Biker Grove Trip

From Hoi An to Hue we took a two day bike trip (Just like in Top Gear),
We went with a group I found on the net and too make it even better they make you drive the AK47 of motorcycles, The Mighty Minsk!


















And for those off you who have noted that


A) We have never ridden motorcycles before,
and
B) We don't have to licences to drive motorcycles in Ireland let alone Vietnam,


I tell you that these small problems don't exist in Vietnam

So with Cailín bravely volunteering to ride behind me as I learnt to ride a motorcycle on dirt roads miles from a hospital and while trucks take blind corners on the wrong side of the road were coming at us. We set off.

Sufficed to say there were many screams of "SLOW DOWN!!" and "BRAKE"
but then after a few hours these screams turned to "SPEED UP YOUR FALLING BEHIND" and "SHIFT DOWN FOR THE HILL YOU IDIOT"


On the trip with us were a group of three lads from England who talked loudly about their "girlfriends" but took photo's like this and wore neckerchiefs like capes and fake tattoo's the whole way. Seriously though Cailín was jealous of their biking accessories.













Rory Calhoon anyone?


And these two, the guy on the right was Phil and was very very sound but the girl in the middle was from Hollywood and not a nice person for reasons I will explain, Think Hitler if he could shoot lasers from his eyes.

Within a few miles we had spotted this legend going along not only with fifty balloons tied to his bike but if you look close he also has the helium tank to refill them on their too!,

Not before long one of the "Macho" men who had bragged about riding bikes since he was a kid and his brother was a Moto-Gp mechanic broke his bike,burrrrrrrrn!

First officially was the site of a battle during the Vietnam war, it was a hill overlooking the whole countryside just like "Hamburger Hill" which you could actually see from the top of it.

I think Eoin must have kicked me in the nuts.

Passed through some lovely country side after we negotiated a motorway which made me pee a little cause the huge trucks would come up on your inside bombing alone with their horns blaring,

Stalled it again in the middle of a mud puddle with everyone watching while I held up someone else on a scooter and locals shouted at me.....shame...



Stopped for a gourmet picnic under the shade of a tree beside a village where the people were very poor which we all felt quite guilty about but the guide Mark said he had offered them food before but the refused because they didn't like cheddar cheese and ham, I wasn't complaining though, hadn't had either in months.




After lunch I got the bike stuck on a hill in the middle of a landslide and kicked it as hard as I could for five minutes trying to get it into first only to be informed by the guide that it was in first and that the only way to get it going was to ride/destroy the clutch while revving the nuts off it all the way up the hill, well as long as its not my bike.....




That night we stopped for food and sleep in a small village that white people don't visit, I think there was us and one other guy,


It was soon brought to our attention that they distilled rice wine in the village which was served in water bottles and got you mighty drunk in a very good way


But it did taste like urinal cakes.

And it got Eoin's allergic reaction going again which was just a bonus,

Mark the guide didn't take to the booze quite as gracefully though,

Here he is sober,

Here his drunk,




Here he is so drunk I have just caught him drooling on himself,

Thats drool on his t-shirt,

Here he is so drunk he is about to cheat on his wife with that bitch from Hollywood,

Despite the fact that we all tried to physically drag him away, talk him out of it, talk her out of it........

and in a last ditch effort start screaming the name of his wife as he kissed the slut,

I literally went up to the bitch and said "Don't do this, his wife is lovely I met her today"
But what are you meant to do, hit someone, tie someone up, murder, was I meant to MURDER!......

Well we ended up getting even more drunk.....

Even Phil did an impression of me kicking and cursing at the bike trying to get it into first,

From Bike trip


And performed a rousing rendition of drunk song no.1

From Bike trip

We found my uncle Brian Cannon's Vietnamese doppelgänger,


We were finally kick out of the restaurant by thee lovely lady owner about four hours after everyone else in the village had gone to bed,



This bloke later got wrecked and started talking to the local dogs until we were sent to bed by a passing local of waking everyone up,

Eoin was booked in to share a room/bed with this chap until he got so drunk he passed out and me and Foyser had to put him to bed
and this big burly chap decided he would prefer to sleep in the other room with the other straight guys,
That night Eoin heaved the contents of his stomach out his mouth and nose while simultaneously breaking the toilet seat which we got in lots off trouble for the next morning with the guide saying "I just got an earful from the owner of that hotel, what the fuck were you guys up to last night?"........Hang on a bloody second, what were YOU up to last night?! Isn't someone MARRIED?!

Just out of the village we started riding on the Ho Chi Min Trail, complete with sign and everything!

Then the Frontier Zone!










And we left the Trail where it pottered off into Laos,



Next a visit to a local village which was over a DANGER BRIDGE on which Cailín started freaking out half way across trying to get off the feckin bike and nearly sending us in the river, it was hilarious,









The countryside was breathtaking and often lead to Cailín twisting my nipples and screaming "KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD BITCH!"


Landslide


My slow but steady riding style was an inspiration to everyone there,
even if we were the last every single time,
we were in no rush and took frequent pee and photo stops,




Eoin did his best to equal my riding skill but........


But ended up blowing a huge hole in his transmission casing like a bitch,



Amateur!
Later we stopped at a waterfall where Eoin jumped in trying to miss several big rocks


While I ran away for fear of getting my underwear wet.


More fantastic views




Look at that digger up on the hill, how in the hell did he get up there?!
Madman.

Brilliant signage
"you can fall 56 metres to your death right here if you want.


Got to see the one thing I really wanted to see in Vietnam RICE PADDIES!!
Look how green they are, it looks like what I imagine the world to look like when your on acid.





Riding through the villages on the way the children would run to the front of the house screaming and waving like Santa had come, it so nice to see,

Got to ride through a pitch black tunnel revving the nuts off it in second gear, the sound was amazing, I couldn't even see the road in front of me because it was so dark, my headlight was obviously Italian made,


With heavy hearts we hit Hue only for Eoin to get lost in the absolutely mad traffic

In his defence the traffic was mental, you just had to slowly go into the swarm of motor bikes at every junction, there are no traffic lights, you just dodge people, at one point I saw a guy with an industrial sized refrigerator on a pedal rickshaw and thought I was a dead man, I just gunned the throttle and missed him, it was brilliant.
Arrived in a hostel for a beer or two and a bottle of Arse?


Cailín noticed this sign and rightly pointed out that it is advertising cups of tea to the Irish,


Madness, every bit of it.......