Bust in the border zone!

James, my current travel buddy, was met in Hanoi, he turned up at a bike dealer while I was inspecting the bikes they had for sale. Like myself he wanted to ride the length of Vietnam, unlike me he was looking for a companion to share the journey with. Let it not be said I’m not open to suggestion, so when he proposed we travel together I accepted. In the last couple of months I’ve enjoyed the company of many other tourists, for the guy who generally remains content with his own company this has been a nice change. It’s not as if I shun company, I am after all a sociable type animal. But it’s rare for me to travel with others, since China I’ve hung out with a string of fellow travelers, and taking it that step further by moving on to the next destination with them. It can be nice having company, but it can be restrictive too! I’m a man with a mind of his own, but I’ve been happy to share my time and compromise on always doing what I want without consultation with anyone else. In the past I've dumped off fellow riders who've ridden with me fairly quick, but I've been enjoying company during this journey. Riding is a bit different, from casual company, I like setting my own pace, whether fast or slow. James seemed an easy going guy, I still thought I might find it a testing time; I'm just too damned finicky. (Photo: Winding through the limestone karsts - Phoung Nha National Park, Central Vietnam)

There are two routes through Vietnam referred to as the Ho Chi Mhin Trail, a coastal route and the quieter, inland route. Down the coast it basically follows national highway 1, a hugely busy trunk road that is heaving with tour buses and trucks driving at death defying speeds making suicidal overtakes. The coast road is also where the bulk of tourist destinations are situated, and like nowhere else the Vietnamese really do have a knack of fleecing tourists. Invariably, foreigners are charged more than locals, for almost everything. And like everywhere else, the more tourists the worse this enigma becomes. Personally I’ve had enough of biased pricing, I detest being a target for greed and deception. So we plumped for the inland route, partly to avoid excessive financial exploitation, but mainly for the magnificent areas of natural beautiful. It passes though rural Vietnam, hundreds of miles of unspoilt land winding delightfully through areas barely changed for hundreds of years. (Photo: Communal bathing - Nr Phoung Nha, Central Vietnam)

Of course I refer to the land itself, little could survive the devastation caused by millions of tons of defoliation agent dropped by the American military during their attempt to annihilate Vietnamese attempts at independence. Also there are the disproportionate numbers of cancer victims in the country, thought to be contributable to Asian Orange, another of the gifts from Uncle Sam. In effect they not only slaughtered phenomenal numbers of innocent citizens, they left a legacy to blight the countryside for a very long time. The wonderful limestone karsts still tower above the mist-laden ravines, aged rain forests still harbour a wonderful array of birds, primates, reptiles and bugs. But so much of the countryside is only secondary growth, and the modern Viet people themselves are raping this at a rapid rate. Luckily there are protected areas, and far fewer amounts of timber are being felled in these. (Photo: Gaining ground - Phoung Nha National Park, Central Vietnam)

There’s been a marvelous amount of fantastic country to pass through, vast areas of flat paddy field with water buffalo wallowing in the post harvest mud. There’s been a distinct lack of rice terracing since I left the far north, as we got to hillier regions in the central area there was virtually no rice. Wild hills and natural forests ruled supreme in the centre of the country, virtually no human intrusion despoilt the wet and misty wonderland. Almost every day brought a whole new scenery, gently rolling hills of rough grazing one, surging torrents of muddy maelstroms ripping through wide valleys the next. Wherever we’ve been the astonishment of the villagers has been touching, all we have to do is stop to have people come and gather around us to greet us and practice the one or two questions they can muster in English. The areas have all been poor, rurally most houses of wooden and in need of repair. Kids are bare foot and grubby, only in their school uniforms do the have a semblance of tidiness. Without fail they are all smiling and full of joy, it gets tiring on the arms waving at the many kids calling out to us. In towns we've had adults coming to shake our hands and bid us welcome. These aren't areas that see many foreign visitors, and only one person has shown the slightest displeasure at our presence. (Photo: Misty haven - Phoung Nha National Park, Vietnam)

Before, when I said it had been quite wet, was definitely an understatement; that was only four days into the ride south on the HO Chi Mhin trail. Since then, day after day, the rain has lashed it down on us, with barely any respite. We rode through running torrents of water cascading down from the hillside, the road was awash and the resultant spray only increased the wall of water that battered us. My normal bike waterproofs can deal with such a deluge, the Vietnamese suit certainly can’t. No matter how hard I try the water seeps through, first at the level of my belly button, then gradually it manages to work it’s way into my crutch area. How fortunate I am, it’s warm here, so I don’t end up both cold and wet. Actually the weirdest feeling is having water pouring out my sleeves when I stop and let my arms drop. With my nice new Gortex shoes completely sodden, everything in my rucksack wet and the clothes I wear dripping wet something had to be done. So I bought wellies, a heavy-duty rain cape for my pack and doubled up on the rain jacket. The result? Dry feet, slightly drier torso and merely a damp crutch. At least my belongings didn’t get any wetter; they were still damp from the previous days though, a musty small pervades every article of clothing I possess. There's good reason why I only buy reliable bike gear generally, being soaked is a miserable experience; if only there was such gear to be had in Vietnam. (Photo: Only slightly wetter than our ride - Central Highlands, Vietnam)

I shouldn’t complain, James faired even worse than I did, he was soaked right through. We’ve been riding through rain every day, then for two whole days we had to ride through torrents of the stuff, it never eased off in the slightest throughout the day or night. Sods law rules supreme though, once we made the effort to improve our waterproofing the rain eased off. Which was just as well, getting wet may have been uncomfortable but the landslides were the biggest problem. They were a common occurrence in the Central Highlands, they came thick and fast, huge slicks of mud cascading down the hillsides uprooting trees and bringing them toppling into the carriageways as well. Most are simply a matter of taking it easy, picking a path through the shallowest of the gloopy, slippery overspill. Many posed much worse problems, having to plough through quagmires of mud that swallowed the wheels past the axles. I managed to chug through even the worst, not so my poor buddy. Seeing me plunge into a sinkhole of slimy crud, he decided to be clever, and pick his way carefully around. (Photo: A brief respite from the rain - Nr, Kon Tum, Vietnam)

Stuck fast he could neither move forwards nor backwards, his only hope was me coming to his rescue, by wading through oozing mud half a metre deep. Standing and laughing I suggested he come and give me a piggyback, I couldn’t believe he wanted me to wade through while he stood high and dry. A young local guy stopped and came to help, sinking up to his knees and losing his sandals in the process. Between the three of us we got him out, this was before the wellies were bought, we were all a complete mess. Next time he got stuck he wasn’t on his own, a couple of locals had the same problem, each stopping and assisting the other. Deep oozing mud blocked the whole road, again there was no easy way through and it was obviously claiming plenty of victims. As for me I took the plunge, went straight for it and kept the damned throttle rolled on, never letting up for the slightest moment. Once through I stood back and had a good laugh, especially when James came to a rather soggy stop in the middle of the worst of it. I damned near lost my new wellies getting him out, the other three guys getting my foot jammed under his front wheel didn’t help any either. At least wellies proved a lot easier to clean than my shoes had done. (Photo: Traditional south Viet house - Tan La, Vietnam)

But it did eventually stop raining, we got two days of nice weather; so good off came the jackets and away went the wellies. What a pity we’d passed the best of the scenery, finding ourselves on a main trunk road was horrible, neither of us found it acceptable so we made plans for an alternative route. On the map a small road ran for over 200km alongside the Cambodian border, it looked the ideal chance to see a part of the country other tourists had failed to reach. How true it was too. The road turned out to be a dirt track, to complete the whole 200km in one day would be pushing it, but it was worth trying. It was hard to find but it got there in the end, it was slow going but we were determined, if only we’d have got further than we did. At the first village, after only 10km a guy loitering outside a café waved us down. He was with another couple dressed casually in uniforms, James stopped, so I pulled over too and grabbed the map to confirm we’d found the correct track. There didn’t seem to be any problem, we asked where we were, pointing on the map the route we wanted to take and our final destination. As is generally the case in rural Vietnam none spoke English, so we tried our best to pronounce the appropriate village names and reiterated where we thought we were on the map. We did seem to have navigated right, but they kept pointing the way we’d come and telling us to use the main highway to Dak Miel. It was obvious the main highway was the common route taken, so we continued to point at the more obscure route, saying that’s the one we wanted not the busy highway. When they signaled for us to follow one on his bike we merely thought they were showing us the way to go. But no, only a few hundred metres later they led us into an official compound. We arrived and parked, amidst a jovial reception by a mix of guys in civvies and uniform. There was handshakes all round and tea served by our hosts. With much consulting between them they continued to point back to the highway, it was only when one of them drew a line across the track and signaled the road was blocked, or closed, that we thought we understood. At that moment we conceded the point and agreed that we'd go all the way back to the main route and head south that way. And that was when we realised it was not to be as simple as that. We made to leave and suddenly one drunk and surly official slammed his hands down on the table and shouted that we couldn’t leave. That was when it dawned on us there might be a problem, what the problem was we had no idea, but they certainly weren’t so friendly any more. And they were most emphatic that we were going nowhere. (Photos: 1] Coffee growing landscape - Duc Co; 2] Special delivery - Chon Than, Vietnam)