Day 20: The Hierarchy on Vietnam's Roads

• From - To: Hoang Nguyen Homestay Ba Be – Homestay Sunny

• Distance: 131 km, 3:33h

• Routes: DT254 – bevardis keliukas – DT254 – QL3C – QL37

• Accommodation: Homestay Sunny, Double Room with A/C 17 Eur už naktį, breakfast extra 2,28 Eur

To avoid being completely disappointed with Ba Be, I had breakfast at Hoang Nguyen Homestay for 50K VND (2 EUR) and booked a motorboat for a 2-hour tour. The German couple I had met at dinner, who had agreed to join me for the boat ride, had argued overnight and breakfasted separately. When I asked one of them if we were still going, they suggested I ask the other. When I asked the other, they said they didn’t know and to ask the first one. Deciding not to play games, I went to the dock alone. Naturally, this meant paying the entire tour cost myself, but I convinced myself it was a price worth paying for peace on the boat.

The boat ride was shorter than 2 hours. I asked the captain to cut the trip short on the way back to the dock because I was eager to get back on my Winner and continue my journey. I had to remind myself to slow down – where was I rushing? The lake was beautiful, I had paid 600K VND for a private tour, so why was I in a hurry to end it? The answer lay in my hangover analogy. When someone has a heavy drinking session, they have a hangover the next morning, which seasoned drinkers often cure with more drinking. I had been traveling by motorbike for 19 days, every single day. So, I was experiencing motorbike hangovers. Each morning, I was eager to get back on the saddle and ride!

In so many days, I had learned to pack my belongings and secure them to the motorbike in less than 10 minutes. In the beginning, it used to take me over half an hour. I quickly returned the room key to the owner of Hoang Nguyen, paid an extra 150K VND (5.90 EUR) for a very hearty dinner plus 40K for two Hoi beers (0.80 EUR per can), and hopped on my Winner.

The first hour on DT254 was indistinguishable, similar to the previous day's road. However, at the 46th kilometer, Google suddenly instructed me to turn left. I stopped to check – it was correct; the navigator was suggesting a 14 km shortcut on an unnamed path. To my immense delight, this path turned out to be the most wonderful part of my day. Driving slowly, I meandered between rice fields, farmers' homes, bamboo, and cinnamon groves, encountering only a few locals on scooters, with no trucks or buses in sight. I reminded myself not to stick to the main road all day, but to plan my route more carefully and find a diversion from the monotonous path, even if just for an hour or half an hour. In essence, a motorbike trip should not be a mere journey from point A to B. It should include a point C. Such points are everywhere in Vietnam. You just have to find them and enjoy.

One such point, which I called F (Food), always involves stopping for a meal. I usually stop by the road, for instance, where I see an elderly lady boiling Pho in a large pot. Pho Bo can be found in every village or town and is my favorite Vietnamese dish. I could eat it almost every day. It's delicious, satisfying, inexpensive (costing 1.20 EUR roadside), and healthy. It's not fast food but a beef bone broth simmered for 6 to 24 hours, quickly served with rice noodles and thinly sliced beef. Basil, mint, lettuce, bean sprouts – you usually add them yourself as desired. You can spice it up with hot peppers or hot pepper sauce, add garlic vinegar and fish sauce, and squeeze some green lemon on top. Perfection.

I found my F point at the intersection of QL3C and QL3. While slurping the long noodles of my Pho, I watched how traffic participants managed the intersection. The bigger the vehicle, the worse they behaved. Besides the main traffic rule in Vietnam – nobody wants a collision – a hierarchy is in play. This means you must yield to larger vehicles. For a motorbiker, this translates to being wary of large cars, especially buses and trucks. They drive as they please because the road belongs to them. Even in intersections where vehicles have enough room to pass in their lanes, larger vehicles will unhesitatingly veer into the opposite lane while navigating a turn. After eating my Pho, I even stood up to photograph a few road situations (you can find the photo below). That's just how it is. If a foreigner doesn't accept this and drives as they do at home, they're asking for trouble.

Thai Nguyen is roughly the size of Kaunas (the second largest city in my home country Lithuania). The closer to the city, the busier the traffic became. Near the city, I nearly entered the CT07 expressway, where motorbikes and scooters are banned. I saw the prohibitory sign at the last moment, narrowly avoiding the police and a significant fine for a serious violation. The police always set up checkpoints on expressways to catch unsuspecting travelers like me.

I easily found my reserved accommodation at Homestay Sunny. In the morning, I had difficulty finding it on Google Maps. Then I realized that, unlike on booking.com, it's listed as Khach san Sunny House on Google. 'Khach san' in Vietnamese means 'hotel.' This naming convention makes it easier to navigate on the map.

After showering and changing, I ate a mango I had bought earlier. I didn’t want anything else but to walk around the city and get a massage before bed. The city was large, and I wandered for 3 hours. On my way back to the guesthouse, I stopped by Anna Spa. I’m sharing the link because I received the most professional foot and neck massage there. Despite it being 11 pm and the staff ready to head home, they accommodated me for an hour-long massage, which cost only 250K VND (9.85 EUR).