Southbound Day One: Buying the bikes, breaking the bikes, and braving Hanoi

Greetings from the other side of the world! It's been a long time since I've written since I haven't had reliable internet since I left Cambodia. I still need to write about the Angkor temples (they were beautiful) and adventures in Hanoi (which could take up a book), but I'm going to jump forward a bit to the point where I bought a motorbike, found the highway, and drove south.

I met my friend (who wishes to remain anonymous so will henceforth be referred to as Ruby) in Hanoi and aside from exploring the town and all the wonderful things it had to offer, our chief concern was finding motorbikes, learning to ride them, and beginning our trek down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, her to Saigon, me to DaNang.

We met up with a spunky Kiwi girl named Fleur and her Vietnamese counterpart Hop, who showed us a few options and took us for some test drives, explaining the basic mechanics, how to make small repairs, and what to do in emergencies.

After buying two and filling out the necessary paperwork, we had to drive the bikes through downtown Hanoi, which is chaos in its purest form. The streets are a teeming sea of motorbikes, pedestrians, and automobiles, all going every which way at varying speeds, honking and sputtering along the way. Driving in that city reminded me of swimming into a school of fish in Koh Phi Phi in that everything seems to flow around you. You cross an intersection with bikes coming toward you from all directions, yet as long as you continue to go straight, everyone will weave around you.

After Fleur gave us a big hug and wished us safe travels, she paid a local moto driver to escort us out of the city and near the highway which would lead us to Mai Chau, the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. From there it was a long stretch of highways and roadside stands, small towns caked with red dust and dry heat, pulling out the map whenever we got lost (which was frequently), and pounding bottles of water under the brutal Vietnamese sun. After beginning our trip heading in the complete wrong direction, we finally got on course on a stretch of highway that weaved through the countryside. We rolled past green mountains and hills dotted with rice farms. We weave between small herds of cows that walked the streets. We made it as far as we could before Ruby experienced the first of three flat tires on day one of our trip. Luckily, as we soon found, just about everyone in small Vietnamese towns is a mechanic, or at least knows their way around the basics of a motorbike.

Ruby got another flat in the next town as the sun was beginning to set, so we got a quick meal, found a cheap homestay, and quickly fell asleep. This was the beginning of what would be a chaotic journey and it was easily the tamest day that we experienced on the road thus far.