Mai Chau is a seeming easy 150km cruise out of Hanoi. Only a 3-4 hour drive they say! Hmmm well, I'm currently sat in my idyllic stilt house listening to White Thai women sing their folk songs in harmony with the crickets, but it didn’t start out that way.
Mission to Mai Chau
Traveling at the breakneck speed of a turtle, with one-night stopover in Hoa Binh and this being my first solo motorbike trip and all, I was paranoid as hell the majority of the ride from Hanoi. I was obsessively focused on scanning the road for any and all lumps, bumps, and ditches, and continuously singing the BeeGees song “Ah ha ha ha staying alive, staying alive” like a mantra in my mind. I avoided lorries like the plague and checked Google maps literally every 2 kilometers. At one point I stopped to take some pictures and the kickstand slipped beneath me and the bike tumbled on the floor. Turns out I'm not strong or skilled enough to pick it up on my own yet! So lucky for me I waved down a kind gentleman who helped me go from horizontal to vertical once more. When I finally cruised down Mai Chau’s mountain road and into the valley it felt nothing short of a miracle.
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