DIARY - Tuesday 5th February 2008 The fog is still thick as we leave Sa Pa, the air has the unmistakable smell of charcoal fumes, sickly and invasive there is nowhere in this mountain town you can get away from it. Sa Pa will be to me, the town where the inhabitants huddle over bowls of glowing embers pulling their blankets tighter around them, breathing in noxious fumes - but then, I would come in winter! Yesterday a trek was the order of the day and one thousand feet down the mountain I could actually see the rice paddies in the valley another thousand feet below. They looked just like pieces in a stained glass window they were so small from this height.
Now the ride down the mountainside was enlivened by my bike cutting out, stone dead, no power. Tang came back to find out where I was and had me fixing the bike in a jiffy. Read that? ME fixing the bike! He told me that the only thing that ever went wrong with the Minsk was either the clutch or the spark plug going down. I fitted another spark plug and away we went. In Lao Cai we stop to buy red Tet envelopes (to put 10,000D in and give to family members we are going to stay with); decorate our bikes with balloons, which amuses everybody immensely as we ride off down the muddy bumpy 'road under construction' route to Bac Ha.
Tang tells me that the road for 30kms after the first 20kms is 'not such a good road'. That fella sure has a way with words - there IS no flipping road! A track, not really wide enough for a 4-wheel vehicle starts off stony, then muddy, then both. The incline gets steeper, the mud deeper and the fog has lifted to reveal the precipitous drop off to my left. I always thought going up was easy, how wrong could I be. Struggling along I manage reasonably well given my lack of motocross skills but then I have to get enough speed up to climb one steep section. There is deep mud across two thirds of the track with only a small dryish line maybe two feet from the edge, my heart begins to pound, my stomach begins to do sickening things, perspiration breaks out, cold and clammy it pours down my face. I badly misjudge the situation and for the first time in my life feel fear, gut wrenching heart stopping fear as the front wheel drops into a rut and I lose the rear wheel over the edge. Throwing myself to the right I have to drag the bike back onto the track, which is where Tang sees me when he comes back to find out where I am, laid on the floor next to a prostrate bike. One look at my face and he picks the bike up and rides it over the next difficult bit for me.
It occurs to me now, that a track going up a mountainside over a pass has to come down. Riding along I begin to talk to my long deceased mum. 'Please, if I get out of this alive I will be a really nice person mum, I won't be bad tempered or bossy, I won't be abrupt, please mum, get me out of here.' The term gibbering wreck comes to mind! What am I doing here, I must be stupid! The down hill sections if anything are worse than the up and the local hill people come out of their houses laughing and clapping, enjoying the spectacle, shouting encouragement, (I think) running alongside both sides of the bike giving me even more worry in case I run into them. Three times in the descent Tang has to help me, this is way beyond my capabilities and when we finally do drop into the town of Luc Yen I stagger off the bike legs like jelly, arms hardly able to hold a beer glass. I made it - albeit with a little help so the satisfaction is slightly marred at the failure of not handling the bike all by myself, but Tang is happy (probably that we arrive on the bikes in one (or should that be two?) piece. It is amazing what a few beers some noodles and spring rolls will do, because I feel absolutely ecstatic at just being alive. Tang wipes the grin off my face when he says that we have 60kms of the same to do tomorrow.