. Well it turns out that even the Vietnamese have seen it as some hostels offer "The Top Gear Experience". They rent you a 125cc motorbike, either an automatic (i.e. scooter) or semi-automatic (Honda Dream, etc) and meet you at your destination where you exchange the bike for your backpacks.
We had heard about this in Hanoi and thought it sounded great fun. A couple of fellow travellers had bought motorbikes to travel through Vietnam and they seemed to think the riding was not hard, only difficult bit were the cities. After quite a bit of sightseeing and museums, we were in the mood for an adventure!
A brief test ride around the block and we set off, first stop petrol station. As Vietnam is the land of the motorbike, the petrol station has no room for cars, just a row of pumps on the edge of the pavement. It was an amusing experience for the locals; two westerners approaching with caution, struggling to find the kickstand and then scratching heads whilst looking for the petrol tank! I think we may have been ripped off by the attendant but petrol is so cheap that it still wasn't much to fill up.
Getting out of town was pretty easy and we took highway 1 heading for Da Nang. The lady at the hostel had drawn the route on to a tourist map (which are clearly not intended to be used for road navigation), we were supposed to be visiting some locations visited in the Top Gear film but roadsigns are virtually non-existent in Vietnam so we missed most of them.
Prior to renting the motorbike we had already learnt the only two rules of the road. 1) right of way is determined by size of vehicle. All bikes, motorbikes and pedestrians must move out of the way of lorries, buses and the occasional car. Typically an oncoming bus will be thundering past a slower vehicle using your side of the road and will just expect everyone to move. I think a flash of the headlights means "I'm coming through no matter what". 2) blast your horn at every possible opportunity! Indicators, mirrors, even looking for traffic when joining a road are all redundant as all road users simply rely on the sound of horns to know if something is coming that they should avoid. If you think I'm exaggerating, I'm really not!
That being said, the roads are pretty wide and in the countryside relatively quiet. We only had one heart-in-the-mouth-moment when a bus came around a corner, horn blaring and drifting sideways down the road at a decent lick, I'm sure he had a broken axle or something but didn't seem to care.
After a few hours we reached the coast and found a reasonable beach lined with resorts, but the area was practically deserted. Our own fuel tanks were now empty so stopped for a bite and a cold drink.
To reach Da Nang, a major city not far from our destination of Hoi An, we needed to pass over a mountain range. We took the Huy Van Pass, which thankfully is empty of trucks and buses who use a new tunnel. We had some spectacular views and Nilgun managed to capture them using the video camera. Going up was fine but coming down the other side was a bit iffy as the brakes were as good as a chocolate teapot. With hindsight I should have asked for a different bike before leaving.
Once over the pass and down the other side the traffic started becoming progressively heavier. As we got into the centre of town it got pretty chaotic. Nilgun was navigating and on more than one occasion asked me to turn left (they drive on the right) and I couldn't see how it was possible. Roundabouts were fun. There is no logic, just go for it and pick a route whilst giving it large on the horn. I think the video below will give you a much better idea:
After leaving Da Nang it was plain sailing on to Hoi An. We took a 30 minute break on China Beach, famous for being an R&R spot for the American GIs during the Vietnam War. The place was packed with thousands of locals relaxing after a days work, we were the only westerners there! The light was fading so we had upped the pace for the last blast to Hoi An, reaching our rendez vous point just as night fell.
