7th September

I awoke to the completely unnecessary sound of discordant religious noise being played at volume 11, packed the bikes in a hurry, twitched a little at the thought of another 250km on the seat, and set off in the right direction for Halong Bay - one of the most beautiful natural wonders of the world for it’s irresistible arrangement of almost 2,000 island-ettes scattered around the calm waters.

But first we had to get there, and that meant leaving the relative simplicity of highway 1, using a map, and venturing out into the maze that is the rest of the North Vietnamese road system. It was hell, but at least it detracted from the painful reshaping of my bum, which by now was just getting silly. So silly in fact, that I had to invent another game... which turned out to be the bum cheek game (or my 'Cheeky Girls' as it was once deliriously referred to). A simple premise, but it can take a lifetime to master. Or a few minutes. You put all your weight on one cheek, giving the other a well earned rest, and then shift to the other. But only (and this is the devious bit), when you pass a signpost to either the next town or the ultimate destination on your journey. If you have been reading up to now, you may have grasped that the lack of signposts in both quantity and accuracy might make this difficult, and it was not, in all fairness, a particularly good game. Due to the continuing inconsistencies of the signpost department, my right cheek did enjoy a much smoother ride than my left.

One of the most obvious changes that you see when driving up the country is that north of the DMZ, or de-militarised zone, the police presence is actually noticeable. There are, in a Baltimore accent, Police. Everywhere. The unbridled joy of leaning into and driving a tad quickly round a bend was met, on a few separate occasions, with a menacing and very translatable action on behalf of a Police’s truncheon and his corresponding open palm to slow down. I did. Impeccably.

It is hard to get across just how frustrating the lack of signposts is when you actually need one. It meant stopping much more frequently, consulting the map and any passers by unlucky enough to look interested, and generally diminishing the average speed for the day. We were in one particularly nameless town that may or may not have even been on the map, and had pulled over to the side of the road to consult the atlas once more.

Disaster.

In the blink of an eye, before I could muster the strength to be terrified, a policeman and his truncheon sidled up to Tris’ bike, parked a good 20ft in front of mine, and started talking to him. Oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap, we had made it this far, no, no, why now in the middle of sodding nowhere did we have to go and grab the attention of a policeman? This was what I had been dreading, having to present my, ahem, documentation and, double ahem, licence, explain why I was in possession of a Vietnamese bike, some communist papers, and hope against hope that a bribe would be acceptable. If I had been sweating before I was certainly sweating now, and a passer by, seeing two westerners and a Policeman, started yelling and pointing at me "Polic, Polic!", as if deliberately drawing attention away from Tris and towards me. I panicked, thought about doing a runner, thought twice, panicked some more, and then... wait… Tris had the map out… the policeman was… yes… giving directions! And smiling! Relief. That donation to the gods was well spent.

At an opportune petrol station on the way out of one of the smaller towns we did the now time honoured, traditional choreographed de-luggaging, filling, and re-luggaging, except this time there was a slight pause between the two latter phases. The pump attendant, who it turns out is absolutely the only one allowed to handle the pump, gave me 40,000d’s worth of petrol. And then stopped. Just stopped filling the tank. “Er… fill, fill” I ventured, only to receive a smackdown’s worth of spit and vitriol from the less than charming pumpee. I was tired, I was stressed, we were most likely lost, heading down another wrong road and definitely had hours left to ride. In the heat. I would need to refuel again, but much sooner if the damned little man didn’t give me my petrol. So I persisted. “Fill fill”, this time with a charade-worthy mime performance to accompany it. But he persisted as well. He blanket refused to put any more petrol in, then filled Tris’ bike, again mostly, and that was it. I was incensed, I was fast losing my temper, tried several more times, but in the end had to concede as he held the upper hand. With the pump in it. Outrageously infuriated and almost steaming with tension I had a small internal fit, got on my bike as quickly as possible and, once out of earshot, screamed into the wind at the top of my lungs. Twice. It almost calmed me down.

Later, and calmer, I saw a magnificent opportunity to take a shortcut that only bikes could take. I could get in front of the jam of caravan of lorries ahead of me, out onto the open road in front, and avoid breathing in another showerful of fumes. It was a brilliant idea. However, the shortcut turned out to be a bit more of a Dad shortcut as I ended up having to detour around the back of a petrol station, across a muddy field, through a work site, over some railway tracks and at one point I had to duck under a barrier that some enterprising worker held up for me as I grinned my way through. The worst shortcut. Ever.

In one town we ended up going down an unfinished road. This was not particularly unusual for the trip, but it was a very unusually unfinished road, with no foundations, gravel, sand, or even markings on the soil. Slowing down obligingly for a passing lorry and trying to avoid breathing in copious amounts of dust, we had two choices - head back, or head through some side streets. Side streets it was! A few weaving minutes of back street manoeuvres later we found what we thought was the right road and followed it in what we thought was the right direction.

It wasn't, and due to the inexplicable lack of signposts it took almost 5km to realise. Stopping in the heat, panting, sweating, and silently and not so silently cursing our bad luck started to have an effect on me. What if we were lost? What if the map was wrong? What if we'd come too far in the wrong direction and didn't have time to make it to Halong Bay? Would we lose another day? Feeling slightly sick and very thirsty, a local man eventually pointed us in the right direction and we wound 5km back down the road, back on course, the wind over my face helping soothe my fears and cooling me down.

In all the time I've spent on the roads I have seen some strange things being carried by bikes. Some of the most wonderful cargo carried on the back of individual ones have included thousands of live, fluffy chicks; a snake; dozens of birds in dozens of cages; 5 children (arranged in height order so the tallest sat at the back, clamping his smaller siblings between himself and the driver); a convoy of sewerage pipes; hundreds of litres of petrol in vast kegs; some incredibly dangerous sharp metal poles (which I gave a very, very wide berth to); and 6 live pigs (yes, six of them - on one bike!).

In the right direction once again, the rest of the road was laid out before me. I had vague recollections of the Top Gear trio riding along this road, the thought of the last few tens of kilometers slowly but surely weaning away lifted my spirits, and I passed the giant causeway across to Cat Ba island. I recognised it. Not far! Not far at all! We were going to make it. The end was in sight, the speed cameras (speed cameras?) were holding me back from taking one last final sprint forwards but I sat up more straight, a smile forming across my dusty, grimy face. And then, there it was. Halong suspension bridge. I smiled, broadly, elation tingling over me. I looked left over the sprawling mini-city and gazed at my destination. Slowly, slowly I turned my attention round to the right and saw the bay. The few dozen islands I could see were perched quietly above the hard blue stillness of the water and acted as a beacon. I'd found them. I was here. I had driven over 2,000km to get here and endured hardships, mostly in the form of hard bike seats, and was just... here. Triumph. Unbridalled triumph. My bike had made it. I had made it. Over the bridge, and we were there.

Except a quick stop and consult of the map showed we had come too far. We weren't supposed to cross the bridge, our hotel was on the coast on a turnoff before you get to it. Retracing our steps, crossing the bridge again, and exiting properly took no time at all, and then we were on the coast road, a few minutes from the hotel, the Halong 1. It had a beautiful view. Of coackroaches. But we had made it! By way of proof, we drove to a scenic spot and got some photos of our bikes by the bay. I even managed to convince a local girl who had been watching us shyly to take a photo of the both of us.

We had made it!