Only OK

I had been itching to get out of the city every since we’ve been living in the urban cacophony of Hanoi. It’s been four months now, and I finally got out into the countryside. But it wasn’t exactly a relaxing, or even easy, trip.

To see more photos of my trip, click here to visit my Flickr album or click on any of the photos in this post.

The Minsk motorbike Rochelle finally gets out in the countryside.

I’d been sort of owed a little trip on my own since I had watched the kids for ten days alone while Joanie was off working in Geneva. Joanie of course will be glad when I finally stop trying to get mileage out of those ten days (Fiona did have a virus, and we had to cancel our planned trip north to Sapa).

Anyway, whatever the reason, I headed west and south on my Minsk motorbike Rochelle to Mai Chau, in the mountains. I planned to spend about three to six nights, and get in some hiking.  The ride out of Hanoi was something from the eighth circle of hell–plenty of traffic, noise, and exhaust fumes. The Minsk is not meant for stop-and-go traffic and stalls out frequently if you don’t have enough speed. But I kept telling myself I’d be on the open road soon.

And then the bike wouldn’t go into gear. After assembling the usual crowd of Vietnamese men–all who profess to be experts in motorcylce repair, I pulled out my manual with a flourish and demonstrated that I was going to adjust the clutch.

It didn’t help.

So, I walked it to a mechanic, and he discovered the chain had come off. Half an hour and a couple bucks later I was on the road.

Soon enough the the traffic thinned out and the roads opened up. Then it was fields and ducks and conical hats–finally something besides Hanoi city life!

By late afternoon I was in the small city of  Hoa Binh and rather than stop I kept heading west. I knew that the ride to Mai Chau was another two hours and I wanted to arrive before nightfall. Soon, the scenery got even better, with limestone formations soaring up out from the rice fields where water buffalo grazed. Classic Vietnamese scenery.

Then the road began to climb. Rochelle held her own, and I had to downshift frequently, but her one cylinder and piston growled out enough torque to climb and climb. I was racing the sun as it slowly set in the sky. The road got even more mountainous–almost reminding me of the North Cascades highway back home with its grand swtichbacks cut into the mountainside.

I stopped to ask if I was on the right path to Mai Chau, and how much farther. I was, and it was perhaps another 20 kilometers. It was getting a bit darker and now the roads really started to climb. I sang and urged Rochelle onward, and at one point a Vietnamese man on a motorbike pulled alongside, smiling and said,  looking at my bike, “no good!” But he said Mai Chau wasn’t far.

I reached a pass and then the descent began. I tried the brakes tentatively (I’d had them checked before I left) and they worked great. Down, down down into a gorgeous valley. I reached a junction and asked for directions, and a man offered to show me a guest house in the village of Ban Lac. I followed him on his motorbike.

Rice paddies and mountains near Mai Chau.

Then, just as it was getting dark, the bike wouldn’t go into gear. The chain had come off again! I yelled to the guy in front, and after a few minutes he had a rope and was towing me into town. I laughed at how lucky I’d been to have the chain come off just five minutes from a mechanic instead of the high mountains!

He soon had the problem fixed and I arrived at a stilt house in Ban Lac village in the dark.

The guest house was fantastic–built of wood and on stilts (I’m not sure the tradition here, I imagine because this is rice paddy country and in heavy rains it likely floods here. My room had bamboo slat floors, mats, and mosquito net. Perfect! It was quiet here, and soon I was eating dinner.

The only other guests were a French family: Stephan, Ariane, and their eight-year-old daughter Mila. They were traveling with Thomas, a good friend of Stephan’s. We talked about traveling with children, and their lifestyle: they own a rafting company in the Alps of France and spend four months of the year traveling internationally. Ariane was home-schooling Mila, and after Vietnam they planned to go on to Laos and Cambodia.

I had a good night’s sleep, and the next morning, the valley around Mai Chau revealed itself. It was so quiet, and a fantastic sight. After a lazy breakfast, I went wandering. To walk! It’s a luxury in Hanoi, and here it was so peaceful. Ducks and water buffalo, and then up into a forest of bamboo. A slight breeze caused the huge poles of bamboo to creak and rustle. I found a pathway and it wound its way up and over a hill and down to another village of stilt houses and rice fields. After a bit of getting slightly lost, I found my way back to Ban Lac.

I drove my motorbike into Mai Chau and had them fix the chain. It really needed to be replaced, but the best they could do was pull a few links out. I figured that would have to do, and I vowed to replace it once I was back in Hanoi. Talking with Stephan (whose English is quite good) I found they were interested in doing a hike, as I was. So we spoke to our guesthouse hosts about arranging a guide to hike somewhere in the vicinity of Xa Linh village.

My bed for the night in a stilt house, Ben Lac village.

Since we had no reliable information (the distance to Xa Linh was described as anywhere from 18 to over 30 kilometers) we opted for the guide. The next morning we woke early and planned to take the public bus to Xa Linh and then walk back down toward Ban Lac. I was to act as a motorbike taxi, shuttling some of our party to the bus stop. After much stomping on the kickstart, the lever went clanking off onto the ground.

Merde!

But I soon had my toolkit open and got the lever back on. Then a bunch more fiddling and stomping and the bike fired up. Mila and her mom sat on the back. My career as a xe om driver had begun.

“Where am I going?” I said as everyone laughed heartily. I was always confused about travel details.

Soon enough, we were on the bus, winding our way up mountain roads through lush green forests hanging with vines. We arrived at a pass, and the village of Xa Linh. This was my first introduction to a Hmong tribe village (the village of Ban Lac is of the Thai tribe). There were people in the traditional Hmong dress: skirts with technicolor embroidery of yellow and red and blue. The people here were shorter than most Vietnamese and often with ruddy cheeks. I immediately began to think of my travels in Tibet–and that’s no coincidence since some of these hill tribes are distantly related to the people of Tibet.

We stopped for lunch in a soccer field and were on the road again. Our walking was on the road, which was a disappointment–but the scenery was terrific and it was just good to be out of doors and on two feet. By afternoon, we reached and overlook on an incredible valley. Far below a small maze of streets and tin-roofed houses and in the center of the valley a little green hump of a mountain. It was the Hmong village of Hang Kia.

Hmong kids and one of our hosts, Hang Kia village.

Vinh, our guide, led us on the descent to the village, surrounded by mountains on every side. It was cool, and foggy. The town was a dusty, gritty place. Children in colorful coats with dusty faces and runny noses called out “hallo!” Firewood was stacked high. Pigs and chickens and cows wandered the dirt roads. This was clearly not a place that was enfused with tourist dollars (unlike Ban Lac, which felt clean and very middle class). It wasn’t exactly grim, but it was definitely a real place where there wasn’t much money except for the bare essentials.

We arrived at our guest home for the night and were greeted by a smiling Hmong woman with a large mane of black hair. She wore the traditional skirt and a pink coat. There were a number of children milling about, including a group of four rascally boys. Thomas teased them and made faces at them, which they loved.

Our room was a simple bunk house of about a dozen beds with big fluffy comforters (again I was reminded of Tibet). The kitchen and dining room was a simple wooden room with a blazing fire at the center–no chimney, just smoke rising up through the rafters. A few pots, untensils, and knives hung on the wall. Low stools of wood (about four inches high) and a simple wood table not much higher would be our dining place.

Trekking the mountain roads of Vietnam.

We decide to go out for a walk. In town, we saw several young men on motorbikes with rifles slung over their shoulders (hopefully legitimately hunting and not poaching). We soon found a faint path up a hillside leading up from a cow pasture. Like Indiana Jones, we bushwhacked a bit through the forest, admiring the strange plants and vines we had no idea the names of. Eventually, after a few false starts, we found our way over the hillside and down the other side.

To a gravel plant. Not exactly wilderness, but at least is was providing a little work to this poor little town.

With a little more time before dinner, we went to the local pool hall. With bemused young men looking on, we played one game for nearly an hour (yes, we really are all that bad). It got dark and it was hard to see the deeply pitted balls and the ragged felt of the pool table. We hung up Thomas’ little flashlight and soon finished.

We ate a huge feast of chicken, duck, rou muong (stir fried greens), green beans, and tofu. Then Vinh brought out the ruou, a sweet rice liquor, and thimble-sized glasses. We did many rounds of toasts followed by “mot hai ba,” (one, two, three). We toasted Vietnam, France, America, and anything else we could think of.

Soon I was happily drunk. We told jokes among each other in our halting French and English, and had a very fun evening, keeping warm by the fire burning in the hearth.

I slept very well under my thick covers in warm fog from the of beer and ruou.

An amazing dinner cooked over the fire in the Hmong village of Hang Kia.

It had been a tiring day, and the voyage that brought me to Hang Kia was not easy. Thinking about it later, I realized the appeal of this kind of travel isn’t that it’s relaxing or easy (although it can be those things sometimes) but that it’s difficult. It’s of the appeal of the marathon, or reading Proust or a grueling hike. I could have bought a motorcycle that was newer and more reliable, or stayed in a nicer guest house or a more relaxing village–but it’s the difficulty, and then overcoming the obstacles, that is so fun.

Read about the second half of my trip here.