6th September

With yesterday’s accelerator cable incident directly responsible for the lack of kilometers completed, there was no option but to achieve 350km in one day or we would have to get a train. I really didn't want to get a train. Starting early, checking the bikes for bruises, and setting off at a more reserved pace to try and keep the bikes running for a whole day for a change, our destination was Than Hoa. If we managed it, the next day would be a 250km drive north-east-wards to Halong Bay through delightful scenery, and give us a day to relax before ultimately heading to Hanoi and the airport. On time. We had to make it.

The rain abated and the roads were good but my fantastically inoptimal layering system maintained a nice even 500 degree temperature at my core and my, by now completely, fatigued body still did not understand how to deal with the sweat/humidity problem. The scenery was as beautiful as ever, the gradual ride onwards seemingly getting more and more picturesque the further we drove from the equator.

The landscape was undeniably beautiful, and with the roads by now a constant and acceptable danger, it fell to the pain receptors in my brain to try and sort out the bum situation. The design of my Nonda was amazing. I’d seen it stripped and put back together, and in a few pieces by the side of the road in a ditch, but even after all the strife, the suspension on the back wheel never failed to smooth out the rougher bumps in the road. The front suspension was doing it’s job as well, the engine was ticking over responsibly, the lights were dim, but on, the fuel gauge was still working, and pretty much the only part of the bike not endearing itself to me was the seat. It’s not that it was the wrong shape, it’s that it was so exactly the wrong shape it’s as if the designers had put such an effort into making all the other various parts of the bike so meticulously that they didn’t want anyone to actually ride it, lest it detract from their masterpiece. It was so gloriously uncomfortable it could actually distract you from the hideous honking horns of the passing trucks and lorries. I needed some way of counteracting the discomfort and finding some way of making 350km bearable.

It was hard. I imagined myself not on the bike. I saw small herds of cows and bulls cross the road every so often in front of me, one time the lead bull being ridden by a boy who couldn’t have been older than 5 or 6. The little boy, one sixteenth the size of his carrier, whipped the bull into the correct direction and giggled (his pristine teeth on show) as he was carried over the traffic safely from one side of the road to the other. I distracted myself for a good few minutes imagining what it would be like to be that boy, to live his simple life and to befriend his herd of cows, how they respected him, and how he was responsible for their presumably annual migration across to the wet flatlands. Even the dangerous part of the journey - crossing the new fast road and having to endure the honks and hoots of the monstrous machines that belch out foul smelling smoke - failed to dim his smile.

I was lost in contemplation, minding someone else's thoughts, until the sudden immediacy of the situation presented itself in my field of vision. I saw one of the cows that was following a bull blindly out into the middle of the road suddenly freeze, realise what was happening, and become incandescently panicked to be in the middle of lanes of traffic. The cow looked up, terrified, forcing the commuters that had slowed down to a less lethal extent to bear witness to a nervous ton of beef stare at them sideways, its haunting, wide-eyed fearful expression becoming more and more erratic as it swayed from side to side trying to find a patch of ground that didn’t have cars, trucks or bikes on it. That was the closest I saw to a potential bad accident, but in the end there was no problem.

There is a lot to think about on the roads. Despite the distraction of my imagination, the discomfort of the seat soon permeated my thoughts and I had no choice but to slow down, transfer my weight onto my boots, and sit in a squat on the foot pedals. This can last up to almost four seconds at a time before the bike destabilises or my thighs give way (mostly it was the thighs), but those four glorious seconds offer an eternity of relief.

I have mentioned before the appalling state of the signposts in this country, but it is hard to overstate just how terrible they are. Take, for instance, the no entry sign. There are some one-way systems, especially in the cities, and out of shear medical necessity the council (do they have councils?) must have felt that it needed some sort of way to alert drivers of all sorts of vehicles to this fact. However, it seems like there might have been some dissenters and money scroungers in the committee responsible for actually implementing the no entry signs, and as a result they decided to halve their costs by just putting one sign by the side of the road on each possible wrong entry into a one-way system. Unfortunately, this one sign gets put in the middle of the two lanes, perfectly slap bang in the middle of them, so if you were, for the sake of argument, riding a luggage-laden bike towards such a junction for the first time you would be faced with a choice of two lanes in front of you and a no entry sign in the middle of them. Which of course means “don’t go down the left hand one”, but this only becomes clear after having got it wrong.

Twice.

Another brilliant example of useful Vietnamese signage is the much overused upside-down triangle with exclamation mark inside it which could refer to, well… anything really. Look out! A ravine. Look out! A perfectly tarmacked road. Look out! Cows crossing. Look out! This is a sign. Occasionally I saw one at the side of the road for no apparent reason that I could fathom, but at least trying to fathom it occupied the part of my mind that up to that point was engaged in making my lips into a sore “ooooh” shape and feeling incredibly sorry for my bum.

In fact, there was a description of what all the various road signs mean in the back of the one remaining atlas we were cherishing. Unfortunately, these descriptions were in Vietnamese. Unhindered, and with immense satisfaction at having had the foresight and spare cash not only to buy a dictionary, but pack it sensibly in the top of my bag, I traced the line of words indicating what the exclamation mark sign meant. Nguy hiem khac. Nguy… The front half of the dictionary was the English to Vietnamese section, so I turned to the back half of the dictionary, only to find… English words M-Z. What the? I flicked through. Page after page. No, no Vietnamese to English section! What sort of dictionary was this? A one-way one apparently. Much like our journey. I have subsequently tried an internet translation of the phrase. Somehow I don’t think a sign at the side of a road that usefully urges people to “spit awkwardly” would be considered important enough to enshrine in metal, especially considering the frugality of the signpost implementation department.

In another vain attempt at passing the time and entertaining myself on the epic 350km day, I decided to reinvent cruise control. It was, to most intents and purposes, extremely simple. Accelerate through the gears, reach 4th, twist the throttle to the desired position… and hold. Just, hold. Don’t move, slip, twist, grate, nudge or disengage your right hand from the handlebar and keep an even pressure on the throttle. It sounds easy, but after the first few kilometres it becomes a challenge more painful to your wrist than simply sitting is to your bum. Which is brilliant because it becomes another game you can play – see how long you can resist the temptation to move your right wrist, or see how other bikes wastefully accelerate and decelerate around you. A lot, it turns out. After several dozen minutes it gives you an twinge that's probably best described as non-repetitive strain injury.

Perhaps the best distraction from the pain of sitting is simply watching people as they drive by. Most people have a determined look on their faces, which becomes more pronounced in the rain, and the further from the cities you get the more efficient the bikes seem to become at transporting more than one person per vehicle, so your expression to bike ratio goes up. They range from blank to sour to wet to miserable to conversational, to one tiny young woman tightly gripping the waist of her manly driver trying to maintain as much surface area contact with his back as possible, the most sublimely satisfied beaming smile on her face forcing her eyes closed. Upliftingly adorable.

Arriving in Than Hoa was not as expected! We found a magnificent hotel that was handily situated next to a small restaurant, which wasn’t unusual. It was sunny, which was by now more normal, and our hotel was middle of the range in terms of price and comfort, which we’d seen before. What was different was the noise. We had landed in the middle of some sort of religious ceremony, the object of which seemed to be to make as much horribly discordant noise as humanly (or tape-recorderly) possible. Which was a lot.

We headed for the local restaurant and had yet another incomprehensible experience at the hands of the service staff. This time however, we were ushered into a private dining area and presented with a menu. In Vietnamese. Only. There were a few crude clipart pictures of various sea creatures and animals next to some of the menu items, and these were easy to point to and order, so we had beef, squid, and (mistakenly) some sort of vegetable and fruit salad. Mostly edible, apart from the incomprehensible pickle-like addition that tasted of feet. By now it was becoming customary to order a pineapple shake with every meal, so in true British style we ordered them. It took ten minutes, a pad of paper, a pen, an interesting (Tris) interpretation of a pineapple drawn on the page, and the charade-winning simulation of shaking the whole thing up. It worked! Once this was established Tris was obviously feeling creative and began to draw various animals that he wanted to eat. He tried for snake again, something that was meant to be a tortoise, and shark, but they were having none of that. In the end the beef was delicious and even came with fried potatoes. Delicious.

There was no internet available in the whole town, at least none we could see and none that reception could provide. It was incredibly annoying, but the end of the journey was in sight and the excitement was rising. We were almost at Halong Bay.