The main event of the trip has now officially started: the bike riding in Northern Vietnam and Laos. We had a kickoff dinner for the group on the evening of the 2nd. The small group is: Roland and Anne, a British couple living in France; Gerald, a Canadian living in Vancouver; and me, an American living in New Zealand. Everyone in the group is of similar age and has a lot of world experience, so it should be a really nice group to ride with.

The trip did not start with a bike ride, though. Rather, we had a day of logistics and touring around the more touristy sites in Hanoi. We met in the lobby at the appointed time and checked out of the hotel. What was still completely unclear was what was going to happen after that. Especially with the luggage.

It was clear that there would be a van that would drive our stuff to Sapa and at 4 pm we would check out the bikes. We also knew we would be taking the overnight train to Sapa. I asked if I needed to unpack my bike at 4 as well, and if I did that, would it still be able to get on the van or would I have to take it on the train. This caused confusion. Then we learned about a hotel that we would have on a hourly basis in the afternoon while we waited for the train. None of us had ever heard about this plan. It was classic Asian logistics where there was a lot of activity, things were happening, but it was never quite clear how it was all going to come together in a coherent plan. Eventually, I decided to not mess with the bike and told them to just put it on the van. Back and forth we went. Questions asked. Questions kind of answered. In many ways, you just had to laugh. We headed out with kind of a plan.

The museum was closed so all we were going to see was Ho Chi-Minh’s tomb and his house area. I would have rather seen the museum, but there you have it.

It was cool to see and hear about the history of Ho Chi Mihn. It is quite a remarkable story in a lot of way and represents a deep complexity of the history of Vietnam. It was crowded and very touristy but cool nonetheless.

Next up was a series of temples in and around Hanoi.First up was the Ngoc Son Temple which sits out in the Ho Hoán Lake. The place was choker-block full and it was hard to move around and especially hard to take photographs.

I am going to have to be honest with you. Temples are cool and all, but they are not really my jam. Plus the crush of tourists was not all that fun. After two amazing days of photography, it was a pretty mundane tour.

But mostly I was ready to get our bike tour underway. We headed out to the short-term hotel and checked in. Gerald and I decided to go check out the “Hanoi Hilton” which was a short 1.5 km walk away. At least, it would have been short if it hadn’t been raining and we hadn’t had 15 near-death street crossings to get there. A few tour buses had just shown up and it was hard to even see anything. It was interesting, but I wasn’t all that interested in smashing through the piles of people. I took a few photos, but nothing was that photo-worthy. We made our way back to the hotel in the rain and the usual Hanoi mayhem.

I decided to hang at the hotel while the others went and checked out their bikes. I was ready to get going on the bike tour. We had dinner and then went to the train station and waited in the VIP lounge. They were blasting 80’s and 90’s music at full volume.

The train was loud, squeaky, bouncy and slow. But we made it. I think I was the only one that really got any sleep. But we were in Sapa and bike riding would start once we got settled into our hotel.

Not my most thrilling day, but there you have it. Transition day.