March 6 - A Late Start from Hanoi
To my surprise, the busy city settled down at night, it got quiet somewhere after 10 pm and till around 6 am, it was surprisingly peaceful, so I had a good night's rest. Maybe with the exception of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), this is an apparent characteristic of the Vietnamese: they retire early, but then get active around sunrise. Also, it being the tropics, the sun sets rather early: in Hanoi, for example, looking at the entire year, an Internet search showed that the earliest sunset for the full year is at 17:17 in December, while the latest is just an hour and a half later, at 18:43. This was something I had to get used to, in the time I was there, it got pitch dark at around half past six - so I either had to ride in the dark, which I did on a couple of occasions, or had to start early, a check-mark here, too (or a combination of both).
Around 6 am, I woke up and was ready for an early morning ride in Hanoi. My tube held up well from the previous day, kudos to the old chap repairing the two large punctures.
My goal was a lake near my hotel, but I took a wrong turn, so I was riding down a wide street, when I bumped into the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, there I witnessed the military raising of the state flag, a daily ritual with military honors, and despite the early hour, with quite a few spectators, most of them apparently locals.
Hanoi has a large number of avenues, lakes and parks, these were full of folks playing badminton, doing gymnastics, jogging, walking or dancing waltzer (yes...) - I was quite impressed to see all this energy.
Ladies doing gymnastics under huge trees early in the morning next to a lake
What? They are showing their back-side...?
My Lonely Planet recommended a specific Pho place for breakfast, so I headed there and had my first of many Pho's - it was quite delicious. It is basically a broth with noodles and thin slices of (usually) beef, which is consumed pretty much the entire day, I think to have seen the most Pho's being eaten for breakfast. In the coming six weeks, I had to get used to sitting on tiny plastic chairs, this is how most street-food vendors host their guests.
Tiny plastic chairs in an alley - I barely fit, but it's part of the fun (notice the badminton rackets in the front)
If it is Pho you wish, Pho it will be...
In Vietnam, the main mode of transportation is two wheels. My father, who visited the country some thirty years ago, told me before my trip that I would see a large number of bicycles, this has since changed big time, motorbikes rule the road, bicycles are hardly used. Be it with or without a motor, I witnessed a vast variety of items being carried on two wheels: not only entire families with multiple children, but also long bambus trees, animals of all kind, some suffering miserably in cages: pigs, dogs, sheep, chicken - you get the point.
One of the few bicycles - packed to the limit with flowers
After visiting a Buddhist temple, with quite a few locals busy with their morning prayers, I returned to my hotel, where the staff was a bit surprised that I said no to the delicious breakfast that was offered, so not to offend them, I had some fruits (I always find an excuse to eat...). I cleaned up and checked out - ready to launch my biking trip. Little would I know that it would take me quite a while to leave the city.
I do not recall the exact reason, but I decided to head north - oh yes, now I know, I was headed towards the mountains near the Chinese border. The first destination was a bike shop to get a fresh tube, Google Maps indicated quite a few shops in that direction. I used the occasion to do some more sight-seeing of Hanoi, without any of the touristy highlights, as I planned that for the end of my trip, after all, my itinerary had Hanoi as the city of departure. As I was riding around town, I was something quite startling: it was a couple of food stalls, these not selling Pho, no, it was something else: roasted dogs. In Vietnam, not many places refuse to be photographed, here they did, but I still managed to take a guerilla photo.
Yes, that thing on the right is a roasted dog
It took some time for me to find the first bike shop, a Giant store, I found the exact address, but saw no sign of any bike store. After riding up and down the street and asking quite a few folks there, it tuned out that the store was in a square reachable by a narrow alley - but it also turned out that they were closed for lunch (or who knows why). Oh well...
West Lake is a huge lake in the north-west of the city, the web showed they had multiple bike stores there. I got to the first one, where they changed the tube that the old man had patched - and guess what - a large bang was yet again to be heard once it was inflated. We soon found out the reason: the supposedly brand-new tire, which I had purchased in Vienna just before my trip, was torn on the rim, and this caused the tube to explode. My dear bike mechanic Peter, [these words have been automatically removed by WordPress].
Thank you, Peter
So 30 dollars later, I was equipped by a new tire and was riding along the lake, when I realized I had no printed map (yes, for younger generations, before Google Maps, we used sheets of paper containing the compressed image of the terrain and roads). So I visited the largest bike store in town, The Hanoi Bicycle Collective (THBC), only to find out they had no maps. Here I met Natasha, a 17-year old Australian, who was working as an intern at the shop. She had completed a number of longer bike trips with her father, a pilot based in Hanoi, especially to the north where I was heading to, she gave me a lot of tips and tricks, giving recommendations of places to visit. As it was now early afternoon, with the Pho from the early morning being the only thing I had eaten (and some fruits at the hotel...), we went out for lunch - and who would have guessed, we got some Pho and chatted more about Vietnam.
Yes, time flies, it was around 4 pm when I realized most of the day was gone and had only two more hours of sunlight. Off I rode, first crossing the Red River on a modern bridge built with Japanese aide, towards the airport where I had landed the day before. The landscape was flat, the weather was warm, but the sun was not shining, as I was riding on a broad, multiple-lane highway - not too exciting, still, I was curious as to what the short day would bring.
Bridge of the Red River - notice the excellent road surface. Two-wheelers on the right, please
A known fact is that Vietnam is one of the last communist countries - once you're in the country, this is a something you will be reminded of . Almost every kilometer, there is some manifestation of this on the road, some sort of sign, communist symbol, electric billboard proclaiming the superiority of the communist system. Below is an example just outside Hanoi.
Peace, hammer and sickle
Having passed the airport, a motorway started, even in Vietnam it is not allowed to ride your bicycle there, so I went for a road that was narrow at first, with quite a lot of traffic; this turned into a four-lane divided highway with not too many cars. Nothing interesting, on the other hand, I was covering quite some distance. It started getting dark, so I switched on my lights and rode on. A lot of the motorbike riders started at me as they passed me, one guy even gave me an escort for a couple of kilometers, asking me questions in Vietnamese, apparently not being bothered that I gave no answers - my language skills, after a day, were not up to the standards, the situation did not improve much after the six weeks. His escort service did start to bother me after a while and I took some deceptive measures (stopped to wet a tree), he got the message and disappeared.
It was around 8:30 pm that I apparently reached a big town called Thai Nguyen. "Apparently", as it was really quiet, as mentioned earlier, the Vietnamese retire rather early. I stopped at a bus station, asked whether this was the town, a young guy who spoke English (a rare find!) said yes, and asked if there was a place to stay. He pointed at a building right across the bus station and even came with me to the reception, which turned out to be a good idea, as the hotel staff did not understand me. He took a selfie of us - having his arms around my shoulder and said something about not all people being as nice as him. He left and I wanted to pay for the room, when I suddenly noticed my money pouch was missing. I felt dizzy, the blood felt cold in my veins - was I just robbed of my most important belongings? Luckily, no. I left the pouch on the bike when I got my passport out and left it there. Pheeew. Talking about security, my sense of safety increased day by day in Vietnam - at first, I was rather cautious and suspicious, after some time I realized this is not a country where things get stolen and tourists get robbed. Later, I would not even bother securing my bike - I just left it at some market entrance and found it there untouched when I had returned.
This establishment was a so-called "Nha Nghi", or a guest house, kind of a motel, of which there are thousands and thousands across the country. The rooms cost somewhere between USD 6 and 15, and have clean rooms, usually with an air-conditioner and a TV (the remote of which items is handed over at the reception, many times with the battery missing or not working...), and have a private bathroom. These bathrooms have electric boilers for hot water (a shower of over 5 minutes would result in no more hot water...) and one thing I really did not like: there was no cabin for the shower, so you were literally cleaning yourself over the toiler bowl. Oh well, for this price do not except full luxury - still, the value for money was quite good. One more thing that is on the negative side: the matrasses. These are so very thin, therefore hard - however, after all the riding, I could not be bothered and usually slept rather well.
That day, I had done 83 kilometers - this figure is so exact, as there is this thing called Google Timeline, which tracks your movements. For most folks sensitive to private data, this is something not favorable - for me, in this case, it is like a blessing, I can see exactly the route I had chosen. I was not tired yet - so went for a walk. Most shops and restaurants were already closed, when I spotted a barber's shop. For USD 3, I got a nice, short hair-cut, after which the barber's wife gave me a refreshing face massage - included in the price.
I walked for about 20 minutes to find an open food-stall, where a young family with a small child was preparing a rice dish. A couple of young guys appeared, one of them was Tommy, he spoke perfect English, he had studied at a university in Malaysia. We had a very nice chat, he invited me over to his house next door, introduced his parent and offered some beer. Interestingly, despite the hot weather in Vietnam, it is hard to find cold drinks, instead, they cool the liquids with huge blocks of ice. Beer with ice - a strange idea, but then it did its purpose. Tommy then showed me a nice public lake just behind his house and walked me back to my hotel. We became Facebook friends, which was helpful, he would help me translate a few days later when I had one of my many bike issues. This is how March 6 ended for me.
Dinner being prepared - Go, Barcelona!