Messy in the Mekong, Vietnam 2009 |
Mekong Scooter Run 2009
Just two weeks before this event, I contacted Pat and told him I always fancied
going to the Mekong Delta and he replied to me "Ok, I'll rally the troops.....".
Dragon boat festival is coming up in Hong Kong so I could escape from office
for some days. Tomorrow is time to departure and the bag is already packed with
all the unusual stuff you pack for a trip like this.
May 28th, Hong Kong to Saigon by flight
2T oil, helmet, camera, I and other essentials for this
trip arrives in Saigon early morning and soon Pat helps me to kickstart the
day with a strong and excellent coffee. After picking up my Vespa I manage to
get lost not less than three times, embarrasing, Paul saves me in the end, thank
you. I must remember to bring a map next time.
May 29th, Saigon to Can Tho
A scooter run in Vietnam should always start with a hearty
breakfast and I'm on my way to meet up the other scooterists at Caravelle hotel
for an all you could eat buffet. Out of the city in massive heat and driving
through flooded roads is quite nice and fun, some sections with water high enough
to reach over the floor board. Further on Minh's PK almost lost its groovy exhaust,
we occupy a Honda Workshop and sort it out in no time. I also remember why a
smallframe is called just a smallframe. Within just kilometres a couple of Lambros
are passed buy, one acting as a school bus and another fully loaded with vegetables,
wonderful. The second breakdown is even more simple, just a failing sparkplug.
At this leg there are many rivers to cross and we do it by bridges and ferries,
the tickets costs about nothing and the ferries are really interesting as they
are melting pots of all kind of people and animals travelling on this route
and we are indeed a very diverse bunch of people and animals. Mark is so happy
for his well running RB that he runs away from us and the only thing we could
think of doing is having a beer waiting for him, sorry some beers. Dinner is
enjoyed at a nice restaurant that serves wicked snake spring rolls and even
organizes a fake 25 years old birthday for one of us, with a green sponge cake
decorated with candles and all. Rumours tells us that this place have Vietnam's
largest nightclub so we give our Vodka Hanoi to a couple of revolutionary soldiers
and have a race to the place in a couple of motorcycle chariots.
May 30th, Can Tho to Ben Tre via Vinh Long
Well, not everybody are alive at time for breakfast, but
Mark, Paul, Linh and myself are early enough to catch an interesting four hour
boat tour on the Mekong river through floating markets and stopping for a very
tasty lunch. It's heavy monsoon rain during the tour and we arrive back at the
hotel just as the sky cleared up and everybody are ready to go including Albin
with his duck tape repaired muffler. At one of today's many ferries there is
a charming guy selling undetermined meat packed up in banana leafs looking like
Christmas tree decorations and surely I did get a bunch and decorated my scooter.
At a petrol station it starts raining and we hide away in a roadside café,
however three of the scooters don't arrive and while seeing the road getting
flooded we understand that the Vespa PK is dead, Vinh Long might be a rough
town but it surely have a good old Vespa workshop with an old man working there
since the last 30 years and even have a feeding coil in stock. While fixing
the Vespa PK Vinh Long Vespa Club passes buy and are puzzled buy our scooter
boy behaviour and even more puzzled about that Albin's Lambretta don't start
and that we repair it in less than two minutes. As we lost time waiting out
the monsoon rain and fixing the PK we have to drive on the country roads in
dark, interesting indeed as many vehicles don't have working lights and the
bridges are old, rattling and made of wood. We pass buy many very strange places
like a town almost only consisting of a large carnival. While passing over a
bridge a plank breaks under the back wheel of Pat's series 2 Lambretta and crushing
his U-bend. The rest of the drive is rather noisy but still pleasant and we
arrive at a place where they make their own not so very good beer but amazingly
tasty food. The triple rooms for 6USD including breakfast are as bad as they
are cheap, luckily we are all tired enough to get a good night's sleep.
May 31st, Mhy Tho to Saigon
The route back to Saigon goes smoothly and fast over scenic
bridges and green country side. I have never in my life seen more Lambros on
the same day and my scooter runs as good as I'm happy. We round off Messy in
the Mekong at the scooterist place Zoom Café. For the first time ever,
I leave my scooter in working order or should I say without destroying it first.
Me, myself and a good bunch of scooter parts are once again leaving Saigon.
Thanks:
Pat and Saigon Scooter Centre for organizing yet another amazing scooter experience!
Summary and facts:
Once again the myth that Vespa is more reliable than Lambretta is busted.
400km might not be very long to drive in Europe, but it is here, at some locations
even 5km/h is too fast to drive.
After listening to the sweet music by Mark's RB20 I understand that I just must
have one myself.
Spare parts used: 1 M5 screw, 1 spark plug and 1 feeding coil.