Day 34 - Driving in Vietnam; the art of staying alive

So the last blog post was quite long, but there were still a few things I forgot to put in...
Apologies for writing so much again, but the rainy days and nights give us little to do :)

Firstly, I got myself a suit made in Hoi An! A brand new tailored shiny suit (my first ever!), made from cashmere wool in dark grey, fits like a charm – they made it in 7 hours, and I tried it on the very next day. Looks smashing. Getting it posted home. 30 quid! Bargin!

Secondly the computers we were using in our hotel were really bad, and infected with a virus that caused the machines to mess up enough that I lost all my media on my iPod (so now it's useless until I return home and update it again), and Lukas lost a few hours work resizing images and wrinting his blog. We managed to blow one of the machines up completely (something we seems to manage almost everywhere we go), and the rest made us so frustrated we almost threw them into the street. They're mostly around 8 years old by UK standards, and the connection speeds are slow, so it can be a little like stepping back in time. How did we used to cope? ;)

The bikes were in need of fixing up a little again too. The hungry pony needed new rear brakes (I'd worn them down to the metal so they no longer worked without locking like a handbrake), Peter got his brakes done too and Lukas needed some wiring to make his headlights work. Once all this was done we felt safe enough to hit the road again.

Back to driving...

Now that we've covered nearly 2,500km since buying the bikes (including the everyday use and getting lost a lot, not just our journey-progress) I wanted to take this opportunity to write a little about the roads over here, and what an experience it is to drive on them.

You drive on the right over here. The first rule is size matters. The second rule is, there are no more rules...! The only kind of priority on the roads is one of scale: I'm bigger than you so get out of my way or I'll squash you. That's it. Everything else is just survival of the most aware.

The traffic on the roads consists of:
90% motorbikes (most of which are 100cc or smaller) and bicycles
5% HGV's, trucks, buses & coaches
4.5% assorted vans
0.5% cars

The roads are not limited to vehicles. You'll also encounter some people on foot, and every type of animal imaginable including chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, pigs, cows, and oxen.

Whizzing past cows freely roaming on the road

Families of goats often appear on the more mountainous roads
 

A bike very rarely has just one person on-board. Its much more common to see at least 2 people, and we've seen as many as 5 (a whole family!). Even when there are only 2 people, the one at the back is often carrying something large like a large plate glass window.

Family (of 4) on bikes
 

Some bikes are loaded with furniture, or have tens of ducks or chickens fastened (still alive and quacking/clucking) by their feet, likely destined for some market. We've seen bikes with at least 6 goats (hopefully dead) tied to them, doing 60kph down the motorway! We once saw a bike with 2 adult pigs (still alive) strapped upside down to the back. You even see mothers with a new born baby cradled in one arm, driving the bike with the other.

Man on bike with chickens


Approaching any junction you always need to be aware and slow down as with no priority given to traffic going in any particular direction you get this cross-hatching effect where the bikes weave in and out of each other trying to avoid an impact. Any vehicle turning onto one road from another never stops to check if it’s clear... Instead, without even looking, the driver swerves onto to road, expecting drivers already in the flow of traffic to avoid them. Drivers crossing traffic don't stop either; they simply drive right at oncoming traffic (sometimes for hundreds of metres) until they see an opportunity to swerve onto the correct side of the road. There are traffic lights at a few major junctions in larger cities, but the red signal doesn't stop a lot of people. There is this nifty countdown timer telling you how much time remains on the current colour, but nearly all use this as a way to skip the lights prematurely.

Indication when turning is not seen as a necessity and drivers often swerve wildly across traffic to make their turn. Most bikes don't have working indicators, some drive at night with no working lights, and nearly every bike has no juice in the battery - requiring the bike to be kick-started to get things going (including ours).

Cars, being larger, can do whatever they wish, and often block roads with manoeuvres forcing all traffic to grind to a halt. You can even see coaches doing a three-point-turn on a motorway!

The centre of any city is always the busiest, and gets worse at rush hours. They really are about as mad as traffic can get.

Average volume of traffic in Saigon any given junction
 

Motorways are a real mixed bag. At times they can be flat, dull, and rammed with coaches and large slow moving. Often covered in dust, dirt or sand, you get filthy whether it's wet or dry. Other times the traffic clears, you have the roads to yourself and the drive and quality of scenery just blows you away (usually in the highland). Wherever you are there's always random animals to avoid, wandering across the road without a care. Sometimes entire herds are ushered down the road for kilometres by children with sticks, likely moving them from one grazing site to the next. Others just seem to be wondering freely. We saw a pretty horrific accident where a bus had just collided with a bull. The front of the bus was a write-off, but the poor bull looked paralysed, only able to move its head. Sat on the middle of the motorway with a petrified look of pain in its eyes, wanting to crawl away and die on its own somewhere. Crowds soon gathered, and we hoped it would only be a few minutes before someone came along to put it out of its misery.

Example of the stunning scenery passed
 

The final type of roads consists of everything else; smaller roads outside cities that range from anything from a half decent tarmac road that comfortably fits a lane of traffic in both directions, to a mud path. These can be the most fun to drive along, but are always the slowest!

No road - just mud path

The road conditions I think I've mentioned before - they really are pretty bad, but steadily improving as we travel north. Avoiding potholes has become so commonplace, that I'm thinking of turning pro. Road works and giant sections of missing tarmac that appear to have been extracted from the earth by UFO's, are just the way things are here - always in need of repair. You just have to pay attention to where you're going more.

All in all, compared to the driving experiences we're used to at home - it's vastly different. But somehow, despite all the dangers and apparent carelessness of the drivers on the roads - the people here make it work. There are more accidents yes, and we've seen the aftermath of many on our travels, but seeing this for yourself you’d think there should be many more. Cities reduce speed due to congestion, and although impacts are frequent they are at such low speeds that rider don’t bother stopping. As lawless and crazy as it seems to us, they make it work, and because of the additional dangers that exist here, in some respects, I'd say most drivers are better than back home. And apart from the bad weather, there hasn't been a second of the experience of driving here with our own bikes we haven't enjoyed. I'm so glad we decided to see the country this way - it's made such a difference, and given us so much more freedom than if we'd simply used coaches to jump from A to B.

Continuing with our journey

So we made it to Hue with no problems, and our updated visual-journey plan, can be seen here. It was another lovely journey (started off a little wet, but improved as we progressed) where we travelled north along the coast, past glorious beaches, sleepy towns where everyone waves and shouts as you pass, and mountain ranges that lift you up into the clouds (it's cold in those things!). We had a lot of fun on this journey!

A friendly cloud stops by to say hello as we drive through it, ascending up into the mountains

Hue was a lovely place - really old city right in the centre of the country - near the DMZ (demilitarised zone) that split the country in two along the river Ben Hai. Unfortunately for us the weather didn't improve, it got worse. The rain continued to fall, and the sun didn't come out at all. It was pretty miserable - visibility was severely restricted due to the constant drizzle, impacting our sight-seeing and travel plans. Luckily for us there was plenty to do in walking distance, and the restaurants around our hotel were really nice, so we were well fed, and occupied enough for our 2 days there. While in town we explored some ancient tombs of Emperors of old, and the large citadel in the city centre; surrounded by a 10m thick wall that encompasses the old-town, with an inner citadel that used to be the residence of an emperor about 200 years ago.

The site of one of Vietnams bloodiest battles during the war, the ruins were riddled with bullet holes, making a fitting memorial to the war Inside.

The wet citadel - sprawling acres of ruins & temples


Look at the weather forecast - it seemed a little bleak - temperatures were falling, and there was no end in sight to the never ending rain. We had to keep moving so bought a couple of rain macks - well more like colourful capes that all the locals seemed to wear to protect themselves while driving in the rain. Proud of our new purchases, and convinced they'd help protect us from the elements, we packed up and set sail again. As predicted it continued to rain, and our new waterproof attire seemed to be doing it's job - only the bottom of our legs were getting wet (these things are full-length on Vietnamese people, but just cover our knees) - a vast improvement!

After a few tens of kilometres, the toll of the pounding rain and strong winds started to show on our capes. They simply started to fall apart and the rain started to leak into the newly made tears... It was pretty funny really. Lukas's was clearly the worst. By the half-way point he looked like he'd gone ten rounds with a tiger - his cape was completely ripped to shreds. I was laughing for at least half an hour driving behind him as pieces tore off and flew past my head at 60kmph. Hilarious! Our optimistic target for the day was over 200km away, the worsening conditions really started to get us down and it quickly became unbearable again. We had no choice but to stop at a town called Dong Hoi - a small midway town where they're definitely not used to seeing tourists, and there was very little to do except wander the streets. We made the focus of our time there finding new waterproof capes - better ones! We also bought some gloves to protect our hands from the bitter winds that ended up dyeing our hands purple. We found our superior capes in a nearby market. A dinner, sleep and breakfast later, we were back on the road testing our capes. We stayed drier, and they stayed in one piece, making conditions more bearable.

Lukas' rain mack after a few hours of wind and rain - the back looked much worse! :)

Again we drove as long as long as we could bear to the next stop-over, a place called Ha Tinh; again nothing to really do except check in, get a taxi to a mediocre restaurant, go to bed and prepare for more of the same as our journey would continue the next morning... After another soaking experience we made it to the next big city - Vinh. Updated visual journey progress.

Vinh was another town not used to tourists, and finding a hotel was as difficult as ever. Once settled, we sat down and decided that there simply was no way we could continue in this weather another day - we'd just had enough, it had beaten us. We needed a break and we were in the middle of nowhere. We decided we would try doing the bus thing again - stacking the bikes on the roof and pay to be taken the distance. So off to the bus station where we found a really helpful chap, who spoke English pretty well after spending some time in London with his friend who is a black-cab driver. We were able to make a deal to take us and the bikes to Hanoi, although this time they removed rows of seats from within the bus and put our bikes inside - the bikes were much happier for it.

No snakes this time, but a similar deal with the fares hustling and packed bus. The driver was so mad, that you couldn't bring yourself to look out the windscreen - it was just too terrifying. On-board we met a handful of Australian travellers; two friendly girls who had just arrived from Laos and one guy called Jeff, who had been cycling (yes you heard it - cycling) from Barcelona, back home to Oz!!! He has crossed Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia. He'd clocked up 18,000km since April when he left, and he has more than 6 months before he's thinking of returning home. Carrying a tent, he camps wherever he wants en-route, only using cities to sleep when he needs a break. I couldn't quite decide if he was an inspiration, or just crazy. And so we arrived in Hanoi. Updated visual journey progress. We're here for a good few days now - getting clothes washed, eating some good food, doing some sites, and waiting for the Chinese/lunar new year celebrations that are in about 3 days time - should be good!

Poor old Lukas got bitten about 5 days ago in Hue in the night, and it had swelled up quite large. It didn't go away and got bigger and bigger, until yesterday his entire arm was swollen to about 1.5 times it's usual size, and the epicentre was starting to ooze some pretty horrible fluids... This morning he pulled a centimetre square lump of solid puss from it (YUK!!!), which left a rather sizable hole in his arm that needed properly cleaning and sealing. A bit worried we took him to the hospital this morning to get checked out, where we were told he had a soft-tissue infection, and he was given a pile of antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory tablets to take for the next week.

Lukas and his gamy arm - eeeeewwwwww :S

He’s all good - not to worry. We're all just glad he's on the mend. Ahead of us we have a trip to Halong bay, and some tough decisions to make regarding the bikes - do we sell up at this point and continue by bus, or can we find a way to get the paperwork needed to cross the boarder into Laos? Tune in next time to find out! TTFN.