Day 1

Outside his office I see the other guys on the trip just hanging around talking to one another. I make my introductions. 4 friends from Quebec, all retired firefighters, and one cabbie from Manchester England. They all seemed really cool. I ended up talking to Al, the Brit, mostly because he and I were the “strangers” of the trip. Usually happens that way, right?

Our bikes roll in. They look like late 90s Honda GL160s.. thats right, 160ccs of fury! At least they were thumpers. And finally we meet our guide, Quynh. (pronounced Quinn) The canadians apparently traveled with him before. They had a nickname for him, “The Mighty Quynh”. He had us all strap our bags to the rear bag holders using bungee cords he supplied. He also covered all of our bags with plastic film. The weather was slightly drizzly but not cold. After all was set, we all ride out onto Hanoi streets, single file. I was ecstatic to finally be rolling.

The first hour or so of the trip involved us getting used to our bikes and city traffic. It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined, and it definitely felt far less dangerous than lane splitting the San Francisco Bay Bridge. I definitely saw the western driving mentality in our group. We all gravitated toward riding in staggered format. The locals must have thought we were in a funeral procession or something. After getting out of the bustle, we all started to relax a bit and I saw everyone starting to gaze around..





The weather was still somewhat damp, and I was starting to look like Mad Max. First stop of the day, had some coffee, and a smoke break at a cafe. Ca Phe Sua Nong is what Vietnamese coffee is called. As a coffee lover, this is some of the best stuff there is! The plan for the first day of the trip was to end up in Mai Chau, to visit the isolated Hmong, Dao, and Thai villages and stay overnight at a Thai homestay. For a few hours we rode mostly through single lane goat trail up into and alongside the mountains. The scenery was lush, and the mountains high and pointy. The air was clean and misty. We stopped and took pictures a few times.


As we closed in on Mai Chau, we descend down mountain roads and we see civilization between the mountains.As the roads start to flatten out, we approach a long driveway into a village. And we finally park behind what looked like a large bamboo cabin. This was our stop. The house we stayed in was built on stilts, out of bamboo, overlooking ride paddies. We had a wonderful home cooked dinner, drank rice wine, and the village children performed a dance act. After an applause by us and other guests, I vaguely remember us drinking more rice wine(moonshine) out of a huge gourd. I didn’t take pics because it felt a bit intrusive to do so, and quite frankly, my drunken motor skills would prevent me from doing so anyways. I do remember crashing hard afterwards.