Day 5 of our Top Gear Moto 2 tour︱Vietnam Motorbike Tours

Bucket list riding on the Top Gear Tour with Vietnam Motorbike Tours. We are halfway through our 10 day adventure, and after countless corners, mountain passes, and a day off exploring caves, today is more relaxed as we ride across the plains. Good morning Vietnam. A quick recap. Yesterday we took a break from riding and chilled out in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, one of the most scenic parts of Vietnam with world famous cave systems. We jumped on a boat to check it all out, and popped into an underground river in one of the caves. Magical stuff. But the bikes are restless, so it's yet another buffet breakfast before our slave driver and ride leader, Bao, issues the order. Helmet on. Nothing to see. And then we are off to see the real Vietnam. You can see on the map we are sticking to the plains today, but with mountain ranges either side of us. So after so many corners and mountains, it's actually a pleasant change. Riding broad sweeping corners, and plenty of straights today. But all still with some great scenery as the mountain ranges flow past us on both sides. I must admit I thought 10 days of road riding was going to get a bit boring because I'm more into dirt riding, but it's the constant changes in the type of riding and terrain that make every day so different. One of our support crew mentioned that even after all these years of touring, they keep tweaking and fine tuning the tours based on feedback from riders. Speaking of feedback, we haven't heard from Sir Toby Price for a while. How's the trip going so far, Toby? Yeah, so far the trip's been unreal. I've came to Vietnam a long time ago, but never ventured out of Ho Chi Minh City. So to see this amazing landscape like this, it just feels like you're in another world. So now the old tour here is Vietnam Motorbike Tours has been an amazing trip and experience of a lifetime. So we're pumped to be here. BMT supermodels everywhere. That's how we roll, mate. Amen. And now a word from our politically incorrect, culturally inappropriate sponsor. So you have bad balance. You fall off dirt bike all time. Now offer special ninja training. We channel your inner chi with your outer wang. So you are like Bruce Lee on motorbike. Nothing unbalance you. Except maybe on timely far. Heading for a great little spot for lunch today. We are parking on a dam wall. The guys will cook up the usual lunch, and then a quick boat trip to check out a tea farm. In the distance, water buffalo. So we send the drone over to check them out. These guys are often called the tractors of the east. For 5000 years, they've been used for transport, plowing fields, and oddly enough, authentic mozzarella cheese is always made from buffalo milk. So pizza joints are popping up all over Vietnam using this properly made mozzarella. Who would have thunk it? Loving these little out of the way spots for lunch. Our guys cook for us just in case we get sick eating the local grub, but we pay the locals back by buying lots of drinks from them. A pleasant boat trip across the dam to check out a tea farm. It's kind of cool doing these little side trips and not seeing any other western tourists. It's the Vietnamese New Year, so these are all just locals out for the day. And they're surprised, and very happy, to see all these tall white people in their midst, despite their weird hats. Woohoo, straight roads. A great chance to relax and enjoy the scenery. We'll be back into plenty of mountains and endless corners again tomorrow. This is strange. We hit this traffic jam in the middle of nowhere. We gently push our way through, then slowly realise it's a procession of some sort. And then we realise it's either a funeral or some kind of religious thing. In some cultures, you might get beaten up barging through like this, but as always the Vietnamese are very chilled when it comes to this sort of paper. Sorry guys. Apparently the guys do have to turn some people away from doing these tours. While Vietnam is one of the safest Asian countries to visit, the roads are unpredictable. And there are so many tight corners in the mountains, they have to insist you have plenty of rider experience. So if someone has just got their license or not ridden for decades, they will just say sorry mate, no go. And this makes a lot of sense. I've got around seven years of road riding under my belt, way more as a dirt rider. And while the speeds are never that high, there were plenty of moments I was glad to have that experience. When travelling, I always enjoy trying to pick up a few words in the local lingo. But the Vietnamese language? Big problem. Like Chinese, it's a tonal language, needing all sorts of tongue twisting oral gymnastics for westerners attempting to use it. Years ago I shared a house with two Vietnamese guys, and they taught me a few words in Vietnamese in exchange for help with English. After six months, I still couldn't get the basics of how are you correct, and they eventually gave up on me. And anyway, it's probably safer not to attempt the language. If you get one tone or sound incorrect, the words completely change meaning. Picture this, you walk up to the immigration counter at the airport and say hi how are you, I'm going to Saigon. Which in my shitty Vietnamese is xin chào. But as usual, I get a few tones wrong, and this is what they hear. To make things worse, the dialect changes, so in central Vietnam, this is what they hear. And up north in Hanoi, it changes again. Sigh. So you can see the language is a bit of a minefield. In fact, some believe this is how the whole Vietnam war started. Some American dude is in a restaurant and tries to order spring rolls in Vietnamese, and instead it became a suggestion for illegal sexual acts involving water buffalo and the Vietnamese flag. So that's it guys, halfway through the trip. Stick around for plenty more adventures in Vietnam.