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We made it! Finally, after 2700 Kms we reached our final destination, Hanoi. It was hard, cold, wet, and uncomfortable but the feeling of parking the bike in front of the St Joseph cathedral in the Old Quarter of Hanoi was just amazing. Check the glorious pictures in the photos section and see how dirty our bike was. We didn't resist one minute and got drunk right away (well a couple of beers) and after a hot shower (finally!), we treated ourselves with a well-deserved Italian dinner. Mandy picked Italian cuisine after at least two weeks of rice and noodles with vegetables and I picked the restaurant I visited two years ago with Daniele; the restaurateur is a funny bloke that settled in Hanoi in 1997 and is running the business since, even making his own mozzarella made in Vietnam.
Back to the trip, we left Hue under a slow drizzle and climbed up a tiny and spectacular mountain road to get back inland re-joining the Ho chi minh road. It was refreshing to be in contact again with empty roads, rural villages, minority groups and big smiles and hand waving along the way. We stopped overnight very close to the Laos border in a village called Khe Sanh, notorious for its thick fog and for being the location of the bloodiest battle of the Vietnam war. 10.000 Viet Cong and 150 Americans perished there. It felt strange to find out about the dead ratio during the war - 1 American to 100 Vietnamese (more or less); which is perhaps the explanation behind the VC victory against the Americans: no fear to sacrifice soldier's lives to achieve victory, versus an American government that had to face internal criticism every time a body bag returned to the US. History cyclically repeats itself these days in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the morning we woke up early and took a small detour to visit the Khe Sanh American military base now turned into a museum but keeping the original layout, airfield, bunkers, tanks, helicopters and aircrafts (check out the pics). Personally, I got quite emotional by reading the Veterans messages on the visitors' book at the museum. American soldiers must have gone through hell in the little outpost on the Vietnam highlands 40 years ago and their sorrow during the months of siege in Khe Sanh came across vividly in their words on the museum's book. After Khe Sanh, we descended towards the coastline and after a brief stop at the Vietcong cemetery (yes it was war memorial day) we arrived in Dong Hoi a cute little seaside city with the benefit of almost no western tourist in sight. A funny little episode occurred few kms before Dong Hoi, when we got stooped by the police for speeding. It was big fat excuse to fine us and make some money for their Tet holidays (Chinese lunar new year), but by staying calm and friendly we managed get away without having to pay a dollar. Well, the initial request was a fine between 10 and 20 dollars, but a little joke about Italian football and one of Mandy's smiles and they let us go. Thank God, Italy is still considered cool somewhere in the world.. And thanks to Mandy's pale skin and blue eyes!
After Dong Hoi, we rode to Phong Nha where we stayed in a cool farmhouse in the middle of the rice fields and visited the most amazing cave in Asia, 44 km long, although only 1 km was open to visitors. However, the most surprising aspect was the fact of having the whole cave for ourselves, alongside a Dutch guy and an Oz guy as well as a family from Saigon, but that was it.
En route to Vinh, a large industrial city on the coast, we stopped at Ho Chi Minh birth village to visit his memorial site. Nothing to write home about, but again we were the only Western tourists in town and easily becoming the tourist attraction ourselves. In these regards, we spent the Tet evening (the equivalent of our new year's eve) in Vinh and attending a street event with break dancers and hip hop dudes ( I know, the Americans are now conquering Vietnam from a pop culture point of view), we got asked by a local journalist for a in interview and a posing shot. Suddenly, few teenagers wanted to take pics with us and we felt like celebrities although not being comfortable with it ;)
After two days of rest in Vinh, we headed to the deep countryside. This is a funny story, as we got invited by a young kid met in Hue few days before, to spend the Tet lunch with his family in the countryside around Vinh. We got lost on the way, of course, and accepted the kind hospitality of a train level crossing guy until our host would come to the rescue. After one hour of waiting, numerous teas, few pics with the train guy and his strange request to be helped out to emigrate to the Netherlands, our friend finally made it and escorted us to his house, after 30 kms of muddy roads where our poor Honda Bonus struggled big time. When we arrived there, it was one of the most memorable experiences of the trip. It was very humbling to lunch with a Vietnamese family sharing their festive meal with us. And it wasn't a small family: 5 daughters and 3 sons aging from 21 to 2 years old, not counting the numerous uncles, cousins etc etc., that joined in after 5 minutes we arrived. We ate on the floor and I couldn't eve cross my legs with everybody laughing at me, of course. We had only food they produced, from vegetables to rice and eggs all the way to rice wine they made themselves and beautiful oranges and apples. The only disappointment was the end of the meal where we got offered Nescafe instant coffee and Mandy and myself smiled at each other after weeks of drinking beautiful Vietnamese roasted coffee from the Highlands. After a visit to the neighborhood toilets (one WC outdoors for 3 families), we toured around and inside the village church which looked like a way more prosperous building compared to people's house. I don't understand why poor people always embrace Catholicism; maybe because Jesus preached that the "lasts" will be the "firsts"? Although being almost forced to stay overnight at our farmers friends' house, we kindly turned down the offer also because they had a two room's house (one was the kitchen) and two beds in 10 people.
We stayed in a lovely guesthouse back on the Ho Chi Minh Road and reached our last stop before Hanoi in a dodgy village called Cam Thuy where a magic fish stream is located. The village was very odd and had the feeling only bandits lived there; we in fact witnessed a police guy chasing a scooter with 4 people riding it, that after having dropped two even managed to escape the cops. The guesthouse we spent the night in was the cheapest of our trip (6 US dollars) but also the most awful one, with dirty sheets and smelly blankets. Thank God there was hot water as it was freezing cold up there and rainy of course, but the bad luck wanted that no food stalls were open because of the Tet holiday. After going up and down the only road available in desperate search for food, a gentle family invited us for dinner and we finally made the encounter of a real Vietcong that fought in Saigon against the Americans. The guy, although retired from the army, was still wearing the uniform (no gallons) and looking as tough as a Vietcong could be. After offering me some rice wine shots (not Mandy as in Vietnam women are not supposed to drink), the guy warmed up and even accepted to be in some pics. He had changed his uniform for a more comfortable track suit at that time unfortunately.
The next day we were also excited to embark on the last ride towards Hanoi, so after a quick visit to the magic fish stream which was honestly a joke and for obvious reasons no western tourists were there. On the road, we had the same difficulty of not finding any open restaurants because of the holidays, and once again we acted very hungry and another family cooked food us. Brilliant! Free food and new friends. We found out afterwards that having foreign guests for Tet brings good luck to the Vietnamese. We could had gone on for a few more days with free food but in the end we finally reached Hanoi and a city we loved for its architecture, street vibe, food and museums.
We are now happy to leave tomorrow for Laos (after two more night stops in Vietnam before reaching the border). We decided to keep going by motorbike and shipped one backpack back to Amsterdam to be able to travel with less than 20 Kg between the two us. We must admit the last days in Hanoi were quite hard work, having to confront again continuous negotiations to avoid being shamelessly ripped off by merchants. We are tired of it and now look forward making the encounter of more friendly and laid back people like Laotian are famous to be.
We will keep you posted on the adventure of crossing the border, which with a Vietnamese motorbike won't be a piece of cake!
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