There is a famous 350 km motorcycle road in Vietnam. It is called Hà Giang Loop.
Well, I am not going on this motorcycle trip tomorrow.
Why not the Hà Giang Loop?
Just!
I’m not saying it’s because everyone does it here. Nor that every third person wears the T-shirt of this tour. I don’t think it’s just because of that.
I’m just going with the flow.
My Belarusian friend and I said goodbye in Sa Pa with the promise to meet here and ride a bike together.
He knows the country better. He has a plan of where to go. I’ll follow it. The Hà Giang Loop will come up one day, if the tide takes me there.
We’re going to the mountains
I’ll write here where I was. I looked at the map to see where the road would be, and now all I remember is that the direction from here is northwest.
It’s rainy season, we might start in the rain tomorrow.
It’s also possible that we’ll get wet. And catch a cold.
I’m not worried that I won’t survive.
We’ll leave in 11 hours.
Get a motorbike!
I’ve mentioned renting a motorbike many times before. It’s not a big deal.
It wasn’t a big deal, to be precise.
I tried renting one at three places. I immediately closed the deal at the third place. You’ll see why.
At the first shop I asked how much a motorbike costs for a day. 150,000 VND (1,700 HUF, 5.75 USD). This is the usual price, it’s posted everywhere. Then I asked if I could get a better price if I rented it for 10 days. The answer was: I won’t give it to you for 10 days, because then you’ll be going far.
That was a clear statement, we didn’t need to continue the conversation.
It became clear that we probably wouldn’t be liked anywhere if we wanted to go far. And we wanted to go far.
The next place had the same price, and the woman immediately asked if we would only be riding in Ninh-Binh. In order to continue this bargaining, I lied to her out of sudden excitement. I thought we could refine this later. Then came the question of what discount she could give for 10 days.
The answer was that the discount was that I could take it for 10 days. Otherwise, I would have to bring the motorbike back to the yard every night. And the lady would have already taken the deposit, but I cleverly argued that I didn’t have any cash with me and we walked away.
I went into the third place with my little fingers crossed. The price was 120,000. That’s better than average. I cautiously asked if I would take it for 10-14 days, because we hadn’t decided how long we would be here yet. Okay. Wow! We got away with the question of only using it in the area – for now.
The next turn came. Is there a discount for 10 days? The lady couldn’t answer this, so we had to call her sister. I told her the question. 100,000 VND per day for 10 days. And we still haven’t talked about the fact that it’s only in the area…
I tried it. It’s an old rickety bike, but it drives well, the brakes work and the steering doesn’t wobble.
I paid and we rolled out of the yard.
The strange thing is that they didn’t ask for a deposit for the motorbike. In fact, we didn’t even sign a contract. They didn’t even ask for my passport. I wrote down the owner’s phone number, but she doesn’t know mine.
So, it looks like I now have a motorbike for 1,000,000 VND, without them even knowing who I am.
I don’t understand how they can be so irresponsible. Now they can worry for 10 days whether I will come back that day or not. Or maybe the bike is not even worth 1,000,000 VND?
I will send the owner a picture of my passport tomorrow. That way at least she will know who took her bike. And she won’t have to chew on the threshold for 10 days.
And I won’t tell her that I’m going on my second Long Way.
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