Ho Chi Minh trail

During our bike journey from Hoi An to Hue, our guide told us about a "crazy," secret route. It runs through the mountains and jungle, along the old Ho Chi Minh trail, to Phong Nha national park. Since Phong Nha was our next stop anyway, and we had plenty of time, we decided to go for it. It became less and less clear what constitutes ’crazy roads’—crazy winding, crazy beautiful, crazy potholes, crazy steep? (All of the above.)

The journey entailed strapping our bags to the bikes again and setting off for a two-day ride, with an overnight stop in the famous Vietnam War battle site at Khe Sanh. On the route we stopped at the airfield-turned-war museum, two waterfalls, and an abandoned water park.

Abandonment was definitely a theme. Unlike our previous journey, which mostly ran along a major highway, the old Ho Chi Minh trail is too bendy and remote to be any use as a commercial road. It's basically empty of other vehicles, apart from occasional maintenance crews zipping along with strimmers to keep the road from getting overgrown, and a few people crossing the porous borders with Laos. There ARE animals though, obviously: across the two days, we shared the road with cows, goats, dogs, chickens, ducks, buffalo, lizards, frogs, snakes, and even an eagle.

Tony promised us that there was a 0% chance of rain, and it would be 100% sunny the entire time. In fact, it rained torrentially both afternoons 🤡 As if the road wasn't ropey enough already. There wasn't anywhere to shelter, so we pulled on our fetching plastic coveralls and carried on. Chelsea was very glad to be sitting behind a professional driver.

We got to know Tony better over dinner, during which he encouraged us to eat our prawns whole, including heads and shells. He also drank half a bottle of 'happy water' (read: homemade whisky in an old water bottle). The only English pronoun he used with any confidence was ‘him', which makes his stories hard to follow. For example, when talking about his wife: "him work in government,” and the Vietnam traffic police: “him don’t care”. He also expressed a serious commitment to growing monkey orchids. A real character, much admired.

We also added a very gentle middle-aged Canadian to our convoy on Day 2; he was biking alone along the same route but got lost. He doesn't drink and takes motorbiking very seriously as a hobby; perhaps inevitable with a name like Ernest.

Over two days, we rode about 450km, along some of the most beautiful roads we've ever seen. Our bodies are pretty exhausted from 8hrs a day on the bikes, and Dan's throat is a bit sore from self-inflicted constant karaoke. It's hard to keep it up without repetition: the trip started with classic road trip songs like AC/DC and The Eagles, but ended scraping the barrel with Atomic Kitten, The Wurzels, and the soundtrack to Disney’s Hercules 🎵

In the end, we made it all the way to Phong Nha with no incidents (miraculously), except for Ernest slipping over in the dust about 100m from the finish line. Now time for a well-earned lie in, massages, and caving!もっと詳しく