Scott Fletcher Travels

Day 41-42 25-26th August - Motorcycle Diaries Day 1-2

Well after a large night on the rice wine I woke rather later than expected and not feeling as fresh as I would have hoped. Katie was going to ride down south to Hoi An, and I was going to go to Danang then west and up the western border. The ride started hot and there was a particular road that I was hoping to take that went through Bach Ma national park. As far as I can figure this is another mythical road, so we ended up going down the highway most of the trip. There was one saving grace being the Hai Van pass where all the mountains go into the sea and you are driving along amazing cliff faces with amazing corners zig zagging their way up the mountains. On the highway was when I started to notice that my bike was not that stable unless the ground was perfect. When you pass through a town they have horizontal white bumps on the road to slow you down, which are fine on most bikes but on this bike the back of the bike seemed to keep kicking out to the left. This became quite pronounced and worrying, the chassis must have been slightly bent and the wheel slightly out of alignment, so when it lost traction it jumped. This is quite scary when you are going at 70km and the back wheel suddenly jumps 10cm to your left.

That night I ended up staying in Hoi An again and it was lucky to because there was a full moon festival. The center of the town was blocked off to all traffic, all the lights turned out and only lit by lanterns and candles. This was an amazing site, and so many people milling around it was a mad house. This is when I bumped into a guy I met in Cambodia Rob, I was walking past a restaurant and heard ‘Scott’. We ended up having a few drinks then going out for a fun night on the town.

The next day I wanted to ride up to a hill station called Ba Na Hill station, in a basically a flat coastal landscape this was around 1250m high so it would be a good climb if it was easy to find. First I rode to Danang then asked ‘Bow Nyoo’ (how much) Kilomete Ba Na, this worked surprisingly well, they told me turn left in 5km, after about 4km I asked again and they pointed to the actual road which is always a bonus. Ba Na was about 40km outside Danang through some lovely countryside and also some really dodgy roads. When I reached the bottom of the hill station I need to buy another ticket and walk four meters to have the ticket ripped by someone else, job creation if ever i saw it but i suppose share the wealth.

I could not see the top of the mountain and it seemed to rise out of nothing which was pretty impressive, when I went through a gate before the bridge the guy stopped me and pressed my horn a few times to hit home that I would need it, and I soon found out why. After the bridge the climb started that lasted over 10km which I was pretty impressed with. It was a climb through some of the fiercest jungle imaginable, and the sheer slope was immense, there would not be any danger of falling though because of the dense jungle. Some of the corners were over 180 degrees where they bent back on themselves totally blind with a climb of about 8-10 vertical meters in maybe 20m. The views were amazing but hard to capture as it was quite misty. I was quite lucky as I only passed other cars on some straights which was good, sweeping s bends through the jungle with a slight climb.

When I was almost at the top there was a huge cable car that went across a valley up to the summit. I decided to take this for some variation, although i would have been nice to ride it as well. It was quite funny when i rocked up to the office, the cable car was not going and they were doing maintenance on the cars which was a little nerve racking. After waiting about 10mins for them to finish I was off until about half way it felt like we stopped and all those thoughts that go through your head were very comforting. After a while i realised we were still moving and it was just slow because other cars were at the terminal. When I was at the top it was a little colder and nice and fresh. The views were magnificent, I would see up and down the coast about 40km even though it was hazy.

On the way down it was much faster and my brakes were not the best but it all ads the fun right?? I had my trusty helmet held on with some twine so she’ll be right. I was heading back to Hue and passed along the Hai Van pass again and saw some great flowers where i could test the Macro on my camera! I made it back to Hue by a little after 6 and met up with Rob whom I was going to ride to the DMZ with the next day or two.