Apologies loyal followers, I deceived you! In the end I decided to take my laptop around! Next question where?!?
I left you in Bangkok. In the next few days I planned to do a bit of travelling round the country before I met up with my friend. Instead, after 5 months of relative isolation I met 7 old friends from school and had an absolute blast with them before they went off to their respective destinations.
After they left, I met Chef Lorenzo, another school friend (known to some as Lawrence, Loz or just Chef). We decided to catch the next plane to Vietnam to explore the country by motorbike! Boom, 2 days later we sleep the night at the Bangkok airport then proceed to catch an early morning flight to Hanoi, Vietnam.
So, we get to Hanoi, and what a greeting!! As we walk out the airport we notice a massive Panasonic TV advertisement board about 100m away from us directly pointing at the airport. Nothing out the ordinary there, hey? Well it turns out the computer playing the ads to the screen also had a user. We see him flicking through his files, looking at various documents and several thumbnails of videos, before this anonymous user eventually selects some tasty porn! Hehe, all the Westerners (maybe about 10 of us) piss ourselves laughing at the fact this guy has not realised he is beaming up porn to a massive TV ad board instead of Nike, McDonalds or Panasonic ads!
Anyway, we hop on a bus heading to the centre of town (we think). Get off and realise we are probably miles away! Then we have to catch another bus...not fun! 3 hours in total from airport to Hostel! Well we settle into our swanky hostel ($5 for freezing aircon, breakfast, internet and all you can drink from 7-8).
So next day we go searching for bikes on a Sunday, no success! Just a couple of really shit Honda Wins and not much else for exorbitant prices being sold by locals at the bike market (which was mostly closed). Damn! We then found out about a Minsk dealer, but he was also closed on the Sunday. Damn! Then we looked at some of the ads in our hostel with fellow travellers selling their bikes. Bingo! We call two guys up selling a Minsk sport and a Honda win. By this time we have acquired a bit of a bike pro (Mike, 32 and from London) who helps us out looking at the bikes. We are going to travel with Mike on his 125cc Suzuki he also just bought in Hanoi for the tour as he’s a real good craic. Anyway I purchase a Minsk 125 sport (I’ve ridden before and have a CBT certificate) for $315 and chef buys the Win for $250. We run them down to a local mechanic, recommended by the guy at the hostel who then for roughly £7 each puts in new bearings and tons of other stuff. The bikes then run smooth as a whistle. We then give loz a bit of a lesson down a back road on how to ride, which whilst I find watching extremely scary he finds a breeze and Mike cruises him through with “yeh go for it, put it in second, whoo, faster!!”. Loz quickly picks up the art of motorcycling to my surprise with all limbs intact!
Next, it’s off to the filling station (Mike drives loz’s bike with loz on the back due) and this is the first time I get to ride my Minsk, and by god this thing is powerful for a 125cc. I’m sure the power ratio is much higher as I weave in and out of traffic with ease and gas it through the gears. We fill the bikes up with I having to put in 100ml 2-stroke oil into the tank (the things spew white smoke like there is no tomorrow but it’s apparently a healthy sign and necessary!) With a full tank for under £6 and some tarmac highway to burn we shoot off to the car park where we are leaving the bikes in that night. We park up next to Mikes and back off to the hostel we shoot for beer time! So day 1 of the adventure complete!
Day 2: Halong bay!
The girl’s names:
Hamish on the 125cc MINSK SPORT: Kobe-Jude
This came about after trying to think of the coolest name I have ever heard. Then I remembered Chad and Lisa Burge’s baby is called Kobe-Jude. I’ve always thought it’s the coolest name ever, so here’s to you Kobe-Jude, you now have a tribute act, born probably in the 80’s\70’s in Belarus/USSR, exported to Vietnam as “Farm Machinery”, used for many millions of miles, almost certainly carried all types of livestock, raced, had 7 people on at once, repaired with coke cans, loved, cherished, kicked and beaten for all manner of ailments and now my hands!
Mike on the 125cc Suzuki GN125: Florence (the machine)
“She just felt like a Florence to me”, mike said.
Chef on the 125cc Honda Win: Rosie
“What gives you that feeling in your balls? The rush of extreme acceleration. The feeling of barely missing a ten tonne truck. Listening to ‘Whole lotta Rosie’ by AC/DC”
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