This post is entitled “We’re going to jail!” and is chiefly about why motorcycles are a dangerous form of personal transportation.
Simon, Scott, Gavin, Johnny - English
Me - Everything, basically, and therefore “American”
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The weather for the next few days in Hoi An was looking grim, but we decided that we couldn’t wait any longer and would head out very early in the morning in order to get a few hours of travel in clear skies. We were heading for Dalat, and expected to make the ~300km drive in two days. We made it about an hour away before Adam’s (the Canadian) bike broke down. I got out the tow rope and pulled it to the nearest village. They threw on a new carb and we grabbed lunch, and it began to rain very hard. We waited for a lull in the rain and continued down the road - there were several choices, the classic Ho Chi Minh Highway, which is long and out of the way but well paved, Highway 1, which is absolute shit and packed with trucks, and a third mysterious road that Google told us was quicker and shorter. We picked option number three, which was labeled as 676 on Google, but every road sign said QL40, and does not appear on any maps I’ve since seen either way. After a while the rain picked up and Simon’s (English) bike decided that it would not drive in the rain. At all. We stopped for a few hours at a random cafe and sat waiting for it to stop. It didn’t.
When things slowed down sufficiently enough to attempt to carry on, we did, and it was all around terrible. We decided to put in at the nearest town and hope for better tomorrow. The only hotel we could find was a beatup looking motel with holes in the walls for windows and those sliding-piece-of-metal bathroom locks for the doors, curiously located on both the inside and outside. After a cursory inspection of my room I inquired whether the other rooms also came furnished with several wasps nests. When they replied in the negative, I took the initiative and moved my things into the next room over. As the sun set several million four-winged flies came out and valiantly hurled themselves to death against any available light fixture. Nobody slept well, and it rained so hard on the tin roof that I was seriously concerned that the building would collapse.
In the morning we were unable to leave the room, as somebody had locked the previously mentioned bolts on the outside of the door. We shouted for a while until somebody let us out. A Vietnamese guy with the room in between us all was also trapped, and with his only English phrase called for help, shouting “What’s your name!” until we came over and opened the door. The entire walkway was covered in dead flies. The rain had stopped.
We got the hell out of there.
Several hours down the road we were well in the middle of nowhere amongst some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen. We also had no idea where we were, and realized after the road markers disappeared that we’d probably made a wrong turn. We went back and asked a mechanic which way to Dalat, and he pointed down a harrowing looking creek crossing which was mostly mud. We made it across that, then turned left to continue up the mountain. The road disappeared entirely, and became a massive wash of deep mud. My bike got stuck and tipped over, I jumped off, picked it up, pushed it back to the center, and kept going. We struggled uphill through the mud aways, everybody stalling their bikes, bumping into eachother, getting stuck, sliding and tipping over (the brakes don’t work at all when you’re driving in mud) and generally limping along, until we reached the top, where it began pissing rain. At some point I was standing at the side of the road with my bike on top of my foot, and I couldn’t bend over to pick it up because of the odd angle in which I was trapped, and nobody else could really help because they were unable to stop. We made progress. On the downhill the rain got worse, we turned off the engines and shuffled and slipped around in neutral, heading down. I don’t think any of us have ever been more miserable, and as we had no idea how far it went, we thought we’d probably end up sleeping in the mud for the night.
After several hours of this, we came around a corner and spotted road, and everyone shouted incoherent joy for about a minute solid. After consulting a local, we had about 70km of actual paved road to Kontum, our intended half-way point for the whole journey, and we were ecstatic. Our only casualties were four flip flops, a pair of shoes, three cellphones, a kindle, several wing mirrors, a chain guard, and a headlight to various combinations of water and kinetic damage.
The road turned back up hill, and Johnny’s (English) bike decided it didn’t like the rarefied air of what we later found to be Vietnam’s highest road, and it stalled repeatedly. Johnny’s bike is a piece of shit by the way. The first time it stalled was directly in front of me, and I lost one of my turn signals to his rear tire. The road was under construction but still passable, and that turned out to be the case on and off for the rest of the drive. It was beautiful all around, and we stopped a few times to take pictures. Also a few times because Johnny’s bike is a piece of shit. On a particularly fast downhill right after a mountain top village, his chain snapped altogether. I got out the tow rope and pulled him back to the top of the mountain, where the mechanic was not in, but they gave me his tools because with some combination of the longest riding experience, the possession of the tow rope/useful tools, and my good looks and derring-do I somehow became group dad and even the Vietnamese could tell.
I was unable to fix the chain though because it was missing a link. I asked if they had one, and in the time they were looking for it, the mechanic came back. He fixed the bike and adjusted both our brakes and wouldn’t accept any payment. Classic Vietnam! Really the best people! We continued on our way and made it to Kontum after a series of insane high speed mountain-ridge roads with drops on either side. At some point Simon struck and killed a snake and I may have hit a chicken but didn’t have time to check. There’s a lot of things jumping straight at your bike in Vietnam [important foreshadowing] - most often you get cows wandering around, but fairly predictably so you can go around them (and they only occasionally charge), and dogs who run out into the street and stare you down, daring you to choose which way to go around them, and then darting in that direction JUST barely avoiding getting struck. Dogs are assholes.
Kontum was cool and we stayed in a regular place that was quite nice, and at some point we decided to go to a nearby shop for snacks, where we somehow ended up in the owner’s minivan being dropped off miles away at a Vietnamese supermarket. The supermarket was underwhelming but we met a cool 12 year old who spoke *really* good English and called a taxi for us. Neat!
After Kontum we were ready to get a good day of driving in and get to Dalat. Johnny’s bike brown down every 15 minutes or so and we took it to a series of mechanics and wasted a lot of time. He was getting mad and wanted to just sell it to the next guy who would buy it and take the bus from then on. We convinced him to stay, but it was continuously a problem. After limping along for a while, he got it fixed enough (with some glue this time) that we could move quickly again, if the roads would allow it. Half the time the roads were beautiful brand new and 4-8 lanes wide, and half the time it was straight unpacked gravel several inches deep, which is absolute hell for a motorbike as it’s incredibly unstable, so you can’t go much more than walking speed with your feet down on either side in case it suddenly tips. Some people tipped, but not me!
After a while we’d made decent, but not good enough progress. We all felt like shit but had no choice but to carry on, since we were in the middle of nothing. We’re cruising along at maybe 30-40kmh, and suddenly in front of me Scott (English) swerves hard and goes flying over the handlebars like Superman. His bag, shoes, and various other shit is all over the road and there’s trucks trying really hard to run it over, so we stop quickly and go grab it.
And then there’s the kid laying next to the bike.
This is exactly the shit that everybody warns you about.
We run over and check to see what’s going on. Scott’s a bit bloody in the hands and the elbow, and the bike is bent oddly and definitely not driveable. The kid is sitting up and holding his leg, crying. He’s sitting up, and conscious, which means he’s probably not *that* badly hurt. A large crowd of 50-60 people appears out of nowhere and surrounds the whole scene. We move the kid to the side of the road and some women come over with bandages and start working on Scott. An old man shouts angrily for a while then picks the kid up and whisks him off, presumably to a hospital. We’re left surrounded by a large crowd, composed roughly equally of angry threatening looking old men with large wrenches and other tools, and young kids. Mostly everyone is standing around confused and chatting. Someone has taken the keys to Scott’s bike to prevent him from leaving (not that you could anyway). Several people attempt to communicate through Google translate, which doesn’t work very well, but we get the message that we are not to leave and that the police are on the way.
After about an hour the police show up and begin to take statements. They refuse to speak with Scott or any of us, and only talk to the old Vietnamese men, none of whom actually witnessed the accident. They all give sworn witness statements. Eventually a woman turns up who speaks English, she’s the English teacher at the local school. She believes our story, and wants to help (the truth was, Scott was driving down the road and the kid was maybe 2 meters away, facing the other direction. He turned around and ran into the road without looking, and directly in front of the bike, which was far to close to avoid a collision). The police take Scott’s bike and lay it down where one of the old men indicated it had gone down, then started measuring things and taking pictures, supposedly for some sort of forensics, I don’t know.
An impound truck comes and the old men gleefully help the police load Scott’s bike into it. We hear through the translator that we should follow the police to the station to make statements, etc. Scott and Simon throw their bags in the back of the police truck (since you can’t drive with 2 people AND both their luggage) and it promptly drives off at full speed, leaving us behind. We have no idea where the police station is, and it’s dark now, but someone indicated it was ‘a few km down the road,’ so we crept along the gravel dead slow trying to find it until eventually a police motorbike drove up and we followed him there.
The police captain turned out to be a 26 year old woman who was very nice, and said that since it was late, we should get dinner and a hotel, and they’d take care of everything in the morning. She went out for dinner with us and the English teacher, and then helped us get a hotel nearby. We went to sleep guardedly optimistic.
In the morning, the English teacher took us out for breakfast, and then to her house for tea. We then met up with the police captain and the kid’s family for coffee, where we learned that he was okay, with no major injuries *phew*. One of the Vietnamese joked that Scott could marry the police captain and everything would be sorted. Everyone was very pleasant and the police interviewed Scott briefly, before we were presented with the taxi and hospital receipts, which we paid, and that was that. The English teacher noted that if they wanted to, they could have taken us to court and wrung us out, but they knew that the collision wasn’t our fault and that it wouldn’t be fair. We got the bike back, had a mechanic beat it back into the correct shape for $5, and were on our way. It’s too late to make it all the way to Dalat, but we’ll make it pretty close. We stop for KFC in the large city which was our planned destination,and decide that we can make it another 50km to the next town. There’s a beautiful stretch of long straight road straddled by rice paddies in between mountains. We stop for pictures as the sun gets low in the sky, then make it to Lien Son before dark. All in all, a solid day.
We’re still on the mix between deep gravel and beautiful road. On one of the gravel bits, we lose Gavin (English). Where did he go? After waiting around for a while I ride back, and his chain is off. I put the chain back on, and we keep going. In another 20 minutes, same problem. Where’s Gavin? Now we’re on a steep mountain going uphill. I put the chain back on, and fish out the tools. We tighten the chain to keep it going until we can find a mechanic. I’m absolutely covered in grease. We’re losing daylight. The chain falls off again a few minutes later. Repeat. We find a mechanic who adds a link to the chain and we’re good to go. We get near the top of a mountain, and Gavin’s bike dies. I get out the rope and tow him to the top, where there is not a mechanic. Next mechanic is 10km further down the road. We continue towing, the rope gets caught and snaps. I drive behind Gavin pushing the back of his bike with my right foot. It’s very awkward. We reach a long downhill and throw it into neutral, then coast 6km straight into the shop, where they replace his carb and we eat snacks. We’re getting to Dalat today, even if we’re going to drive all night.
We get moving. Dalat’s a mountain town and the road in is long, windy, and uphill. It begins to rain and it’s freezing. Twenty minutes ago it was 90 degrees, and now it’s more like 50. We speed up to try to get to the hotel before we catch a cold. After an exhilarating high-speed ride the last few km we pull into town and stop. We’re missing Johnny and Gavin. We wait for a while. We send someone back for them. We keep waiting. I go after them - something’s got to be wrong if it’s been this long. As I’m racing down hill to find them, I see them all go flying by the other direction, so I shrug and ease in the brakes to turn around, whereupon the wheels lock up and the bike flips over. I jump off as it’s going down and run a few steps so it doesn’t hit me. I look around to see if anyone noticed, take a deep breath, then pick up the bike and head back. Everybody saw and was talking about it, but hadn’t realized it was me. We had a good laugh and checked into the hotel.
This concludes the “Nightmare Fuel” section of the trip.