Day 50 16th jan

186km to our last hotel in Ho Chi Minh....

We leave the hotel early... By 8.15am we are on the road for the last leg of our trip... Its a reasonable length journey and we know how busy the roads can be in the major cities....

The road surface is typically bumpy... There are huge ruts in the Tarmac caused by the heavy trucks repeatedly going over the same areas of hot Tarmac... These ruts are around 3 inches deep, and the sides raise another 3 inches above the normal road surface, so you have to ride over a 6 inch high Tarmac rut to get out, sometimes catching the bottom of the bike as you do. The rutted parts are usually smoother but you do have to share them with the trucks that have made them. If this is not to your liking then you can run on the outside, this is a much bumpier place to be with huge potholes, sand, stones and poor repairs littering the road surface... In Asia there is a very wide variety of vehicles that use the road, most are old and very heavy, some of which are clearly old Vietnam war vehicles left behind by America, there still painted dark green, and are usually trucks that now carry logs around the more remote areas of Vietnam. Although there are a huge number of bikes on the road, the road surface is far from ideal for them, specially ours with all the weight its carrying so it comes as no real surprise when the back of the bike begins to sway and drift a little as our rear tyre unexpectedly goes flat.... Ironically we were travelling along a newer section of road which was reasonably smooth, but the tyres as flat as a pancake.... Shirees back on foot again, and thankfully we are quickly in luck.... We were within 50 ft of a little garage where we managed to roll the bike into for repair...

Vietnam is a country full of very resourceful people that struggle to make a living.... Very little is thrown away, and the culture is repair instead of replace.... Welders litter the streets.... Our bikes flat tyre is repaired with the use of another old bike inner tube that's been cut up into small patches, these are then melted onto our inner tube to repair it... No glue used, just a small open fire inside an old piston and a hand clamp... But whatever the technic it's now airtight again, and all for the cost of 29 pence.... We travel along the length of QL20 passing through many towns. The road is pretty much lined on both sides with small shops sell anything from bread to safes.... People here seem to be largely self employed, and it appears a very labour intensive country.. whatever there chosen line of business they perform it from there front garden / front room, which is almost always open along its full width... Its a very honest business environment, if you want an electric motor over hauled, an engine rebuilt or a lorry differential refurbished then it's done out in the street.... Welding and grinding on the roadside is common place, massive pieces of industrial sizes machinery lie everywhere, and if you get hurt, or dirty because you've touched something, then you probably shouldn't of been touching it in the first place... I'd imagine the children here learn pretty quick not to touch what they don't understand... I'd also imagine that learning to balance is high up the priority list too... Families traveling on one bike is the norm... Four on a bike is nothing special, usually the youngest, and this will be from around 1 yrs old will have to stand on the bike in front of the rider, whilst everyone else clings to any inch of seating space they can find, and in some cases if seating space can not be found then the person on the back just clings on with there arms and holds there feet off the ground for the entire journey....

We pass many more houses drying out coffee beans along the roadside and we now take a slightly wider route around the weasel poo ones.... Although we have tried it, we still can't get our heads around why anyone would want to drink the stuff....

It's been noticed on today's ride that the bike is making the same grinding noise that it was making on day one when we hit a bump in the road, we know it's not a good sound and a quick inspection of the rear tyre confirms that it is making contact with the body of the bike again..... This is not good news for our little bike..., I guess the frames bending where we have so much weight on it or the welding jobs given out on us.... What ever the cause, the rear wheel rubs on full suspension compression, but thankfully its not nearly as bad as before and the contact point on the tyre is in a slightly different area. We know its major work to sort it out properly so we just press on, it's our last day and we'll make Ho Chi Minh no trouble so long as we don't go crazy...

We spend the rest of our trip in bike preservation mode.... Any sign of a significant bump ahead and Shiree has to stand... This reduces the weight on frame by a pound or two and gives us the necessary clearance required....

We soon run into heavy traffic and roadworks and join the constant presestion of bikes that swarm all over the road and pavements whenever there's a queue, intent on passing there way up the queue at any cost... Our side of the road is getting a huge drainage pipe laid under it and getting resurfaced at the same time, this means that all traffic now has to share one side of the road which is normal here, the bikes largely come off the "road" altogether and use the compressed hardcore foundation of the new road surface, weaving around the road workers and machinery whilst the coaches and lorries jostle for road space on the still open shared side of the old road. They forcing street sellers to retreat further from the roadside as they jerkily inch past each other at slow speed. The sellers stalls are wedged between the coaches occupying the road and the bikes occuping the pavement. Vehicle contact is just an expected part of the process it would appear.

The system works to a large degree and we blend in with the locals in are approach now... We pass through an opening in the string fence and run up the hardcore for a while until we get to the real cause of all the congestion.... the lorry that lifts the pipe into the ground has to be next to the hole the pipes going into, this means that it needs to occupy one side of the already halved remaining road space, and from here it all goes to pot.... Temporary traffic lights don't exist in Vietnam, it's just an absolute free for all with no real winner other than the bike users, provided they make it through without being squashed... The road space is really tight and when your on a heavy bike manoeuvrability is not so easy, we do make it through, by pavement use mainly but we did out fair share of coach dodging along the way.... Vehicle are inches from you and you have to push your way into the smallest gaps alongside huge lorries and coaches... The pavements are not like the pavements at home, there uneven and people see them as there own.... They'll adapt them to there own personal needs with ramps and equipment all over the place and the dust from the road works gets into everything and the temperatures hot...... There are as many bikes facing you as there are traveling in your direction so progress is slow and disjointed... Eventually we make it past the bottle neck and see to our amazement that the car drivers on the other side are now queuing along side the coaches on both sides of the road so anything vehicle larger than a bike that does manage to pass the bottle neck now has know where to go.... There is ample room for us though and we pass buy easily but heaven help people stuck in vehicles.... The workmen on the pipe lorry have the hardest job of all... They have to unload and position the pipe whilst working on a gridlocked road where other vehicles are inches away from there's....

This pipe laying job would have been going on for weeks and judging by the amount of new pipe we now pass along the roadside will be continuing for some time.... Along, I suspect with the total carnage....

We arrive at a junction with Highway 1 and our trusty phone map tells us to join this road for the next hour and a half into Ho Chi Minh, but instead we cross straight over and choose an alternative entry road into the city.... It looks a little longer, but should avoid a busy road full of lorries....

The road we have chosen has just been relayed and it's absolutely perfect... It's also pretty much deserted... The Chinese have a deal with the Vietnamese, its a "roads for wood" deal... On first hearing of this deal back in Hanoi we thought it sounded like a bad idea but having now travelled a few miles on there delapatated road infrastructure you can see why the Vietnamese have agreed... And I guess this road is part of that program. Bordering the pristine new road are thousands and thousands of young trees, all planted in precise lines as far as the eye can see... The road, although new has already seen some action though.... When there is an accident involving a bike here the bike is left in the road until the police arrive.. The police then spray the skid marks and bikes locations onto the road surface... It leaves a murder seen style white outline on the road after the bikes are removed... The paint is not removed after the investigation is complete and having passed many on our little road trip they act very well as a reminder of how vulnerable you are on a bike here...

Our chosen route into Ho Chi Minh involves us using a bridge over a large river... The phone has now repotted our route and leads us to the bridge... A little short of our arrival at the bridge we come to a road block.... It's controlled by what appears to be the Vietnamese equivalent of the Navy and we are denied entry... I had noticed a decline in the traffic and the narrowing of the road on our approach to the bridge and now we know why.... We turn around, fingers crossed that we don't have to go back to Highway 1... Our chosen route into Ho Chi Minh has already taken much longer than we'd first thought.... There is no mention of Saigon or Ho Chi Minh on any road sign but we were pointed in a very general direction by the Navy guy at the road block... We soon meet up with a busier road and just follow it, still heading away from Highway 1 and after around another hour find ourself it a little port.... We pay are money and wait in line to join the approaching ferry... Its rush hour now so space on the ferry is not plentiful.... We are pretty much the first bike on so get a good position at the front of the boat.... The ferry crosses the river on a pretty industrial part of water and it doesn't look very appealing.... Its a short ride across and on our arrival we depart the ferry and immediately allow other riders through.... The signs and road marking make no sense to us at all, there are lines of trucks parked up everywhere so following the local crowd through this maze seems like the most sensible thing to do...

It's not long till the phones plotted our route again and we head into central Ho Chi Minh city... We pass under another river, this one much wider than the river we crossed by ferry... This tunnel we later learn is the longest tunnel in South Asia.... It has large fans along the roof area to circulate the air... These are a common sight in long tunnels at home, but being on a slow bike you appreciate now how loud they are... We emerge the other side and make our way to our hotel.... Its a fantastically located hotel... Its in District 1 which is heavily populated with cheaper hotels and hostels for the backpacker community in Ho Chi Minh, but it's down a quiet narrow side street so it's not to affected by the pub and club music that continues through to 3am and it's to narrow for cars so hopefully quiet. The road that has all these clubs, pubs and restaurants is very similar to Bangkok's Koh San Road and its a two minute walk away... It's exactly what we wanted...

Our arrival in Ho Chi Minh evokes a mixture of feelings... We are pleased and relieved to of made it without to much trouble, but our arrival also marks the end of our bike trip... We have both really enjoyed having the bike and although it requires money being spent on it to enable us to continue using it we'll be sorry to see it go..... The only things that have gone wrong with it are as a result of us not maintaining it properly or as a result of us overloading it.. It is nice to of gotten to our chosen destination and if asked if we'd do it again... Then yes, for sure we would.

The roads here in Asia are much noisier, there's constant horn blowing, even if the roads are almost deserted... Horn blowing here though is done to draw attention to you, not to try and get someone else out if your way.. There's no anger or malice here.... It's all very calm and unconditional which really is amazing... I've never been anywhere in the world where the road users are quite so inconsiderate, and it's the bike users that are the worst by a mile, the coach and lorry drivers have to use the horn almost continually to warn a constantly changing circle of idiot motorbike riders if there presence, if they didn't, they'd knock down people all the time.... Everyone's appears to be in there own little bubble, if they want to turn in the road they do..... Or pull out of a side road they just do it.... Looking to see if there is space for them to perform there manoeuvre doesn't enter there thought process at all....

We had two close encounters in our ride... Both with bikes..... both of which had made a decision to cross busy roads without looking at all....

This I won't miss.... Give me UK driving standards any day... It least to an extent its predictable....

We make up a "For Sale" sign for the bike and I email the guy who showed interest in the bike a couple of days ago... We'll just have to see what tomorrow brings...