After getting out Lonely Planet Cycling guide for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the ride that looked the toughest and the most intriguing was one one called North by Northwest, a 10 day extravaganza through the mountains of Northern Vietnam. Some among us laid awake night wondering if we had the stuff to do it or not. In the end we'll never know. Not having quite enough time to justify spending 14 days (10 cycle days and 4 sight seeing days) we decided to chicken out and do a shortened motorbike version. We split up into couples and headed north on the train to the starting point, Sapa. (As we split up what follows is Dan and Sarah's take on it but as Jon and Deb did pretty much the exact same thing you can guess their experiences were pretty much the same).

Sapa is a hill station, 1600 m above sea level, only a few kilometers from the Chinese border. In the area surrounding Sapa live small villages of hill tribe people. These hill tribe people live all along the Chinese, Myanmar, Thai, Lao, and Vietnamese border. In reality they are not really part of any country but as borders are borders they are now a part of the country where they were designated citizens. They still live a substinence agricultural way of life. Each group can be distinguished by the patterns they use in their colorful clothing. Encounters with the hill trip people and the amazing scenery of the area are what drew us, and many others here.

As Sapa, the town itself, is quite touristy we decided to get away from it as quickly as possible. We decided the ideal way to take in the views and the people was on motorbike. So we headed to the travel agency and decided on Russian made Minske. Minskes are like Volkswagen Beetles as they are pre W.W.II in design and are amazingly simple machines. Also they are tough which is necessary on the unsealed roads and steep inclines of Northwest Vietnam.

Neither Sarah and I had really driven a motorbike and neither of us could drive a manual car either. So it was a bit of a challenge to master all the procedures to get the thing started, into gear, and rolling down the road. In the end, Sarah had a much better feel and did most of the driving. Dan was put in charge of administering the kick start. The most memorable motor bike memory had to be us starting the bike on the 4th and final day. They bike obviously didn't like getting sat on by two heavy foreigners and had started balking at getting going. In order to cajole it into going this is the procedure we followed. Sarah sits on the bike. Dan stands beside the bike and kick starts it. While Sarah idles the bike for a few seconds, Dan runs ahead with his back pack bouncing along. When he has gotten far enough Sarah drops the bike into first gear and gets it going to a slow start. She drives toward Dan who as the bike passes by throws himself over the saddle. The bike sputters and almost dies. Dan and Sarah, in final acts of desperation, both use their feet to push off from the ground to push the bike forward. Finally the bike gives in and starts moving forward on it's own accord. Sure makes you think twice before stopping to take a picture!!

We rented the bike for 4 days and an adventurous 4 days they were. We went over the tallest pass in SE Asia, jolted along some of the bumpiest roads ever, and explored as much as we could.

We basically centered ourselves in Tam Duong, a town west of Sapa, and made some day trips from there. The scenery was amazing and we came across some of truly untouched villages. While we couldn't talk with the people we met but we had fun learning how to harvest rice and laughing with the kids who just loved seeing themselves in the tiny LCD screen of our digital camera.

So while it was a little disappointing we couldn't have the satisfaction of doing it all on our own power (although with our bike it was hard to tell at times) we did have a great time and would have to say the Northwest of Vietnam is one of those special places that you don't come across too often. Even when you are touring for 5 months in a row.