Had a cracking headache last night and resorted to my knockout 600mg ibuprofen. Must have worked because I had a good night's sleep after finishing off the blog and only woke up to the sound of Danny's alarm at 7am. Looking out the window, we have blue sky today, that always makes things better.
After breakfast, I discover that some little bugger has tied a chicken claw to one of my mirrors! No doubt to 'reflect' my own roadkill yesterday. Nice.
While riding these past days we're increasingly seeing women wearing clothing in the local colours. Predominately greens and reds in characteristic patterns. Typically headwear but also skirts.
Today's a mix of long fast road sections, interspersed with long and sometimes challenging off-road diversions. The first of those is a long uphill stretch, which starts as leveled and smooth concrete, which becomes dirt track, which becomes rocky and muddy, but always steep. Duff is behind me as I follow Ta. Duff claims not to be particularly good at riding off-road, but he keeps up without too much difficulty. Every time I get through a tough section, I look in the mirror (past the claw) and Duff's right there with me. Great riding! For the next bit, Graham follows me and he's super competitive, so he's even closer to me! At the next stop he remarks what a great rider I must be as I never use the brakes; turns out my brake lights are busted!
We encounter cows, chickens, buffalos, pigs, geese, and a lone a turkey. We take particular care passing the cows as they are prone to making sudden moves that could easily knock you off. As we're hugging a steep hillside, that is something to be avoided even more than usual.
We're up in the clouds now and stop periodically for pictures overlooking the paddy fields and tea plantations; or rather, we stop so that Ta can take photos of us! Never has a tour guide been so enthusiastic to take so many pictures of us. We shouldn't complain as these are shared with us via WhatsApp in the evenings and ensures a steady supply of pictures for Facebook; but Graham and I just want to push on. Down to one bar on the fuel gauge, need to refuel soon!
At one stop with majestic views over the valley below, Ta points out a plant that if eaten will kill you in 30 minutes. He says that local people have been known to end their lives by taking it; very sad. A few feet away another group are discussing the best espresso coffee machines; a very first world conversation. FYI, Delonghi gets a thumbs up.
The roads we are traversing were apparently the paths used by pack horses until relatively recently. Mopeds and scooters only became ubiquitous about 15 years ago, before that horses were the main way to transport goods. Now two wheels carry everything from produce to livestock, from ironmongery to furniture, you name it, chances are it's been carried on a moped in Vietnam! The machines are often adapted for their duties with racks and specialised attachments.
Western marketers will try to persuade you that you need a super duper, super powerful, super comfort, off-road motorcycle to get places others can't reach. The reality is, a step through will get you everywhere. In all our journeys in all continents we've yet to visit a place where the locals can't take a step through scooter. And yet they are looked down upon by most bikers, but really they are the unsung heroes of the biking world.... I feel an adventure coming on....
But we are on 250cc Honda off-road bikes, big wheels, grippy tyres, so let's make the most of them. They are faster than step-throughs and can cover rough terrain at a quicker pace, but speed is not everything, right?.... What? Has Biker Dom lost his mojo? No, just something someone else said. Biker Dom still wants more power!
The last few off-road sections have also seen many of us recalling tips we each picked up from Baz Fleming at the Adventure Rider Centre in Mijas, Spain: don't be afraid to use the front brake; preload the forks; squash the front tyre into the dirt; etc etc. On the extra tricky bits, changing down to first gear sees the back wheel squirm all over the place, and you have to use the clutch to reduce engine braking and bring things back in line - all part of the fun.
After an early lunch, we're refuelled and we refuel the bikes. Uphill again. Waving resumes.
Sometimes it takes a concerted effort to illicit a return wave or a smile but it's so worth it. The change in someone's face as the smile is discovered beneath a frown or worried look is priceless. A wave (as they can't see our smiles) is very disarming and perhaps a relief given that we are a group of twelve dirty looking bikers. I wonder to myself if there's any relation between how happy a nation is and how willing the general population is to return a wave or a smile. I reckon Vietnam would score high on the Biker Dom happiness index. North Korea, now that would be interesting.
We enter a tea plantation. Stopping, I nibble a few leaves: definite tea flavour. Ta wants us to ride in a line so he can get more pictures and videos of us. So we oblige, leaving our helmets so that we can feel the wind in our hair, and we do two laps of the small lake.
I set a challenge: can we get three of us into one of our bikes? Graham and Duff are up for it so we all pile on, Danny joins in at the last minute, making four! How we all fit, I don't know, but I kick it into first and we're off. Danny screams, no Dom, no! and continues screaming until realising that I'm not going to stop. We do a lap of the lake four-up. Fantastic! Just like the locals, only they are typically not as big as us overfed westerners in body armour.
Back onto tarmac and another long fast road section, narrowly avoiding a puppy eagerly licking the road surface and not responding to beeps of the horn. We all agree that the puppy is unlikely to grow into a dog.
A quick stop and Ta advises us to add extra layers as we're going to be climbing high and it will get cold. I zip up and add a buff around my neck, the others add a top waterproof layer; except Steve, as usual Steve refuses to be cold and rarely is.
We start the ascent. Good asphalt, just a few wrinkles in the surface, allows fast progress on the twisty road. We overtake articulated lorries with caution, especially as they seem way too big for the road and lumber up and down slowly. It's definitely getting colder and the cloud is starting to close in. Reaching the top, I do a quick altitude check with my GNSS device (that's GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo, to those unaware of my day job), we're at 1960m. A few pictures despite the lack of a view, due to cloud, and we're off again. Now it's really misty, my goggles are covered in water droplets and I'm getting cold and wet. I don't have enough layers on. We climb further, up to maybe 2000m, before reaching the pass and heading over the other side. The rain and mist continue until we reach the town of Sa Pa. At least by then it's slightly less cold and then the cloud clears.
Sa Pa looks interesting, reminding me of Manali (woh-oh, oh oh), it's certainly very touristy. They have karaoke here! Leaving the town we continue on a small road that winds its way up, down and around the hillside for another 10km or so. We enter the hotel in an artistic loop in the road outside, which avoids us having to make a very sharp right hand turn uphill into its lobby area.
We dine once again in style, but before that, six of us enjoy a hot bath in a specialty of the area, aromatic herbs, which are meant to not only relax you, but also to sooth aching bones and muscles after a hard day. I think it worked, I feel totally relaxed.
Everyone is on their best behaviour, so nothing to report and certainly no damage, to bikes or us. Makes a change.
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