Day 91 - Hanoi
"Of course I want to take it for a test ride". I don't want to take it for a test ride. I want to give this man $600 and quietly crash my new bike around the corner where he can't see me. But that wouldn't be proper so I gingerly take the bike down the unnecessarily steep ramp from the warehouse to the road. I say 'new' bike but it's got over 500,000km on the clock. Is that a lot for a bike? It sounds like a lot. Too much? I don't know. The ignition only started with extreme reluctance I know that much. It's been sitting there for a while the man explains. Is that a bad sign? I don't know. If I stall it during my test ride I'm walking back to the warehouse I know that much. Can you stall a bike? I think so. Well the thing goes forward and all the gears work and so, eventually, do both of the brakes. It has a wide comfortable seat and has luggage racks and a mobile phone holder for the navigation and is $600 too much for all of this? Will it last the length of Vietnam? I haven't the faintest idea. I am unavoidably drawn to big ideas that are gilded by a natural optimism that sits at odds with my equal but opposite pessimism. In short, things I know a lot about I tend to be pessimistic towards, things I know little about allow a sense of optimism. There's subtle logic in there somewhere. I get the bike back to the warehouse intact and unstalled so, decision time, is today a good day to die...I mean buy? The other unavoidable factor in this decision, beyond the three-dimensional maturity of the bike, is the fourth dimension of time. It is the 2nd of June and should I wish to ride to Ho Chi Minh City 1800km away I need to do it by the 12th of June when my visa will expire. That's 180km a day which sounds reasonable but another day shopping around for a bike makes that 200km. And that's without rest days, general tourism, breakdowns and unforeseen events. Time moves back and forth likes Poe's pendulum (though mostly forth) threatening to sever my ambition a nick at a time so I decide that this is the renowned 'nick of time' and hand over the money. Besides I have heard that you can sell these bikes for more than you paid for them when in the south so, obviously, that is going to happen.
Anyway, those unforeseen events... Life is generally a kind of waking dream in which you live in a cosseted comfort insulated from the worst of it, privilege as an emollient to the consequences of our decisions. We always wake before we hit the ground. Well I do anyway. But occasionally , like a cancer diagnosis or a near fatal encounter or an unexpected pregnancy full consequence crashes upon us like an engulfing wave. I'd bought the bike, strapped my bags to the side, watched as the seller un-strapped my bags and did it again properly and then I'd set a destination in Google Maps. Hanoi is not, to no-one's surprise who have been there, an easy city to get out of. Urban traffic was the next boss after I completed the unmade roads of the Ha Giang Loop. Trying to keep an eye on my route as well as the cars and bikes coming at me from every conceivable direction was proving beyond me. Eventually I approached the ramp of a broad expressway, sane and quiet by comparison to the road below. But also broad and daunting and with greater potential for high-speed, split-second, life-ending mistakes. But with Google Maps acting as my call of the void I flicked the throttle and took the ramp. For about 30 metres. Concealed behind a slight bend were traffic police who waved me to the side of the road.
Officer: "This is very serious."
Excellent English on the officer so a full and profuse apology and an admission of my vast but inevitable ignorance should do the job.
Officer: "You can't take a bike on the expressway."
Ah, so that's what those signs meant.
Gentleman: "I didn't realise, I'm awfully sorry."
"There will be a fine"
I was hoping we could shake hands like gentlemen but police need to eat too I suppose.
"...and we're going to take your license and impound the bike for a week."
Gentleman: "Sorry old bean, what????????"
A week without the bike leaves my plans squarely, roundly and hexagonally fucked. Another week spent in Hanoi is a ludicrous way to see out my visa but carrying on south means leaving behind $600 of bike which I'd purchased barely an hour ago. The consequences of my decision to take the expressway are serious (ok not cancer, pregnancy, dying serious but this was a hyperbolic moment). I'd done some reading on the Vietnamese police while this plan was still a twinkle in my eye and why I was standing there dumbfounded and believing the police officer's assertion that he would have to apply the full letter of the law I do not know in retrospect. Nothing could be further from this guy's mind than the idea of arranging for my bike to be taken away and all the attendant arse-aching paperwork that would entail. And sure enough having hit me with the shock and awe of the full legal sanction and let that ferment for a minute, he then suggested there may be an alternative. The wave of relief that swept over me testifies to the practised and honed skill of the shakedown. Captain Corruption indicated that if I walked over to the police car and placed four million dong (generously discounted from six he said) on the boot then this problem would go away. My sagacity was returning now the police had shown their hand and I knew they'd accept a lot less than four million (about £130). But I also knew that there was two million in my wallet and claiming that I has any less was not going to fly once I pulled out the notes. Two million was grumpily accepted and I was allowed to tuck my tail between my legs and ride the bike back down the ramp. Google eventually led, more through luck than judgement (Google's not mine), onto the old north to south road meandering in the shadow of the expressway. I was back amongst the bikes, the cars, the trucks and every other thing with wheels that was banished from the shiny tarmac above. As the vastness of Hanoi slowly fell away to either side of me it still felt like my Hobbiton at the very start of something. Perhaps I will come to regret ignoring Bilbo's words -
"Of course I want to take it for a test ride". I don't want to take it for a test ride. I want to give this man $600 and quietly crash my new bike around the corner where he can't see me. But that wouldn't be proper so I gingerly take the bike down the unnecessarily steep ramp from the warehouse to the road. I say 'new' bike but it's got over 500,000km on the clock. Is that a lot for a bike? It sounds like a lot. Too much? I don't know. The ignition only started with extreme reluctance I know that much. It's been sitting there for a while the man explains. Is that a bad sign? I don't know. If I stall it during my test ride I'm walking back to the warehouse I know that much. Can you stall a bike? I think so. Well the thing goes forward and all the gears work and so, eventually, do both of the brakes. It has a wide comfortable seat and has luggage racks and a mobile phone holder for the navigation and is $600 too much for all of this? Will it last the length of Vietnam? I haven't the faintest idea. I am unavoidably drawn to big ideas that are gilded by a natural optimism that sits at odds with my equal but opposite pessimism. In short, things I know a lot about I tend to be pessimistic towards, things I know little about allow a sense of optimism. There's subtle logic in there somewhere. I get the bike back to the warehouse intact and unstalled so, decision time, is today a good day to die...I mean buy? The other unavoidable factor in this decision, beyond the three-dimensional maturity of the bike, is the fourth dimension of time. It is the 2nd of June and should I wish to ride to Ho Chi Minh City 1800km away I need to do it by the 12th of June when my visa will expire. That's 180km a day which sounds reasonable but another day shopping around for a bike makes that 200km. And that's without rest days, general tourism, breakdowns and unforeseen events. Time moves back and forth likes Poe's pendulum (though mostly forth) threatening to sever my ambition a nick at a time so I decide that this is the renowned 'nick of time' and hand over the money. Besides I have heard that you can sell these bikes for more than you paid for them when in the south so, obviously, that is going to happen.
Officer: "This is very serious."
Excellent English on the officer so a full and profuse apology and an admission of my vast but inevitable ignorance should do the job.
Officer: "You can't take a bike on the expressway."
Ah, so that's what those signs meant.
Gentleman: "I didn't realise, I'm awfully sorry."
"There will be a fine"
I was hoping we could shake hands like gentlemen but police need to eat too I suppose.
"...and we're going to take your license and impound the bike for a week."
Gentleman: "Sorry old bean, what????????"
A week without the bike leaves my plans squarely, roundly and hexagonally fucked. Another week spent in Hanoi is a ludicrous way to see out my visa but carrying on south means leaving behind $600 of bike which I'd purchased barely an hour ago. The consequences of my decision to take the expressway are serious (ok not cancer, pregnancy, dying serious but this was a hyperbolic moment). I'd done some reading on the Vietnamese police while this plan was still a twinkle in my eye and why I was standing there dumbfounded and believing the police officer's assertion that he would have to apply the full letter of the law I do not know in retrospect. Nothing could be further from this guy's mind than the idea of arranging for my bike to be taken away and all the attendant arse-aching paperwork that would entail. And sure enough having hit me with the shock and awe of the full legal sanction and let that ferment for a minute, he then suggested there may be an alternative. The wave of relief that swept over me testifies to the practised and honed skill of the shakedown. Captain Corruption indicated that if I walked over to the police car and placed four million dong (generously discounted from six he said) on the boot then this problem would go away. My sagacity was returning now the police had shown their hand and I knew they'd accept a lot less than four million (about £130). But I also knew that there was two million in my wallet and claiming that I has any less was not going to fly once I pulled out the notes. Two million was grumpily accepted and I was allowed to tuck my tail between my legs and ride the bike back down the ramp. Google eventually led, more through luck than judgement (Google's not mine), onto the old north to south road meandering in the shadow of the expressway. I was back amongst the bikes, the cars, the trucks and every other thing with wheels that was banished from the shiny tarmac above. As the vastness of Hanoi slowly fell away to either side of me it still felt like my Hobbiton at the very start of something. Perhaps I will come to regret ignoring Bilbo's words -
We are plain, quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them.But look where that attitude got him.
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