The Junk Jeep Adventure

This Thursday, myself and 4 of my closest friends in Hanoi began our trip to the Northernmost area in Vietnam. Flip runs a tour company with a 26 year old Vietnamese guy named Manh, who knows how to drive and had done this trip before, so we decided to save ourselves money and use the company jeep and neglect to hire either a driver or a tour guide. When the jeep pulled up outside my alley, we all began to get a bit nervous... the thing was a wreck. Here is the initial list of jeep ailments before the trip even began:

- No airconditioning

- Windows unable to move up or down (one stuck open, the other stuck mostly closed)

- Dashboard held together with tape

- Driver's seat broken, and slanted to one side

- No seat belts

- Non-functioning windshield wipers

- External damage fixed with duct tape

... and these were the obvious things. I don't know much about car engines, but the creaking noises and loud bangs from under the hood were enough proof that the car was equally as shoddy on the inside. Nevertheless, we piled inside, with no idea how far the jeep would get... or if it would even make the 10+ hours to the border at all. About 2 hours into our trip,

some alarming clanging noises took our attention off the lovely scenery and onto the roadside in hopes that we would find an auto garage. We managed to pull into a deserted garage, and all stood around for a while, hoping someone would show up. Eventually, the mechanic appeared (his hair only half cut, so we must have interrupted his barber trip), and he started to take a look at the car. Manh gave us warning that it would take some time, so we crossed the street and headed to a bia hoi, where we proceeded to sit around, enjoy some cold beer, and take in the scenery of the countryside. When we returned the garage, the mechanic had already replaced one tire, and could be seen underneath the jeep banging away at the undercarriage. He soon came back with a flame torch, and burnt off a piece of metal, the metal which he claimed was making the clanging sound. We all were pretty satisfied with his work at this point, paid him 5 dollars for labor, and got back in the car to start the trip again. We made it 30 minutes before the banging sound returned, so we stopped off in another small village in the mountains and had a second mechanic take a look. This one surmised that the previous mechanic was an idiot, and only made the car worse. So once again, we left Manh to deal with the car while we moseyed down the street to find another bia hoi; we had some cold beers, chatted with some locals, turned away a homeless man trying to get a ride, and once the sun started to set, headed back towards the jeep. This time, Manh seemed very pleased, and informed us all that the new mechanic was a genius (which I had originally doubted given his aesthetic), and the jeep was as good as new. All of us took this information with a grain of salt, but piled back in anyway, prepared for the final 3 hour drive to reach the first destination, Ba Be Lake. The jeep continued to choke and groan as we circled up tiny roads that twisted and turned around mountain curves. The road conditions were not so wonderful, so we were being thrown about the jeep, but were really enjoying ourselves given our two previous bia hoi sessions. With over an hour to go, we heard a tell-tale "thump-thwack" coming from the front tire, and pulled over for an inspection. Sure enough, a sharp rock was stuck in the tire, and you could even hear the air rushing out from the puncture. It was pitch dark, so we all sat around enjoying the stars, while a local family came out of their hut to help hold flashlights while Manh was changing the tire. Everyone was in a very fine mood by this point, since we all agreed that the excitement level of the journey was multiplied by the jeep's obvious troubles. It made the whole travel experience completely unpredictable, and we were well on our way to a great adventure.

After the tire was replaced, we arrived at a communal stilt house overlooking Ba Be Lake

around 9:30 pm. We sat down to some late dinner, tried to ignore the massive tropical bugs, then laid down two to a mattress pad underneath mosquito nets. That night, an incredible thunder storm hit, which kept me awake with the loudest thunder peals I have ever heard (the stilt house shook with each clap). The rain was intense, and had me worried about the conditions for driving and hiking the next day. We woke up, brushed dead bugs out of the "beds", and had an egg over noodles before proceeding to the lake. We all hopped on a small, rickety boat, and spent the next four hours taking in the views of Ba Be Lake.

The water was incredibly blue, and reflected the

amazing greenery of the lush mountains all

around us. The trees were some of the largest and greenest I'd ever seen, and we all agreed that we felt were boating through Jurassic Park... the

place seemed untouched for thousands of years. The weather was slightly overcast, and grew

increasingly more humid and wet when we turned off into an alcove of mountains. We went through a small channel and arrived to a tiny village on the shore of the lake. We got off there, and started our hike to see some waterfalls, enjoying the misty rain, which made the experience seem all the more tropical. Everything was looking okay, until we hit the part of the trail that was completely flooded over by the rushing water that resulted from the storm the night before. Two other tourists were in front of us, and haltingly looked around for another option,

glancing down at their expensive hiking shoes, and back at the flowing, muddy water. We were all equipped in simple

sandals, so we pushed through and hiked the path in sandals, enjoying the cool water that was up to our shins.

We reached the waterfall, snapped some pictures, and decided it was time for a swim, so we headed back to the boat. The boat took us a to a little island, which we used to jump off into the cool waters of the lake. After we got our swimming in, we returned to the stilt house and got back into our jeep, which we began to call the Jurassic Park Jeep at this point, given the fact that it looked exactly like the one from the movies, and it was driving us through terrain and environments that seemed hand-picked right out of the films.

Just as we were circling the lake and heading up a steep pass towards our next destination, the gear shift snapped in two. So now, we were halfway up a very intense incline, with the shifter sitting there in 2 parts. Manh, who continually proved himself the most resourceful one of us, quickly ripped the covering away, and began to drive using the sharp-edged remainder of the shifter. We gave him a round of applause, and began the climb again. We stopped an hour later for lunch, while Manh went out to get the gear shift repaired. After the Jurassic Jeep had been fixed, again, we got back on the road. 4 hours later we reached our next destination, Cao Bang city, just 80 km south of the border of China. The city was pretty dead, but we managed to befriend some local security guards, who insisted on giving us shots of their homemade rice wine (this happens a lot...) and kept making cheers to our wisdom, which we all though slightly strange but toasted to nonetheless. After an early and delicious breakfast, we were driving through the mountain passes on a perfectly sunny day. The roads were narrow, unpaved, and even more dangerous given the shipping traffic coming through China. There were hundreds of

gigantic, load-carrying trucks bringing goods from China, and they all seemed to get stuck on

every curved incline and muddy road. It all struck me as slightly stupid, since these roads were barely navigable with a Jurassic Jeep, let alone a huge freight truck. By far, this part of the drive was the most scenic yet. Colossal limestone mountains covered in the most obscene green of Vietnamese flora surrounded us in all directions. Farmers were all out in the fields transplanting their rice, so we got to see a lot of tiny farming villages in action. When we reached Ban Gioc waterfalls, a hush came over the jeep, as we all literally had lost our breath with the beauty of this place. Two waterfalls, side-by-side, represented the border of China.

Abandoning all sense of responsibility, we grabbed our towels and ran towards the water (meaning we had forgotten all the sunscreen). The day was hot, humid, and incredibly sunny; swimming in the cool blue of the waterfall and exploring the moist caves had us ignoring the sharp tingle of impending sunburn. After enjoying a swim and having a waterfall-side picnic of hot mango slices, we headed to the other waterfall belonging to China, boarded a bamboo boat, and drove right up alongside the falling water, enjoying the mist and the view.

We then set a precedent and climbed up one of the rocks for a group picture (you are not allowed to climb or swim at this waterfall, but we felt it necessary and ignored the complaints of our boat driver). We were all so in awe of the natural beauty of this place that we sat around on the boat, expressed our joy in our current situation, and just continued to stare into the waterfalls for another hour. Manh was finally able to pull us away from Ban Gioc and got us into the jeep, where we excitedly chatted of our experience for the next 3 hours to get to our sleeping quarters for the night. This was our last night on the road, so we decided to take full advantage of the karaoke rooms downstairs; Anneliese and Hilary were initially against the idea of karaoke, but after some Spice Girls, they got into the action. We had some pretty rousing renditions of Boney M's "Rasputin" (for some reason, a HUGE hit in Vietnam), and Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". By the time we were half-way through singing "Sweet Home Alabama", the Nha Nghi owner came down and unplugged the television and karaoke, prompting us to go to bed. We got to our room which hosted a large 3-D picture of a scantily clad Western woman from the 80's (in hindsight, I wish I had gotten a picture of it to further prove my point of how absurd it was). Right before we went to sleep, we had to usher a gigantic tropical flying bug off of Lien's bag and outside of the room. This black, winged creature was the size of my hand, and boasted large, red pincers. If I hadn't consumed so much beer, I would definitely had fled the room screaming, but I guess I had a little bit of liquid courage and pushed it out of the room with the back of my sandal. After the bug had been ushered out, we all had a great sleep, and woke up to another beautiful day. We were on the road early, and opted to get breakfast in some random place in a village about an hour away from Don Khe, where we had stayed the previous night. We all enjoyed a bowl of pho vit (pho noodles in broth with roasted duck... amazing!!!) and then continued our drive up to Lang Son, a town with a big market on the border of China. We were all hoping to buy some ridiculous Chinese products, but the closest I got was a pair of shoes and some bracelets. The most rewarding thing about this stop was the lunch of Banh Cuon (rice pancake rolled around fried onion) and grilled pork. We enjoyed some Chinese beer, which was really the most Chinese thing about the place, and then the girls stopped to go to the bathroom before we left for Hanoi. The bathroom was a stick hut at the end of a water buffalo grazing field; I had to weave through water buffalo, trying to avoid the larger males that tend to charge, to make it to the toilet. Well, toilet is too kind of a word, it was more of a hole in the ground with two planks over the top, with a box of ash nearby to throw in afterwards. I had never seen ash used to keep the smell down, but it did a fine job. A "bathroom" we had used on the side of the road earlier was constructed the same way, but had no ash, and the smell was enough to make me decide to skip out on using a bathroom for another 3 hours.

We got back on the road as a huge storm cloud rounded the corner of a mountain. This had us a bit worried, given the lack of windshield wipers and of window functioning. Manh, as ever impressive, continued driving, even though the storm had hit and visibility was next to nothing. When the storm had passed, and we were all a bit wet, he went outside, brushed the windshield off with his hand, and continued on our way. We drove through the rest of the day, and reached Hanoi by dinner time, all getting back to our houses before the sky opened up and let out another gigantic tropical storm. We all congratulated each other on surviving the trip, gave many thanks to Manh's excellent driving skills, and made conjectures on the lifespan of the Jurassic Park Jeep. Honestly, it was the best trip I've ever taken, and will never forget just how amazingly beautiful Vietnam can be.