Moped madness

After arriving back in Hanoi, we meet up with Gary again and Helly and Olivia from uni! A wonderful evening followed and we went out for dinner and drinks and Gary and I got a 'Good Morning Vietnam' T-shirt! Happy days!

Unfortunately, our time in Hanoi was over as we had to get a sleeper train (with beds and everything!) to meet up with the rest of the group again. The train turned into a 14 hour marathon but we arrived in Huè around lunchtime in the pouring rain. Talking to friends back home and other travellers, apparently it always rains in Huè.

So as we were wet anyway, we decided we should just go swimming. So we went to the "Olympic" pool. We are pretty sure Vietnam has never hosted the Olympics but that didn't stop them having massive great signs and Olympic rings everywhere. The exercise was good though!

We wanted to explore the town and as it was fairly spread out, we decided that hiring a moped was definitely the best idea. Neither of us have ever ridden one before and, as anyone who has ever been to Vietnam (or apparently anywhere in Asia) the traffic is mental. Bikes, cars, mopeds, pedestrians, trucks and buses follow no rules and obey no right of way, traffic lights or even one way systems in a cocktail of constant near misses. Imagine cross roads where there is a constant heavy stream of traffic coming from all four directions. Perfect time to learn. The man who rented the bikes out laughed when we said we had never ridden one before and asked if he could show us how to work it. Better still, we were on a busy main road where I started it for the first time. Even better than that, we were facing the wrong way and had to cross over the road to head in the right direction. And, for the first ever time riding it, I had Gill sitting behind me and clamped round my waist holding on for grim death as a pillion passenger. This man thought this was the last time he would see us and his moped for sure.

With a wobble we were off and eventually we managed to sneak over to the other side of the road! All was going well until we realised the tank was empty and we very much needed some fuel. The only petrol station we knew had run out of petrol (!) so we were driving around a city in chaos searching for a petrol station whilst running on vapour!

As you can imagine, this wasn't the most enjoyable part of the trip but we survived nevertheless. But after we had filled up, and pootled about for a bit, I had got the hang of riding it and we were actually quite enjoying it. Gill had even loosened her grip.

We did manage to see some really amazing things. We visited the citadel and old palace, lots of pagodas and the tombs of past kings. We sped through narrow streets and country lanes and past fields and through villages. When we were on a quiet bit of road, Gill said she wanted to have a go. So after a 10 second tutorial (I couldn't really offer much more than that!) she stepped on and was off. She zipped off so quickly she left me behind. After 5 minutes of no sign or sound, I was starting to worry a little so I went off down the road. But there she was, coming slowly back towards me. Apparently, when she tried to turn around, she accelerated rather then turned so squealed as a local stood and laughed at her!

A little later Gill tried riding again and this time I got on the back. After a big wobble at the start, Gill didn't turn for a corner and we very nearly cascaded into a ditch saved only by a very late emergency stop. Again, the locals loved it. So we made a hasty getaway.

We were wandering around and it started to rain again so we got out our ponchos and carried on walking. After a while I was feeling particularly self conscious as people kept staring at me. Even more than normally. Then I realised that my poncho (that was given by the bike man for use on the moped) had a clear plastic square that normally sits over the headlight but as we were walking, it was perfectly framing my crotch! Rubbish.

So we made it back safely and handed it back to a very relieved owner! Turns out, we actually both loved riding it and are considering one for the island when we get back! How exciting!

The rest of our time in Huè was spent eating, playing jenga and snoozing. We did have one minor incident when we were sleeping in our dorm room and a random drunk man came back into the room after some very loud whispering, he sat on the edge of the bed I was sleeping in! So I (semi-gently-ish) kicked him off and got a "oh, I'm sorry, didn't realise there was a person in there...."

Anyway, off to Hoi An!