My alarm is set for 6am, but the roosters and dogs of the village are set for an hour before that. It’s a misty start up here in the hills, where the village is already busy by the time we give in and get out of bed. After breakfast we head back out across the narrow bridge. As we pass through villages and past individual dwellings, kids come rushing out at the sound of the approaching two strokes, grinning and waving, knowing only nutty foreigners are daft enough to ride Minsks these days. It happens all day every day we are on the road, usually kids, sometimes adults apparently delighted to see us. Babes in arms even get their hands waved for them. We all grin and wave back, occasionally feeling stupid for doing so, then mucking up the next corner because we weren’t concentrating: or guilty for not waving because concentrating on the next corner seems like a really good idea after the hash we made of the last one. Or maybe that was just me.
After our first fuel stop, where Mr Chin and Mr Yu mix up fuel and two stroke oil in a plastic barrel before decanting it into the Minsks, it’s a lottery who has the smokiest bike. We head up to the start of the Ho Chi Minh highway. This road roughly coincides with the Ho Chi Minh trail network used as a supply route by northern forces during the war. Although most of the trail network was actually in Laos, the border just a few km away in places, the highway is now entirely within the bounds of Vietnam.
This section of the highway is pretty much deserted since National Route 1A was upgraded to a relatively high standard. Now everyone blats up and down there, occasionally being flattened by massive trucks, leaving the HCM as a deserted ribbon of surprisingly good tarmac and concrete. Link after link after link of curving road carves through the jungle of Vietnam’s central highlands, seemingly forever. The roads are Goldilocks baby bear perfect for the Minsks. They are in their element now. Admittedly, the handling is awful by modern standards, as are the brakes, and they require forward thinking and some luck in the gear change lottery to maintain any semblance of momentum uphill. But swooping through these curves, one after the other, downhill or on the flat is SO MUCH FUN that it deserves all capitals and a certificate of recognition from the government. No matter that the ragged edge of performance is 70 years off what we are used to – we are on it. We are Barry Sheene. We are Giacomo Agostini. We are Valentino Rossi. If we were riding like this at 120mph on modern bikes we’d be shitting ourselves or dead, but screaming about at 40mph, wringing every last drop of single figure horsepower and on the edges of two and a half inch wide tyres, we are motorcycling gods.
Part way through the afternoon, number 13 starts feeling a bit less mighty. Then a lot less mighty. The clutch is on its last legs and it takes a while for the road to catch up to the engine when I open the throttle. I try to nurse her along awhile, but Mark flags me down and declares “That clutch is fakked mate”. Mr Chin relinquishes his ride and sets about fitting a new clutch as I head after the others on number 22. I’m not a fan of 22, it coughs and farts in ways 13 didn’t, and seems less pokey (relatively speaking). Five or ten miles later I catch up the others on account of them having stopped, and when Mr Chin arrives some time later on the re-mightied 13, I’m delighted to have her back.
We end the day rolling through the hectic traffic of Khe Sanh and up to the museum at the location of the former US airbase here. The site of a massive siege by North Vietnamese forces in the late 1960s. The iconic ridge line silhouetted in the distance is instantly recognisable from any documentary on the subject. All that remains now is a small museum telling a quite different version of the story than the American one, and a few rusting tanks and aircraft. In the middle distance, people now work fields in the distinctive conical hats of Indochina. Halfway round the museum we find a picture of Mr Bui, of five helicopters and five instrument fame.
While we are in the museum, 13 is treated to new front brakes (evidently the support crew thought they were a bit shit when they had to ride 13. I thought drum brakes were just like that). Back down the hill and through the town we hit our rooms at the best hotel in Khe Sanh. Apparently the rest of the town hasn’t set the bar too high, but there is food, cold beer and beds. That’s all we need, having this much fun is hard work.
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