Top Gear - Vietnamese style

As our time here is running out and we had every intention of seeing and doing so many things, and hadn't, we took up the offer last Saturday to go on a tri to the pass, half way between Hoi An and Hue. Friday it is still rainign and we can't make up our miunds whether to call off the trip or not but decide if we do it will be sunny on Saturday and if we don't it will rain..... you know how it is! So we decide to do nothing. Our riders, Anh and Hoa arrive at the hotel on Friday night and we get up at a sparrow's on Saturday morning and after a light breakfast at Tiffany's we don our helmets, camera tightly secured around our wrists and head off.... just get down the road and it starts to rain..... we pull over...... and are offered a wet weather suit each...... mine fits perfectly but Lyn just laughs... "my bum won;t fit in them" she says..... you right Ahn says and offers er an oversized telly tubby instead. On our way again......out to Angh Banh beach then left to Danang.First we stop for me to buy a face mask - i thought they were worried about the pollution but they wear them so they can breathe!!...The road is covered in and in patches where the typhoon hs moved the beach over the road.... most of the trees have gone but suprisingly there doesn't appear to be much damage to the houses along the raod.... it was hard to tell though....

Anyway, through Danang, past the cargo ship washed up on the beach (bad driver Ho tells Lyn - ha ha ha)then up the mountain. The rain never comes, (as you would expect) and we stop on the other side of Danang to take our raincoats off, for Hoa to put a cushion on the seat for Lyn (by now she is having trouble even getting off the bike) and to stretch our legs. As we climb higher and higher the view gets more and more spectacular and we are happy that it is not sunny- the mist on the mountains makes the view magical and as we climb higher to the American and French bunkers at the top, we are actually in the clouds. Here we stop for some still photography (hard trying to focus on the back of a motorbike) and get some of the best photos!! By the time we climb to the bunker, we are greeted by goats peering over the wall at us and we see that one has only just had a baby.....ohhhhh......The French an the Americans both built their bunkers to keep watch on the traffic from the north as this had been the only way over the mountain untill recently. The bunkers are battle scarred and the mist gives it an eery feel.

After a little spot of pressure souveneir shopping, we get back on our bikes and head down the mountain and stop at a liuttle seaside town (forgot the name) for lunch. Turns out it was the same place we stopped at on our last trip where we were horrified at the mess on the floor and the tables). It was clean and tidy this time... we ordered THE BEST SPRING ROLLS!!! and shared lunch with the boys.

Lunch over with, we get back on the bikes and head for the elephant waterfall. We are so looking the part - face mask, the sunglass and the turtle helmet....... by this stage we know we have been sitting on a bike for hours: legs ache, bum sore......through rice fields, across bridges, in and ut of traffic.... and then we turn left down a little side road - you would never know what was up this road unless soemone took you there - the scenes were absolutely like sonething out of a travel magazine... qalong the stone track and then we reach the top and oull up at a small timbershack where a man is laying in a hammock with a somehwta unsociable dog growling at his side....Anh isn't scared.... he wanders in a takes a pair of socks from the line.....we look puzzled....do we need socks???....for the leehes he tells us....Mr Hoa says "do not worry, you just spit on your finger and brush it off!"...Oh!! we say - never knew that... Hoa tells us he learnt that n the army when he lived in the mountains for nearly three years...we feel better now knowing that we have a very capable guide to show us through Deliverance territory........ We hike up the hill and come out onto a rock plateau and gasp at the view....there is the biggest waterfall with crystal clear blue water gushing down through boulders.... the largest of which looks like an elephant with a trunk and all..... and everywhere we look the rocks look like elephants frolicking in the water.... the sound of the water rushing is so loud and set behind the waterfall are a range of mountains that back onto Bachmar National Park...they are surrounded in cloud and mist and in the distance we can see the waterfall meandering down the huge mountainside....magical!!!! Ahn tells us that many years ago the elephants used to play and swim in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall but they were taken away because the climate was too wet for them here and now there are none....the villagers made the statue out of the rock as a gesture and to honour the elephants.....As we look around we can see the remains of what seems to be some form of building...The bioys tell us that there were houses built on the rocks but they have been destroyed by the typhoon and the floods..... you cannot imagine what it must have been like to live on the edge of this beautiful waterfall at the base of the mountans...so tranquil....except for the defeaning noise of the water gushing down the mountain.

Feeling mystified we head back to the bikes and start the long trip home. We stop a few times but almost fall to the ground with aching legs each time. The scenery is just as inspiring on the trip back and SDcards full we arrive back in Hoi An about 5.30 pm - very very sore bums and legs that don;t want to work.

We have a rest then take the boys out for tea. Hoa tells us that the disfigurement to his face wa scaused by a marble bomb that exploded close to his face when he was in the army, fighting the Chimnese at the border. He had been conscripted to the army when he was only 19 (reminds me of a song) and was there for 2 and a half years. He grew his hair long because this protected them from the Chnese. the Chinese knew that the Vietnamese soldier with the long hair had been in the army for a long time and they didn't want to fight so they left them alone. He said the new army boy had short hair and wanted to fight so the Chinese new the difference.After almost three years Hoa was discharged andleft the night before he was due to go because the Chinese knew when they left the camp during the day, they were being discharged and shot them. He was given 20,000 VND to get the train homne (not enough to pay the fare) and 4.5 kgs of rice!! for three years service-- undetsandably Hoa is angry but has learnt to live with his disfigurement and is such a kind, gentle caring man.

Anh's father left them when he was 9 and he went to wor on the street shoe shining. This is where he learnt English. He is married, as is Hoa with 2 children. Both live in Hue in houses only about 13 sq mtres big - and they share with other family members. Both are exctremely poor and don;t want to ride the bikes as it is dangerous and worry that if they are killed, there wives and children will have no-one to support them. Survival........ an everyday story in Vitnam....

Tomorrow we are to get up at 5.30 to go to My Son - about 50 lms away. That will be the next blog......Hi to everyone...not long now.......only two weeks left!!!