One little bonus yesterday, when we got upgraded from a sleeper seat, which we were not looking forward to, but it was cheap, to the front row of a VIP limousine, aka Ford Transit with big seats. But other than that, nothing to say about the ride from Hanoi to Ha Giang. And only one photo in the day – my morning bowl of pho. Nice but unremarkable.
Still, we were pleased to arrive and check into our brand new, palatial hotel, finding ourselves in a vast room, with two immense beds and a monster telly, on which some earlier punter had been kind enough to leave his log in details, allowing us to watch the frankly underwhelming Seven Years in Tibet before retiring for a sleep that lasted till 9.30 – at which point we remembered being told at check-in that breakfast stopped serving at nine. “Just as well it wasn’t free,” I said to V, “or we would have been really pissed off.”
Downstairs we bumped into the cheery manager, who asked us if we’d like some breakfast. “We thought we’d missed it,” we said. “Oh no! Whatever time you like! It’s included in the price of your room.” Double bubble!
After breakfast we arranged bike hire for our trip to the Ha Giang loop. Four days, 1,200,000 dong without insurance; 1,800,000 with. We decided the extra £20 was worth it, if only for the peace of mind. And they agreed to let us borrow the bike for a couple of hours today, to get familiar with it, which was nice. Not least because it meant we could get out of Ha Giang itself, having flagged it fairly quickly yesterday as a nothing town with nothing to recommend it.
A bit of googling turned up Thon Tay – a village a few k’s out of town which certainly looked worth a visit, so we got on the bike and set off. And indeed, it was lovely. Just off the main drag, maybe 100 or so houses, all wooden, on stilts, with rush roofs; no roads or cars; lots of standing water, with vegetation of a stunning emerald green; great views of the mountains in the background, receding into the mist.
We spent a happy half hour just wandering around admiring the place, trying little paths which invariably ended up in someone’s yard, until, while we were admiring some fine cows, a man turned up on a scooter, and insisted we come back to his house, where we found his daughter in law and a couple of his grandchildren – lovely smiling boys, who paid intermittent attention to us and to the telly in the corner of the otherwise very sparse (not to say wall-less) room.
A rush mat was spread out for us and we sat and shared names and ages and the like. I would have loved to take some photos, and Virle said later she didn’t think the man would have minded – indeed, would probably have been quite chuffed – but it just didn’t feel right, to treat such generous and intimate hospitality as a photo opportunity.
Getting back to the bike, I had difficulty with the key, and before we’d had time to notice I was actually trying to start the bike with the room key, we’d managed to activate some kind of uber-lock, which then proved absolutely unshiftable. A very nice man tried his best to help us, then called another very nice man who tried to help us, then pushed the bike 100 metres to his workshop out on the main drag, where he spent the next hour and some dismantling the whole front end of the bike to get at and disable the uber-lock mech, before discovering it still wouldn’t start – the key just wouldn’t turn.
After repeated attempts, we finally managed to get hold of the owner, who eventually arrived with a sidekick with a big bunch of Honda keys, none of which solved the problem. Eventually – and don’t ask me how this happened – the correct key was discovered. In my pocket. And the bike started instantly. Hardly embarrassing at all. Anyway, Virle gave the nice mechanic man 200,000 dong, which seemed to both delight and slightly fluster him (the owner laughingly said 50,000 would have been nearer the mark) and off we rode, back to town.
Then time for a late lunch, a lazy afternoon watching Love Actually on Netflix (which I’d unaccountably never seen before – a far better film than Seven Years), and then out for a light supper of nachos and beer. Yum. I told the woman behind the counter that I’d once seen a similar wall at a hostel in the middle of the Queensland rainforest, and one of the lines had stayed with me for forty years. She immediately insisted I add it to the wall, along with my name. I said I’d subsequently discovered the line was John Lennon’s, so maybe I should credit him. “Who?” she said.
The (63) was at Virle’s insistence!
We ended the day with a little trip up to the cashpoint, to pick up enough dong for our trip. We’re just hoping a million or two won’t go into the pockets of the local cops, who reportedly pull over tourists and levy ‘fines’ for their failure to present an International Driver’s License, which of course I don’t have. The cashpoint trip did turn up one little bonus to end the day – a spot of Virle’s:
How cool is that!
The loop tomorrow. Our last big adventure of this trip. Looking forward to it so much. Time for beddy byes.