300. | On two wheels in Vietnam

We left on Friday, on time, without any problems, for the motorcycle tour.

Five pleasantly slow days so far. A few stories and a lot of feelings.

Here I am now.

Mai Cháu

My Belarusian friend shows the way. And the speed too. The cubic centimeter ratio is 125/50 in my favor, so it makes more sense for him to go first.

We don’t gallop, because we wouldn’t be able to. The ups and downs of the mountains set the rhythm of the days. We just enjoy the music.

Most of the first day we spent on the roads. The rain only occasionally peeked through, the sun was mostly busy baking the parts of my body that weren’t covered by clothes red. So for the past few days I’ve had a pretty red, crab-like figure.

The rain brought one of the first, interesting feelings on the road. I’ve never felt that rain tickles before. On this road I felt it so much around my lips that I couldn’t handle the situation without laughing. It must have felt like someone tickling me with a chicken feather. Although I’m not entirely sure about that, because no one has ever done that before.

Because of the slow pace, I thought a few times that this trip should be called a motorcycle meditation. For hours, I only experienced my feelings. I happily let my thoughts wander around what I was experiencing.

When I was riding the motorcycle, a lot of sentences came to mind that I intended to write in this post. Sitting here in front of my laptop, I have to realize that these feelings only belonged to those moments. I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to preserve or immortalize those moments. Those feelings.

What will definitely remain with me, as a new discovery, is that I love riding motorcycles. I may have said this before. But this time it was different. We stopped many times. And now I realized how good it feels to start the engine and give it gas to go. Feelings of freedom, strength, and confidence flew through me when I turned the motorcycle wheel towards the asphalt. I like to go on a motorbike, it’s that simple.

Mai Chau is a small town in Vietnam, between huge mountains. I saw that a lot of people are involved in rice production here. In the huge valley we saw a lot of rice fields, most of which were always being worked on by someone. Often even in the dark. This aroused a special respect in me. I think that manual farming is not a tradition here, but a necessity.

The town is not designed for tourists. It’s a simple, everyday settlement. So I can’t bring exciting experiences from here. There was a small village where they thought of presenting authenticity, but they managed to create a visitor center instead.

Here, for example, instead of the displayed goods or the calls of massage shops, I liked it much more when the local young people played xiangqi, or Chinese chess, next to us. Or when I saw stuffed snakes and chickens in a corner of a restaurant. Or the lights of one of our evening walks over the rice fields.

We spent Saturday completely relaxing, sightseeing, and the inevitable evening beer drinking.

Moc Cháu

On Sunday, we arrived in the next town after a couple of hours of motorbike riding.

We became real rock stars here.

The place is so untouristy that we didn’t see a stranger around us in 3 days. So we are the attraction for everyone.

“Hellos” are heard every step of the way. Several people come up to us with questions (where are you from? what are your names?) and many selfies have been taken with us in the past few days. Little children constantly notice us and wave and say hello with huge grins. The younger generation shouts from their motorbikes, the girls giggle when we say hello back. And in many cases the older ones also greet us with a smile and words.

I said that it’s so nice to see that with just a wave, a hello, or a few answers you can make people happy for a moment.

There’s not much to see in this town either.

But what there is is majestic.

Láng Ché Tea Village

On Sunday’s trip, it was the first time in my life that I saw tea bushes up close.

During one of the stops, there was a hill not far from the road, where I was lucky enough to encounter this plant.

Yesterday, however, I got to know this plant much better.

I didn’t know that tea bushes only reach about my knees. Yesterday, however, I walked among them for hours. I even tasted the leaves. It was exciting that after chewing a single leaf, the flavors in my mouth were as if I had drunk a whole mug of it.

The plant is incredibly beautiful green, and I was lucky enough to spend my time in a tea field that covered the entire area.

It was quiet, peaceful, and the sun was shining very warmly. I sat down in several places and enjoyed this peace.

In the afternoon, a more grandiose experience awaited me.

I went to the world’s longest – Guinness Record – glass bridge.

Walking on this bridge was an incredible experience.

The parking ticket was 10,000 VND, in return they took me around the entire island in minibuses. Wherever I needed this, one of the staff members immediately called one on the radio.

When buying the entrance ticket, I asked about the possibility of combined tickets, but they didn’t really speak English. Anyway, all the information is written down.

You can only go up the bridge with shoe covers and not all shoes are accepted. (High heels, for example, are not okay.) I could often hear the rules of traffic on the bridge through the speakers.

The view from the bridge is majestic. I chose to walk slowly, so I was alone on the bridge several times (it was Monday). You can see very far, so I had time to admire not only the pictures under the bridge, but also the distant ones.

After the bridge, the glass road continues next to the rocks, which is also an interesting experience. I’m not sure if the road is one-way, but everyone walked along it like that. At the end of the road, there is a very beautiful cobblestone cave, with a small café in front of it. It was nice to rest in the cave’s foyer and look around with a coffee. In addition to the natural formations, the cave contains many artificial elements. For example, I’ve never seen a lake in a cave like this.

They built an elevator into a huge space rocket, which allows you to return to the ground. 🙂 Or you can also choose to zipline down to the main square.

Here you can find restaurants, a grill terrace, and shops. This is where I also got my soft drink for the drink voucher I received with my ticket. The main square was also very nicely decorated, with lots of plants, flowers and my favorite was a small garden.

I sat down and looked around in many places, but I liked this little garden the most. I drank my soft drink and enjoyed the sunshine, the silence, and the view. My peace wasn’t even disturbed by the fact that I heard the locals talking about me. I don’t think they understood what I was doing there all alone. The truth is, I didn’t do anything.

It was worth the entrance fee. If I had to decide a second time, I wouldn’t miss it.