How apt it would seem that my final post would be on it's 13th week. It's only unlucky for some though...
We are now in, the slightly cooler than anticipated, Australia for the next few weeks. However I am saving these anecdotes for our return. So, for my final blog will be on our final week in Vietnam and something that typifies its capital.
Although I think the previous blog's moto driver will stick in my (and my mother's) memory for quite some time we were not done with Motos.
We had quite a few memorable rides on the back of bikes around Hanoi due to the risk-taking abilities of the drivers but it got me thinking; what would happen if we tried to drive them ourselves? (There is my tribute to the new and the terrible Sex and the City 2 film).
In our final week in Asia we decided to visit the renowned Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. Halong Bay is famous for its gorgeous limestone formations that jut out of the bay's waters.
We arrived on the Island and it did not disappoint. The main reason for this is that most of the island is a protected National Park meaning that only the sea front has been allowed to develop. The area was slightly too big to see on foot and so we were debating how else we could see the island in its entirety. It was then that we saw many street vendors offering moto rental for $3 a day. The roads were fairly quiet and we thought how hard can it be?
The owner of the bikes asked for our driving licenses. I could offer my one for a car but Lizzie can't drive. The man merely shrugged and explained that we may just have to pay off the police if they stopped us. Well thank goodness for that.
We were both a little nervous and decided that we would test our driving abilities in the car park first. It turns out that those things really zip along when you first start them up. After a few failed attempts we got the hang of it and ventured onto the roads at a snail's pace compared to the other drivers. We were not going to be hurried along however. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.
As we first went to get petrol with the bike owner still on the back of Lizzie's bike we managed to pick up a young German student who was also looking for the National Park entrance. He stayed with us for the rest of the day despite riding a proper motor bike and seeming to become exasperated with our slowness. We did encourage him to go off alone but he simply smiled and sighed. He didn't seem to remember that he joined us through choice.
After about twenty minutes of driving I noticed Lizzie was no longer behind me. I turned round and went back to find Lizzie looking quizzically at her bike. It wouldn't start. We were now too far to push the bike back and on a pretty dangerous corner of road. We pulled the bike over and kept prodding and poking it until two young Vietnamese boys stopped and offered to help. We were really grateful until we realised that they wanted money for fixing it. They didn't speak English and without our phrasebook we were useless. We wanted to know if they fixed it wold it last for the rest of the day? This was futile. After a few more minutes another man stopped on his bike who spoke very good English and translated for us. We haggled the boy down in price at which point he seemed to start the bike as normal and it worked. Grrrr.
After this minor hiccup we could enjoy our surroundings and relax. Except of course when my bike kept backfiring and spitting out oil. Nevertheless, we were having a good time. We reached the northernmost point of the island and turned around to go to the West. It was at this point that I realised my bike was running out of petrol. The backfiring was happening because my bike was leaking. All the shops we passed sold oil in old water bottles so we bought one of these and shared it out.
My bike began running out of oil again fairly quickly and so we stopped for food and to figure out what to do. As we were chatting I said to Lizzie that she'd obviously become more confident on the bike as I worked out she must be going about 50-60mph when she said she wouldn't go over 30.
"What?" Lizzie said sounding surprised.
"You were just going quite fast that's all",
"I didn't think I was going fast", she paused, "But then again my speed gauge is broken", another pause "And I only have one mirror". We had not hired the best bikes.
I told her how fast I thought she'd been going and she thought she couldn't have been doing more than 40.
We returned to our bikes and since my bike was nearly out of oil again I drove very slowly back to the vendor trying not to burn the petrol too quickly. We arrived back feeling invigorated and full of life, if not a little shaky. Neither of us crashed but I very nearly went straight into a bollard. All in all we counted it a success.
A few days later we flew from Hanoi to Bangkok (where the only odd thing we encountered was a guard on a segway) and then to Sydney.
I don't think this is the most exciting of my blogs but I think it shows the progression of our travels. If we had tried this in China we would have died. Now, we are practised travellers with the life experience under our belts. Or we were just the luckiest eedjits in south east Asia at that point.
I think I have managed to answer my own question though; What can possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot really but nothing that can't be fixed with a smile and a Lonely Planet to hand.
