To Vinh Banh

We left Hanoi this morning and went to The Ho Chi Minh Trail Museum, where the rally proper was to start.  It's about 15kms from the city and it seems that very few tourists make it there.  Everything is well laid out and it has an extremely large collection of very interesting artefacts.  We watched a short, well made film about the trail and then had a really excellent talk from Digby, the Australian husband of one of our "fixers" and the owner of a large tour company specialising in motorbike tours in Indochina. He really brought to life just what an amazing feat the trail was and why the Americans could never have won with their tactics. They should never have interfered in the first place, quite frankly. What a waste of so many Iives on both sides.

We collected our jeep, which was very exciting, and headed south, an easy run of about 70 miles.  We soon left the main highway and crossed through the emerald paddies on a mix of dirt tracks and a little concrete. It was absolutely stunning scenery, marred by the hazy weather though.  Huge vertical outcrops of rock made for a surreal, Tolkeinesque landscape.  We were in big farming country; not just rice, but a whole variety of crops were being grown and everywhere was bright, bright green. How we longed for a blue sky.  It was not to be, sadly,  and, for the last hour, it started to rain quite heavily. All that greeness has to come from somewhere, I suppose. We were given a very enthusiastic welcome as we passed through small villages and the many people working in the fields - it reminded me of Burma, in that way. Surprisingly, there is absolutely no animosity here towards Americans, or their vehicles. War's war and they are very proud that they won and the young people don't seem to  care either way as it happened before they were born. So, 20 odd American war jeeps driving along the Ho Chi Minh trail has them smiling and waving enthusiastically in greeting.

The jeep, as expected, is a little rough, but great fun.  Ours was backfiring and missing a little, but, joy of joys, for once on a rally it's not our problem!  The fantastic local mechanical team, headed by the the     extremely able Coung,  soon had it all shipshape ready for tomorrow.  Incidentally, it was Coung who was the main support mechanic for the Top Gear team when they did their "Vietnam Special" a few years ago. He actually designed, and built, the amphibious cars the three chaps drove through Halong Bay.  He told us that they wanted May's to sink - it was not his mechanical error!  I can't imagine that there's anything he cannot fix.

Getting a Vietnamese driving licence is quite a feat.  Very few are issued and we had to to send off our UK licences several weeks ago for consideration. Top Gear were not able to get them a few years ago which was why they did their trip on motorbikes. All the women on this trip have had a white blouse photoshopped onto their photographs - you can just see the collar on mine, on others, it is more obvious!  One unfortunate young man, Dan, was not able to get a licence because it showed the start date on his UK licence as before his 18th birthday and you are not allowed to dive in Vietnam at 17.  The fact that he is now in his early twenties, and it is legal, wasn't enough and his application was refused.  The did, however, grant him a motorbike licence - not much use on this rally.

200 hundred miles tomorrow - can't wait.  Please let the sky be blue.