As we were driving in to Dong Van for our first stop for the night, we found ourselves up against the clock. The sun was setting and we definitely did not want to be driving at night, so we were going as fast as possible on these mountain roads while still driving safely. Unfortunately, as the sun was descending the temperature was as well. This was the only time over the course of the whole bike trip that I was cold, but very cold I was, especially my hands which were uncovered and frozen to the handlebars. I remember counting each kilometer since we were about 30 away because I was so chilled.
At this point it was only Lee and I as everyone got separated and we even took a wrong turn that set us back about 10k, so we were now playing catch-up (or so we thought). But, about 6k outside of Dong Van I went to put my bike into gear after cruising in neutral down a massive decline for about 3k and my bike only revved and did not pull forward any. I slowly glided off to the side of the road to pull over and examine the problem and immediately noticed my chain had fallen off. Not broken, but had just come off of the hinges. I remembered hearing a funny sound a while back when putting my bike into neutral and now knew what it was. Lee pulled over and we attempted to act like we knew how to put the chain back on, but we didn't. Lee mainly just got his hands dirty from the oily chain and in about 3 minutes we surrendered and called Johnny, the man we rented the bikes from. Now we were losing against the clock and would not be getting in to Dong Van in the daylight.
Not a bad place to be pulled over, but notice the sun is setting, also Lee's dirty hands after trying to fix the chain.
Luckily we were so close to a city so Johnny had someone out to us in about 15 minutes. However, while we were waiting, we were passed by all of our friends, save Tamir who ended up being the only one in front of us when we thought we were last the whole time. Evidently, everyone made a wrong turn on this run and we were actually in second place, but now due to bike maintenance, last. We told each group of them the problem when they stopped and then encouraged them to move on into the city before it got dark and that we were okay and would be there later.
It was now pitch dark by the time the mechanic arrived and he was still able to fix it in about five minutes, the whole time without saying a word to us. When he was finished, he just called Johnny and handed me the phone. Johnny told me the bike was fine now, but he would come over again to my hotel to look at it in the morning. I said okay and Lee and I were off to make the treacherous drive in the dark down a mountain into Dong Van. This was terrifying because I knew a lot of these roads did not have guard rails and the roads were not lit up at all besides our own headlights and all of the other headlights that were coming at us and blinding us for a tremendously suspenseful second or two. The road insisted on snaking down in huge "S" curves from one side to the next. I was also still cold. I could only think of warm showers and a beer, which were both waiting for me in my not so distant future.
Upon reaching our hotel, after what ended up being the scariest 10k of the whole trip, we happily parked our bikes for the night and checked in. I wasn't able to get my hot shower that I wanted as everyone was waiting for us to eat and was starving, so right away we headed to dinner. We found a place that had mediocre food (I mostly ate eggs and some pork with rice) and ended up drinking a ton of rice wine with some Vietnamese men.
If you don't know rice wine is the local liquor in Vietnam and most of it is home-made stuff that is put into empty water bottles and/or empty gas containers. (The water bottles did at some point have water in them, but I believe the gas containers were never used as a vessel for gasoline, but this is only speculation.) The stuff tastes horrible enough that the first time I thought I was tasting the remains of petrol, but now that I have had many types of it, I have learned that that is just what it tastes like. Rice wine is more or less disgusting and makes everyone pull the ugliest I-just-took-a-shot-face I have ever seen. Despite it's heinous taste, the Vietnamese love it and it is very, very cheap, so if you are drinking rice wine it means you will be having at least 5 shots. No one gets away with just one. Drinking rice wine with the Vietnamese is a commitment that I am not always ready for.
However, being on a bike trip calls for rice wine each night with dinner if not more after and when twenty Vietnamese men came walking in to the restaurant with "cans of gas" we knew what was going to commence. And so the shots began. First with everyone, then with just the men, then with just the women, then couple shots and this goes on and on with each shot being followed up by a handshake, which is tradition in Vietnam.
This was how each evening of this bike trip went: lots of pork and rice and eggs and at least one bottle of rice wine a night. By the end of the trip I was burnt out on oily Vietnamese food because out in the country Western food is not an option and the endless stream of steamed rice became more and more monotonous each meal no matter what the side dish.
Day two we were told was the best run of the whole trip, which was from Dong Van to Meo Vac. However, Tamir, Lee and I wanted to take a side trip up to the Northern most point of Vietnam where you can look into China. The others wanted to get to Meo Vac early in order to see a market that was there, so our group split up unknowingly at the time that it would be for the rest of the trip.
The drive up to the border was absolutely stunning with huge karsts rising up sharply from valleys. We were mostly driving really high up for the first half and then the second half the road slowly descended so that we were driving down in the valleys with the mountains looming ominously above us.
When we got to the lookout point we had no idea which direction was China and kept asking, but no one seemed to know really. Eventually someone said, "Over that hill," and that was enough for us. There was a massive Vietnamese flag (that you can see pictured) to mark their territory, but no real border or fence or anything was able to be seen. But whatever, I believed in my heart it was China.
By the way the person who took this picture, in order to get us and the flag both in it had to literally lay out on the ground (face to the cement), which she did without hesitation. We did not suggest she do that, but then another Vietnamese man decided she didn't go it good enough and sure enough he laid right on down as well and finally got what he believed was the best picture, which is pretty good.
On our way back to Dong Van to do the pass to Meo Vac, Lee and I got separated from Tamir. We kept stopping to take photos and could no longer see him in front of us. We decided he would probably wait in Dong Van, but when we drove through the city we couldn't spot him or his bike. After we tried calling him a couple times we just assumed he went on through to Meo Vac and also set off on our way. About 18k in I got a phone call from him telling me he had come off his bike a while back due to some gravel and a false sense of confidence and had also taken a wrong turn. He was okay, but was getting his bike looked at in Dong Van and sounded a bit shook up on the phone. Lee and I pulled over for a bit to decide if we should go back or wait or what and here is where we happened to stop.
After calling Tamir back he said he could meet us in Meo Vac as he was not hurt and it was only about 30K so he would be there soon enough and didn't want to make us backtrack. Lee and I got back on the road again to turn the corner to the biggest valley yet and the reason why this pass has such the reputation. We were driving on a road that was way high up, stuck to the side of a series of mountains and we could see it snaking on around them for miles in front of us. On our left however, was a huge gorge with a river at the bottom that was crystal clear and a very vibrant blue even from so high up. We found a little look-out building and pulled over to snap some shots. Here is where I peed in one of the coolest toilets ever. You are at first in a tiny, nasty Vietnamese bathroom, but when you open the door and come out you are on the side of a cliff that drops straight down save the wall. A nice greeting after the smelly john.
Once into Meo Vac, Lee and I found a bia hoi and ate various types of meat on sticks and waited for Tamir. Once he arrived, we booked a hotel and had a night of drinking rice wine and playing cards.
The next day the three of us drove from Meo Vac to Bao Lac and that was the end of our travels with Tamir. He separated off and went to meet our other friends who were visiting a waterfall, while Lee and I had a day and a half to make it back to Ha Giang (plenty of time), so we just stayed in this town for the rest of the night. Our little hotel overlooked a bright blue almost teal river and we decided that we would take an afternoon drive together on one bike, which could be fun.
It was finally hot and really sunny, which it hadn't been the last two days. We crossed a bridge and decided to follow the road that went alongside the river. It eventually started heading up and ascended a very large mountain to some great views, which made us so happy with our random choice of road, and it only kept getting better and better the longer we followed it.
We noticed that there was barely any traffic and the poeple we passed seemed quite surprised to see us foreigners driving along, so we quickly figured out that we were off the beaten path and were doubting if this road was going to lead us anywhere. What we really wanted was a nice little restaurant to maybe have a snack and a beer before going back down the same way we had come up, which would be way nicer than just deciding to turn around at a random point. However, the further we took this road the more unlikely it seemed that we would find such a place.
The whole time we kept going up, up and up getting higher and higher by huge swooping 'S' turns, but eventually the road started to get bad (lots of potholes, rocks, gravel) and we started to think that maybe the road would just end. But, the desire for a beer motivated us forward. We kept going until we turned one small corner and we were suddenly nauseatingly high and a huge valley opened up below us. We stopped and stood in awe debating if this was the highest we had been all trip or if the river valley put us higher - it was a close call. It was definitely more dangerous because the road was worse and there were no guard rails, but it also felt like it was undiscovered so therefore the better road - Robert Frost would agree.
We decided to take the road just a little further and we drove in between two peaks to suddenly be very low again or at the bottom of the mountains instantly without driving down. We looked ahead to see what looked like the end of the road as it just hit a wall and that was it, but upon driving closer we realized the road went straight up the side of a mountain in very steep "S" curves. We were amazed that this road even existed, but sure enough when looking carefully we could see a bike here and there on the 12-turn path that led one straight to the top via cliff-face.
This is a zig-zag road up the mountain.
Notice the no guard rail sign.
We obviously decided to do it and started the challenge on Lee's 175 cc bike with the both of us on it. Lee had to keep it in first gear the entire ride up and with each turn we became noticeably higher and within four turns our confidence had sky-rocketed so that we now believed we were going to make it up this treacherous path when originally there was much doubt. But wait, what were all these bell sounds we kept hearing? We realized that all around us were mountain goats grazing away each with a bell around their neck, which added for an interesting atmosphere.
After about 12 or so gruesome 180+ degree turns we finally reached the summit and lo' and behold we saw a tiny shack with a tiny window and a tiny Vietnamese man in it who was selling beer. We were beside ourselves! We couldn't believe it! This whole time nothing but rocks and plants and then finally at the top of this climb was this smiling little man. He was surprisingly just as happy to see us and even happier to learn that we spoke some Vietnamese. He may have never seen a foreigner in his life, who knows?! We asked if he had beer and he happily gave us one tall, warm bottle of Chinese beer. We took a couple pictures of the view and then helped ourselves to a large rock on his property to try out our earned gift amongst some chickens and buffalo. Despite the temperature, the beer was lovely. It had a very nice flavour which you don't often find in Vietnamese beer.
Lee and I sat and stared down into our newly discovered valley and shared the bottle. After that success, we turned around and made the drive back down the face of that mountain, back through the road with no guardrails and back down to the beginning of our secret road that went along the river. And after parking the bike for the night, back to the bia hoi for more meat sticks and beer!
