The dust had barely begun to settle. Jack and Kim had been whisked away by a silver van, leaving Mitch and I alone by the roadside, with two matte black Bonus, and an unresponsive Minsk. We looked at each other, this was going to be difficult…

We quickly strapped the remaining gear to out bikes, whilst trying to work out what to do with Ivan. We briefly entertained the idea of trying to sell him to a local, but decided instead to simply wheel him over the road and abandon him in front of a plantation.

As we were waiting for a gap in the traffic, a few heavy drops of rain fell upon us. We glanced up to see a dark storm cloud sweeping in from the south. With the afternoon fading around us, we knew what we had to do. We left Ivan where he stood and ran for the bikes. They roared to life and we launched out into the traffic. The chase was on!

With no Ivan to hold us back, and a storm on our tail, our pace was blistering. Sally and Frankie could comfortably sit on 80km/h and at that pace, we were chasing down and passing everything we could see. The scenery swept past in a blur, plantations, ramshackle huts and a constant stream of bikes, cars and trucks were our only companions.

As we weaved and wound our way through the traffic, some locals took our riding as a challenge. One couple of a bright yellow scooter kept pace with us for miles, switching back and forth and passing each other. Although our bikes were faster, they didn’t seem to mind riding nonchalantly around obstacles into oncoming traffic, whereas we preferred to pass at opportune moments, or sneak past slow trucks on the shoulder.

As we all rounded a sweeping bend into a village, a sobering reminder of what was truly at stake hit us. The shattered remains of a red scooter lay across the road, glass and plastic fragments strewn along the roadway. Two policeman calmly took measurements and highlighted skid marks on the road surface. As we picked our way through the debris, we glanced at each other. But the threat of another stormy night on the road won out, and we pressed on, albeit with a additional measure of caution.

Finally we entered a large roundabout in a town, with a sign directing us to Da Lat. A small abandoned two lane motorbike-only road followed alongside a huge freeway. With no other traffic about, we could really open the bikes up. 125cc of pure fury propelled us up to speeds of almost, but not quite 100km/h! Side by side we flew down the abandoned road, the soft purr of Sally contrasting to the staccato report of Frankie at wide open throttle.

All of a sudden our private racetrack ended in a large gravel area, leaving us bewildered as to where we could go. An opening led to the freeway, with a large sign clearly depicting a motorbike with a large red cross through it. Fortunately, we don’t speak Vietnamese, so we plowed on regardless, keeping the bikes pinned along another abandoned road, closing rapidly on Da Lat as the light faded around us.

A final twisty hill climb up a rapidly deteriorating roadway called Khe Sanh road saw us up the the plateau, looking over the town. A brief map consultations and we pulled up at the hotel, where Kim and Jack had only recently arrived.

So here we stand, four people, four packs and two motorcycles, deep in the highlands of Vietnam. In Top Gear style, we delivered the ultimatum. Jack has 24 hours to find something, anything with two wheels. Be it dirt bike, cruiser, chopper, or even a dreaded scooter, we leave this town as a posse of bikes. The dream lives on…

We made it to Juliet’s villa

I very beautiful and quaint little accommodation run by a loverly couple who speak good English and are very happy.

We conveyed our Ivan troubles and they said they would take us to their good mechanic friend in the morning to see what could be done.

The cooked us a very tasty BBQ of vegetables and chocked and as it was our first meal of the day we gorged ourselves like kings

The day started off positively, Ivan fired up first time and we set off into the town proper.

Kimbi transferred onto Frankie with Mitch and Ivan doubled up with me and two packs.

Blake was riding with a new friend this morning. Last night me and Mitch snuck off and brought a stuffed pig toy bear and cable tied it to the front of Blake’s bike. The amazing thing was that there was a stuffed bear stall open at midnight!!!!

We set off into the town to the market Center to try and find some parts for Ivan and tools for just in case scenarios.

Blake and Mitch went off to find the tools and were like kids in a candy store. They came back with a bag full of great little tools and nick nacks.
In the meantime I was trying to have some very helpful mechanics change the oil and fix the front suspension. We roared around the city Center stopping at every mechanic trying to find someone able to fix the unique front suspension on the Minsk.

Without any luck we started heading out of town and up into the central highlands towards Di Linh. We didn’t have far to go to get to Juliets guesthouse our stop for the night. But we severely overestimated the ability of Ivan.

Halfway up a steep mountain road his chain snapped bringing me to a sudden stop, I jumped off to inspect the damage and didn’t stand Ivan up and he fell over and broke his clutch – completely my fault – sorry Ivan.

Ivan managed to time the break perfectly. I was directly across the road from a roadside mechanic. After I rolled it across we set to work. Mitch dived into fixing the chain like a kid diving into a ball pit. I think he secretly enjoys having Ivan challenge his mechanical skills. A half dozen local mechanics swarmed around and started helping us to repair poor Ivan. They were amazing they all just dived in with Mitch and even though they didn’t speak a word of English we managed to mime what we needed and we all got stuck into fixing Ivan. We spent a good hour and a half working to restore the chain and clutch and then found the carburettor was playing up. We dissembled that and cleaned it out and. Ivan started responding and we were able to continue our short distance trip.

Di Linh is a very pretty place. Surrounded by mountains this quaint little village is exactly what we had been looking for and this place started to restore us as the dusty construction roads and cities had been wearing us down.