In Kon Tum, I looked up the local English club on Facebook. Two girls drove next to me on their own bike, asked me questions and took pictures, but never slowed down. The weather cleared up and I made quite an impression on the locals. It seems that I am not the first person to have this problem.Īfter a few hours of driving, I reached the plateau. They rescued me with a hand-operated gasoline pump. The rain came down hard and forced me to stop at a general store. It occurred to me that the next city could be a long way to push a motorbike. There are no gas stations in this mountainous area, and my gauge sank down toward empty. Unfortunately, the intense radiation left my pictures with a washed-out look. There were people camped out on the mountain so they could wait out the rain and enjoy the view. The ultraviolet light gave my arms a dark suntan and my nose a sunburn.Ī spectacular view of valleys and terraced farms made it all worth it. The road goes up and up, peaking on the border between Quang Ngai and Kon Tum Provinces. This was easily the memorable part of the journey. On the first day of the trip, I drove from Quang Ngai to the highland city of Kon Tum on QL24 (National Highway No. If the East Sea is on your left, you are headed south. The highland route is becoming more accessible every year. There are pho bo, or beef noodle soup, and pho ga, or chicken noodle soup. I downed quite a bit of pho, or noodle soup, over the course of the trip. The highlands might not have roadside hotels, but they do have cheap and delicious roadside food. This is a bareboned version of a hotel, with just a bed and a bathroom. Nhà nghỉ (guest house) is a useful word to learn. In the highlands, the next city can be an hour or two away. The signs that do appear are not usually for major cities.Īnother thing that’s missing is roadside hotels, at least signs that say 'hotel.' Officially designated hotels can be found only in the cities. For example, many intersections have no signs at all, so you need Google Maps to go anywhere. It must have been quite a project to build.Īll the same, the road is still missing a few things. It goes over mountains and there are bridges to take you over wide valleys. Truong Son is a paved, modern road through the highlands. If you worry about your tire deflating, there is a kit for that. The contents of my first aid kit on the road. I bought it from another expat, but there are also rental services such as Tigit. An escalating tariff makes anything larger prohibitively expensive. This is grossly underpowered by American standards, so collisions are relatively low speed. Motorcycles typically have a displacement of 125 cubic centimeters, equivalent to 8.3 horsepower. The traffic is also not quite as dangerous as it looks. When you reach a toll booth, you take the half-lane on the right and skip the toll. There are also advantages to motorcycles. When a truck crosses the median line to pass, oncoming motorbikes need to be out of the way. Motorbikes are expected to use the shoulder or emergency lane. The main traffic lanes are for trucks and cars. The rules regarding trucks are different in Vietnam. But trucks are everywhere and they drive aggressively. Outside the city, the traffic is less chaotic. Several times, I have encountered drivers on the wrong side of the street coming straight at me while using a cellphone. Rush hour traffic in Ho Chi Minh City has to be seen to be believed. Some 86 percent of Vietnamese households own a motorbike. It is also the only place on the route where I saw any English language signage.Ī memorial on Truong Son Road. A lonely memorial on the plateau is the only concession to war tourism. I didn’t notice any other foreigners in the course of the trip. It was significantly further inland and ran through the mountains and trackless wilderness near Laos and Cambodia. The legendary wartime supply route is not something that you can drive your motorbike down. But this is a bit of a misrepresentation. Truong Son Road is another name for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The highland route is shown on the left while the coastal one is on the right. I biked along the Truong Son Road to Ho Chi Minh City in the south, a distance of 713km that took me four days. In fact, crossing Vietnam on a motorbike has become something of a standard adventure of modern tourism, glorified by the BBC show Top Gear in a 2008 special.įor my version of the trip, I started in Quang Ngai, a city with outstanding and undiscovered beaches in central Vietnam. Vietnam’s traffic is some of the world's scariest, so successfully driving across the country gives you bragging rights. In this story, he recalls his four-day trip of driving a motorbike from Quang Ngai Province to Ho Chi Minh City on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. and currently lives in Binh Duong Province. Editor's note: Peter Kauffner is from the U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |