Category: Trips

Hey there,

We haven’t had much time to sit down and post any news, we have been pretty busy on the roads. Everything is great here, the bikes, the roads, the landscapes, the people. Another great trip, and its far from being over.

So as we did last year, we rented 125cc Minsks in Hanoi, and headed off to the west.

First stop was in Hoa Binh, with a little detour by the Ba Vi national park, the road along the river from the park to the city was amazing.
The river was covered with myst and the view of the other side was just coming straight out from a ‘jungle’ movie. It was a nice introduction to the scenary we were about to see.

No particular interests in Hoa Binh, just a place to eat and sleep over. Next day, we headed off to a small village called Mai Chau (Le Lac), where we slept in small ‘local’ houses .. on the floor. A bit rough and noisy very early, but it was fun and the food was excellent!!

We then had a long day to get to Son La, we are now really starting to see the mountains, and its getting better and better as we drive up. Son La was again just a pitch stop for the night so that we could get to Dien Bien Phu the next day. The road to DBP was unbelievable, a big part of it is being redone, so the sealed word has turned into a huge roadwork dust road. Which was great fun to ride, but a bit exhausting by the end of the day, but it was really worth it, the view was just great!

DBP, well we slept at the Beer Factory Guesthouse … yeah, they have a very cheap Bia Hoi (1L for 2.000 VND … and 1 euro is 20.000 VND, i’ll let you do the math, but its cheap ^^), so we had a nice evening there, and met 3 other guys there, riding bicycles, on a year trip, they were coming from China, just entered Vietnam, and then were heading south, and then back up through Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, seems like a ‘common’ trip for long time travellers, but with bicycles, it was really be something different.

Wasn’t that much to see in DBP, an old ’empty’ bunker, and some old tanks, so we didn’t stay too long and headed north to Lai Chau.
Quite a long drive, but it was a beautiful ride. Only one place to sleep in the area so, we ended up with all the other tourists there, but we met 2 nice couples there, one of them hired a minsk too but were 2 on a single one, he’s an experienced driver so they had a great time. Again we had a nice evening there, drinking beer and chatting.

Early start on the next day, and we took the road to Sa Pa, which is the big town in these mountains, and the place were all the tourists go to (by train usually), to hang out in the mountains, and trekk all over, there is also a nice view on the highest mountain in Vietnam called Fansipan, but unfortunately the mysts doesnt want us to see it clearly, but we could feel it just out there ^^. This is were we are now, we have spent 2 nights here, and are about to get ready to continue our trip, and head slowly over to the east.

Well enough writing its time to get on the road.
As we dont check on this site very often, im not sure we’ll be able to post many photos, we’ll probably send them from Hanoi before leaving or when we are back in Paris.

Cya!

Yogin.

Hi everyone,

Well, as most of you already know, we (Nicolas and myself) are going back for 3 weeks to Vietnam. Our plain takes off around midday tomorrow (saturday, November 4th). We are planning to do what we didn’t have time to do the first time, and this being the northern part of the country, which is mainly mountains and forests.

As we did last year, we will be hiring Minsks again to travel around.
I’m not sure how internet is up in the mountains, so there probably won’t be many news nor photos, but we’ll try our best.

Well, next news should be from Hanoi.

See ya all in 3 weeks ! ^^

Yogin

Ok, so i believe last time we posted news was from Dalat, and we are now back in Hanoi.

So here is how it went since Dalat. We drove heading towards Saigon, but on the way we went to see some really nice waterfalls, and has leaving Dalat, its just “hill” roads, we didnt have time to make it to Saigon in a day, so we stopped in a place along the way for the night. Had an early start next day and headed to Saigon (again). Nothing to worry about, but i had an accident on the road, some guy coming the other way spontaneously turned left, and looked behind him as he was turning instead of watching the traffic (me) go the other way, so yeah, i crashed into him. Front wheel just went boom (we had spares) and i started to act like superman and just flew over the 2 bikes and landed nicely on the road a couple meters away, nothing broken, just a bad ake in my left leg (which i’ll have checked when i get home). The guys were sorry, so they invited us to lunch and drink, although we didnt really want to drink as we still had about 80kms to do, we did grab a few glasses ;) We had a rest and a couple coffees before taking the bikes again to finish the day in Saigon.

The original plan from Dalat was to arrive early afternoon in Saigon the same day, book our train tickets back to Hanoi and set off for the Mekong Delta to get the most of it in the little time we had left.

In the end, it took us 2 days to get to Saigon, the 3rd day we spent getting our train tickets, and getting our motorbikes loaded in a train to be there before us, but that meant we had to give our bikes in the same day, which meant we couldnt go in the Delta with our bikes :( So we booked a 2 day / 1 night tour there. I’m not very fond of such tours but we didnt have much choice, and in the end it turned out quite nice, and as it rained *a lot* there, it was actually a good thing we didn’t have our bikes with us.

So this 2 day tour brought us back in Saigon a 7.30pm, just in time to grab some food and jump in our train for Hanoi. And we are now back in Hanoi after spending the last 30 hours in the train, back in our first guesthouse when we arrived, waiting 7am so we can have a room.

Mitch and myself are leaving Hanoi tomorrow morning (11am or so), we are stopping in Hong Kong, and the good thing is we dont need a visa to leave the airport, so we gonna spend the 10 hours transit in HK tomorrow :) And we should be arriving in Paris around 7am monday !

Pit will be leaving Hanoi Monday, so he’ll back some time tuesday.

I’ve just uploaded my last photos, enjoy!

Hey there,

Not much to say, been seeing so beautiful landscapes along the roads, i didnt take many pics, but Mitch took a few so there you go, his photos are being uploaded right now, so you might get a chance to see all his pics that he has been keeping for so long ! :)

Anyway, we are in Dalat right now, we have just come back from a nice ride in the country, nice lakes, and ‘artificial’ gardens, although artificial, very nice, but it breaks a bit of the beauty being too tidy!

We are planning to ride to Saigon tomorrow, should be a nice ride down from the mountains. I don’t know how long we’ll spend there as we would really like to have a couple days in the Mekong Delta before heading back to Hanoi.

Enjoy the few pics below.

Hello !

Well, just a quick stop in the net cafe to say hi! :)
Last news was posted from Hue, we’ve been in a few places down the coast since.

First stop was in Hoi An, a small town, very well preserverd, but where the tourism is expanding a lot! We couldn’t explore much of the area (we wanted to go to a place called My Son 100Kms away) as the rain fell, and we decided to have an easy day in the end, had a “bottle shop” kind of day ;) Played pool all afternoon, and evening, and night, with loads of draught beer to keep us going. Met a few people, quite a few Ozies (seems like Ozies come to vietnam alot for short breaks). We spent 800.000 Dongs that night, knowing that food and beer is cheap, well, thats 40 euros ! (Needless to say we had quite a few beers). Good thing we slept only 10 meters away from the bar ;)

Our next destination was going to be Nha Trang, but by the evening we were only half way there (thanks to the road works, and the intense circulation, and crazy trucks and buses), so we stopped for the night in a place called Qui Nhon, not much there, mainly a beach resort for Vietnamese it seems. Anyway, early night, early start.

Back on our Minsks early morning, we took the road south to Nha Trang where we arrived mid afternoon after quite a few breaks along the way to enjoy the view. Really beautiful, Nicolas took a few photos, so when he manages to upload them, you will see ;)

So we arrived yesterday in Nha Trang, had a nice evening, Mitch went diving on a ‘tour’ today, and should be back in an hour or 2. Pit and myself, recovering, had a lazy morning, late breakfast, and here we are posting some news, its nearly 1 pm. Program for today: a few pagodas and temples, a ride in the area, and another good evening in perspective ;)

Our next destination should be Dalat, then Ho Chi Minh ville (saigon) where we ‘ll go for a trip in the Mekong delta before grabbing a 2 day train ride with the minsk loaded to get back to Hanoi to end the trip.

Still a few things to do first before thinking of that anyway :)

Laters’

YoGiN