A couple weeks ago I got a text from a new Vietnamese friend. He asked 'tomorow you want motorbike to china 2 nights. pls tell me soon'. And so unaware of Rebel's
horrible return to Hanoi, I packed my bag and hopped on the back of the motorbike with no idea what I was getting into.
It turns out we joined a group of 22 other people - all Vietnamese. A group of young people who use an internet forum to organise motorbike trips around Northern Vietnam. The kind of organising that the communist government wants to stop.
After about a total of 12 hours sitting on a motorbike my ass hurt more than I could ever have imagined. It was a bit of a long journey just to frolic around a waterfall. We made several stops along the way, though. And the actual route was a loop, so we didn't have to backtrack.
Here are some photos of the butt-busting trip.
Eleven motorbikes were in the flot.
It was terrifying going around the mountains. Up up up then over and then down down down into another valley.
Halfway through our trip we stopped at a spring where national hero
Ho Chi Minh had hid during the
American War. This mountain is called Karl Marx (
Cac Mac) and the spring is named after Lenin (
Le-Nin). I got to see and touch Uncle Ho's actual bed inside the cave where he camped, although at first I thought it was a dinner table.
I don`t know who in the group decided on the route, but most of the roads where just blasted. And not yet finished. Though apparently they looked finished on the map. Someone must have accidentally bought the map titled "National Highway Masterplan 2008-2020"
This beauty of a road went on for about 13 kilometres. It took about an hour to go through. Not pictured here is the incredible incline that would probably not even be considered on developed roads anywhere else. I couldn't get a photo of the incline because I was
holding on for my life. We passed many construction crews. Some of them asking me to come and smoke from their tabacco pipe with them. I kindly declined as what I needed to get me through the experience would have been much stronger.
This was the place we camped out on the second night. I say 'place' as I think that a cafeteria of a park station with all the chairs taken out and blankets spread out would be considered a
place. Where else would you house 23 people who come knocking on your door.
I finally arrived at the waterfall. Except foreigners are not allowed in the border lands between China and Vietnam without a proper permit. The solution was to cover my face up like a criminal as we went through the check point. Who would notice?
Yes. Those are two men fishing on top of the waterfall in their underwear.
This is all of us!
I live in the middle of a giant block. Between the two streets is a densely packed neighbourhood that one can access only through the alleyways that sprawl through the block like veins. In order to reach my house, you have to take a right from the main street, turn right, then turn left, go through a covered tunnel-like structure, pass the canal, take a right, then the left, then right, then left, then right, then left, then right again until you get to a dead end. This is about 10 minutes walk from the main road upon which my address is based. Taxi's cannot reach my house, let alone the fire truck (if there even is one in this city).
I find it completely amazing how houses organically sprung up from the ground. Pressures as a result of the loosening up of the tightly controlled Vietnamese market, called Đổi Mới, allowed for the dividing up of previously large tracts of land. As a result, you often see small one-level buildings surrounding by narrow 5-floor houses that were built on what I assume was one large housing-lot. The average house is only about 3-4 metres wide, but stretches 5 metres deep and 5 storeys tall, mainly because local taxes are based on the width of a building rather than the actual area.
Walking through the maze of alleyways, it seems like houses were pieced together like a puzzle, one house being built to another, and other just filling up spaces between two randomly places houses on a lot. The alleys came later, as spaces between buildings for moving people, bicycles and motorbikes. Alleyways hold their own businesses and shops. Along the way to my house from the street I pass by a school, a vegetarian-food lady, many hair salons, guesthouses, food sellers, motorbike repair and wash shops, etc. Within the same block, there are many other alleys that are densely lined with these businesses, mimicking a main street. The block also has a huge square surrounded by houses where vegetables, meat and prepared foods are sold. You wouldn't know such a place was there unless you lived in the area and came across it somehow.
Starting in the morning, people on bicycles ride through the maze of alleys singing a jingle for the products they sell. There's people selling phở, bread, fried rice cakes, and people willing to buy your recyclables, or broken appliances, etc. It's a city within a city. And the best part is aside from the singing of the sellers and the kids playing in the alley, there is no street noise.
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