As we started to get towards the end of our stay in Hanoi, we started to make preparations about where we’ll go to next. In the past, we have been somewhat organised in terms of knowing where we will go within a country, but everyone we spoke to before told us not to do this for South East Asia. Instead, we were told to go where our hearts take us, be spontaneous, live in the moment, and half a dozen other clichés along those lines. It turns out the above advice is good for about 360-days of the year… of course, the time at which we were due to leave Hanoi fell on the remaining five days, which is Chinese New Year, or Tet as it is called in Vietnam. There are three days over Tet where nearly everything shuts down (these days are similar to Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day in the UK), then for a day or two after things seem to slowly start running again, and for a total of two weeks most things are running, albeit with delayed scheduled or altered opening hours (these two weeks are similar to the two week holiday enjoyed by children in the UK over the Christmas period).

So when we approached the travel desk at our hostel to ask about getting a bus to Hue, we were greeted with shock and worry that we hadn’t already locked in all our plans for the next week or two. We spent the rest of the evening with one of the travel experts, to come up with a plan for what we’ll do – we needed to end up in a major city for the three main days over Tet, otherwise we could end up without accommodation, without food and without anything to do to pass the time. The best city would be Hoi An, which is roughly halfway down Vietnam. You can get an open bus ticket in Vietnam which lets you travel from Hanoi in the North to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in the South, and lets you get off at a predetermined set of locations for around £36/$50, but as it was Tet this had gone up to around £58/$80 (which is still a bargain in our eyes, as it is less than a two-hour train in the UK). But one of the problems is, although buying a ticket is easy, you have to get a seat/bed confirmed on the bus, and these sell out, especially around Tet. We looked at various places we could stop on the way to Hoi An, but we were struggling to make anything work in terms of getting to Hoi An in time for Tet, and also in terms of finding buses and accommodation that were still available. Ultimately, we came up with an itinerary of:

1. Hanoi
2. Hue (pronounced her-way, or really, more like h-way)
3. Hoi An
4. Ninhvana
5. Nha Trang
6. Mui Ne
7. Ho Chi Minh City

We would have liked to stop in a couple of extra places before Hoi An, but it simply wasn’t possible with Tet in the way, and what’s more, there was another snag, there were simply no transport options available to get between Hue and Hoi An – however there was a couple of excursion/trips we could do to bridge the gap… either ride a motorbike/scooter between Hue and Hoi An (something that petrified us, neither of us had ridden a motorbike before, and the roads in Vietnam are crazy), the second option was an open top jeep tour between Hue and Hoi An, which sounded much nicer. So we opted for that, and then all of our transport and accommodation was booked up for us. The travel rep grabbed us a beer from the bar, to help us relax and calm down after the initial worries. Unfortunately, we had been a little premature: after having everything else booked, we were informed that the jeep tour wouldn’t be able to take us after all, a combination of Tet and just generally poor communication (happens a lot in Vietnam) meant that option wasn’t a possibility. So we were faced with the final option of riding a motorbike ourselves, the 160KM journey between Hue and Hoi An, going via the Hai Van pass, made famous by the TV program Top Gear, a picturesque ride, full of hairpins and sheer drops – we hoped we’d at least be given extensive training before we had to ride the bike. That was a problem for another day at least.

With our travel plans booked in, we just had to brace ourselves for our first leg of travel, a night bus between Hanoi and Hue. We separated our valuables from our main luggage and headed towards where the bus will pick us up from – you are able to put your main luggage into the hold underneath the bus, and just take your valuables with you on to the bus. Upon boarding the bus, you take off your shoes and put them into a carrier bag (to keep the insides of the bus clean) and are then marched to an allocated seat/bed. The bus has three lines of double-decker beds going down its length, with walkways between each of the lines. The seat is somewhat reclined (to make 150 degrees) and there is a little box in front of the seat that you put your feet in (which is behind the head of the person in front of you). One issue is these beds are designed for an average Vietnamese person of approximately five foot tall and size three feet, so Steve’s six foot five height combined with size 11 feet made for a cosy experience. It turns out there is nowhere to put your bag with your valuables in, so you just have to put it on top of yourself. Luckily we had been told beforehand that the bus can be hard to sleep on, so we came prepared with sleeping tablets (which are just handed over the counter in Vietnam), and found that within around 30 minutes of taking these, we were able to drift off into frequently disturbed sleep, as we tried different combinations of positions to sleep in (mostly evolved from the fetal position, as that’s the only way to fit).

Arriving in Hue the next morning, Steve was feeling relatively refreshed from his sleep on the bus (which seemed as good, if not better than trying to sleep in the party hostel in Hanoi) however Gemma was feeling worse for wear. On the positive side, we had booked into a Spa hotel, and upon arriving it was decided that Gemma would spend the day there relaxing, having a massage and her nails done, whilst Steve went out to explore Hue, taking in some of the sights including Tu Duc Tomb, Thien Mu Pagoda and Imperial City (which is what Hue is most famous for). It so happened that this was our ninth anniversary of being a couple, and also, Valentine’s day – and what better way to reaffirm our affection for each other than doing completely different things for the entire day… the secrets of a long and happy relationship.

In the evening we went over to the hostel that had been organised for us to hire our motorbike/scooter from, to confirm with them that everything is still okay, and more importantly, confirm that they will be able to transport our large bags for us between Hue and Hoi An. Thankfully they confirmed both things and told us to come back the following day to receive our preparation for the motorbike journey. Whilst at the hostel we bumped into our New Zealand friends Libby and Bailey and made friends with two guys from Ireland called Darragh and Mark. We didn’t stay too late, as we had a big day the next day, but enjoyed a few beers whilst chatting with friends.

We arrived back at the hostel the next morning, and waiting for our motorbike training, we hoped for a two-hour crash course, to go through the basics of riding a bike, understanding the traffic system in Vietnam, make sure we know what to do in emergency situations and to be taken out, supervised, on the roads outside the hostel to make sure we are going to be able to do the long journey ahead of us. The reality was a lady turned up with a paper map and a piece of paper which we wrote our name, driving license number and phone number on, in exchange, she gave us a motorbike key with a registration number on, and then got onto her own bike and drove off. We found the bike with the prescribed registration number on and didn’t even know how you switch it on, let alone ride it. Luckily we saw Darragh and Mark, as they too were going to be doing the same ride as us today, and they had both ridden bikes the previous day, so they came out and showed us how to turn it on, make it move forward and make it stop. Steve got on, followed their instructions, and found himself wobbly alongside the quiet road next to the hostel, after doing this a couple of times, he went for a drive around the block, which he felt very unprepared for, after a couple of laps of doing this, Gemma jumped on the back, and we did another couple of laps (it is a lot harder when there are two people on the bike) and that was our training complete and we were ready to take on the Hai Van pass.

One thing which hadn’t been made completely clear to us was how much riding we’d need to do before even getting to the Hai Van pass (and how much driving we’d need to do after it to get to Hoi An). The actual Hai Van pass itself, was a nice place to ride (long ago this was the main road to connect these cities, but there is now a direct route through a tunnel, meaning you don’t have to zig-zag around hairpin bends to climb the mountain and also means that all other traffic, except tourists, go via the tunnel). Given we barely knew how to make the bike pull off and come to rest without wobbling all over the place, and bearing in mind we struggled to turn any sharper than about 30 degrees, this was a bit of a blessing. But before getting to this nice stretch of road, we had to deal with city centre traffic, where there are simply no rules, bikes go on whichever side of the road they fancy, they go on the pavements, some traffic lights seem to be vaguely obeyed whereas a lot are just completely ignored. At a roundabout, 90% of the traffic will go around counter-clockwise, and the remaining 10% just go round the other way, no one indicates, and instead everyone plays a sort of game of chicken, where you just have to look at the other motorists and try to negotiate how you’ll avoid colliding with each other. This video was actually taken in Ho Chi Minh City, but gives a reasonable idea of what the traffic is like:

So all of the problems aside, it did feel like quite an experience, not only did we go on the Hai Van pass, and city driving in Hue and Hoi An, but we also stopped off at various places (which was quite a nice luxury to do, as we’ve never hired a bike before, we haven’t been able to stop off at a whim). Based on this, we stopped at Elephant Springs:

And at the coast at Lang Co Bay:

And of course, the pinnacle of the trip was seeing the views from the Hai Van pass:

 

We did have to make an unscheduled detour, as Gemma was suffering under the sun, and getting burnt, despite having suncream on. So we ventured off the main road and found a little market, where we had to practically crawl to get into a tiny opening. Inside the market was a maze of stalls, which were mostly made up of boxes and crates of goods all stacked up, often with the person running the style perched half way up. We went around trying to explain we needed suncream and a long-sleeved shirt (to guard Gemma’s shoulders from the sun) and were mainly met with confused looks. As more and more stalls turned us away, we started to despair we may not be able to find more suncream, but Steve used a translator application on his phone, and managed to engage in a conversation with one of the ladies running a stall. She understood what we wanted, but confirmed it wouldn’t be something available anywhere within the entire market, however she looked on her phone and found a bottle of factor 70 suncream, which she pointed at, we said that would be perfect and she then lead us outside the market and started making hand gestures. We were able to understand that she was going to go on her bike to a shop nearby, purchase the suncream for us, and then drive back so we can buy it from her – so we waited for about 10 minutes, and sure enough, she came back with the suncream. We were relieved to have it to protect Gemma and all the other market workers were relieved we would finally leave them in peace!

After the detour, we ended up running a couple of hours later than we would have ideally liked to, and found ourselves driving at night, coming into Hoi An, which added to the already frightening experience of taking on more city centre traffic, but as we are here writing this, we obviously managed to make it to our final destination (with a lot of help from Google Maps). We arrived several hours later than anyone else we knew doing the same route, and worried we may have to pay a surcharge, but as is often the case in Vietnam, we turned up with the bike and keys, were barely acknowledged by the person that worked at the hire company, so we handed the keys over to them, they nodded and that was that. We had successfully made it to Hoi An, the city of lanterns!

 

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