HANOI TO HUE
We made our way to the Bus Station in Hanoi, my first ever trip on a motorbike would be in all places but Vietnam!! It’ll come to no surprise to hear that I crashed within about 10minutes. I was looking at my phone for directions and the guy in front of me broke.
HE WANTED HALF A MILLION DONG!
I don’t know if any of you have driven a motorbike before but you can do it with just one hand. So I was straight into the back of him and broke both of our lights. He couldn’t speak a word of english and tbh he was probably saying the same about my Vietnamese. But he took out his wallet and showed me 500,000 Dong indicating thats what it will take for the matter to be dealt with. I wasn’t going to argue! Not long after I was involved in another accident into a brand new moped. This time I changed tac and blamed the fella for going too fast. He has one look at his bike, looked up at me and then drove off,
WHERE IS HUE?
Hue
THE NIGHT BUS
Got the night bus which was a new experience for Phil and managed to get the back seats. Was a good idea until we realised the toilet was there. Anyway, us and the bikes made it to Hue but Phil wasn’t happy with something on his so he had some random look at it. I’m not sure he had a choice as before we knew it we had the bike out of the bus and had opened it up! but the guy took liberty and Phil let him see mine as well, which there was nothing wrong with!
FAKE MECHANIC
I don’t know what he done but when it got back it wasn’t the same, the starter stopped working so I had to kick start it from there. He did fix the front light from my crash but the front brakes were obviously not important. Took a visit to the citadel but apart from that there wasn’t much. Beginning the think not having my bag with me is a good thing as Phil had to carry both of his bags around the citadel or leave them on the bike! Again my bag didn’t arrive but they have said it will be in Hanoi by 17:30. They have gave me the flight number so fingers crossed.
LOCAL FAMILY
Cracking weather. We were never going to make it to Hoi An before dark and also wanted to see the Hai Van Pass (mountain road) during the day so we decided to find a guesthouse and what a night we had with some locals! We must’ve been the only people staying there but the food was amazing. Every 5 minutes we had another can of beer and ate ourselves into a coma with about 10 courses!
FIRST BALUT EXPERIENCE
We went to watch the Liverpool game and then coming back to the guesthouse there were about 10 people outside the guesthouse eating and drinking with the owner. They had family from Texas who came back home for a few weeks to visit and invited us to join for some Balut (chicken embryo), oysters and beer. The duck embryo was just like boiled egg but you could see the chick was formed and the oysters, well I just don’t like oysters but they were huge. We didn’t have to pay for anything, not even the 12beer we had. It really set the tone for Vietnam, the locals are so friendly and considering what they have had to go through they always have a smile on their face and are very welcoming to any tourists westerners.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The people in Vietnam are proving to be a class above anything I have ever seen, long may it last!
NEXT UP
Taking the Hoi An Pass made famous by Top Gear a few years back, meant to be one of the most incredible stretches of road. Then we are down to Hoi An where I have a hilarious episode with my missing luggage, you will want to check it out!. Click to read.
SAFE TRAVELS, DS x
27/229
This post is part of the Vietnam Series, click to explore
