My scariest experience in Vietnam

Can a minsk travel 100 km held together with plastic bags and masking tape?
The answer is: Yes.. it can.

(And nope that's not the scary part. That's just a matter of fact.)

Our roadtrip started luscious and pastoral. 8 road warriors, my newly-arrived brother. A beautiful crew, complete with a cat packing a GPS grumbling through Vietnamese countryside, mountains, winding roads and tiny villages...

It wasn't till evening when we hit a bad patch of road my memory becomes clearer. One of the bikes didn't have a light and the road was quickly disintegrating into rocky chunks. It was hard to see and after the rain, tracks were slippery under the tires. There were a few times I thought I would be bumped right off the bike.

But, that wasn't the scary part.
We decided to stop, better for our asses and better for our bikes..some villagers (who definitely heard us coming) came out and offered us an abandoned school for the night. Not quite the woodsy camping experience we pictured, but considering the road..a great option. Surrounded by curious locals, we got comfortable, someone swept the floors and they even rigged up a bare bulb while we drew pictures for the cute kids on the blackboard.

But that's when things got complicated...

Two policemen arrived and they weren't happy we were there. They had terse words and attitudes, a huge comparison to the smiling people around us. Our friend, Lan Anh, did most of the talking while we produced what we hoped were harmless tourist smiles...

Vietnamese cop: Where are your passports.
Us (sitting on the dusty floor): We are tourists, our hotels have them.
Vietnamese cop: (looking at our friends..with fantastic logic) If you are tourists.. why are you Vietnamese?
Lan Anh: ..some smart reply..
Vietnamese police: You are tourists, you must sleep at our station. It's not safe for you to sleep here.
Us: (looking at smiling 8 year olds) ...Um...

Even with Lan Anh's incredible diplomacy, we had no choice but to saddle up and at a sombre, grey looking station they took names, grilled our friends, Lan Anh and Son, and told us we could continue on our journey in the morning.

Disappointing, yes..but still, not scary.

While on the way to the other station to sleep, our police escort suddenly disappeared. Strange, their headlights had been following us closely, so we stopped on the road... by chance next to a bia hoi! Beer, peanuts, more peanuts, a broken (and fixed) bike and more beer later, we realised the police weren't coming and headed out of town!

Being in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, crossing rickety bamboo bridges and water, the best thing was to find a secluded place, rig up hammocks and sleep. This, while decidedly drunken, messy and kind of farcical...was also not scary....

...Asleep, drunk, in a tree in a forest...in Vietnam..

What was scary was being shaken awake at 4am by Lan Anh...

LA: There are men with guns. I don't know who they are. They have guns.
Me: (drunk) Whaaaat?
LA: They have Son, I don't know if they are police, but they don't look like it. They have Son and they have guns.

And she disappeared into the dark.

I panicked. I could see a bright light in the distance, motors and hear angry men shouting. I rolled out of the hammock, and hid in the darkness of the bushes heart in my mouth...

Racing through my mind was the ridiculousness of hiding, the positives of hiding, and racing through my body fear and prickly bushes I had fallen into.. After what seemed like ages, brain cells kicked in, there were shouts that we should pack up camp, no gun shots and I shook awake the sleeping couple in the tree above me and we gathered our things as directed.

That was the scary part.
I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life.
My heart was in my throat the entire time. Thank god, someone had their head together and communicated we were travellers. Luckily, for us, they were local police looking for a group of Vietnamese hoodlums. They saw our bikes and mistook us. The gun in the end, was very small. And the men, friendly enough once they realised we weren't armed.
Our Vietnamese friend, Son, probably copped the worst, having to explain in the middle of the night face to face with angry men with guns..and Lan Anh again, ever diplomatic and sensitive!

The police were very friendly, much nicer than the first lot. They joked and smiled as they offered us cold, hard tiles to sleep on. We spent the night in the position we were meant to be in...on a cold floor in a station house.

In the clear light of day (at another bia hoi) we nursed hangovers and laughed about our situation... you know..that nervous kind of laughter.

The rest of the trip was wonderful, searching for imaginary waterfalls, swimming in rivers, and hanging out with goats and water buffalo surrounded by magnificent jungle..the kind of happiness one expects in Vietnam.

I prefer it that way, less police involvement, more swimming and jungle....

....and...we rode home with a coke bottle and sticky tape holding our engine in place..a massive leap of ingenuity (the moral of the tale being a minsk can pretty much do anything.)

And, also ... now that we can laugh about it..when travelling in the countryside, be aware of local law enforcement expectations, and carry a phrase book..