So we choose Option 3, taking forty minutes to drive back to where we started in the morning and then got on the other route that would bring us to the next town on our list.

The route started by taking us up this gorgeous tiny road, but about fifteen minutes in it began monsooning. We threw on the ponchos and started driving after reaching the top of the mountain, already exhausted from this morning’s encounter Shana and I decided to pull the bike over and grab some lunch and wait the rain out.

A kind family let us in and set us up with a heat fan to dry off some of our clothes and shoes. On our way in we had noticed a chicken running around outside. After about 30 minutes of laying inside they come out with chicken and rice for us to eat… the chicken was nowhere to be found. Both men sat on either side of me and poured a round of rice wine shots. Two rounds. Three rounds. Four rounds. I then begged them to stop, we were “stranded” on a mountain and I had a day of monsoon driving left ahead of me.

When the rain had died down a little we put our clothes back on, took some pictures with the family and got back on the motorcycle. It was 4pm at this point. After about ten minutes of driving the monsooning picked back up, laughing at the ridiculousness of the day so far we threw on ponchos on and kept going.

As we were heading down the mountain we take a turn and the road turns into… gravel. Big large pebbles. With half the road covered in a river of water making it’s way down the mountain. The pictures below describe the quality of the road (although it was completely deserted).

Hands gripped tightly on the wheel I began to bring us down slowly, a fall onto these wet, sharp rocks would be catastrophic. After ten minutes my arms were on fire, burning from my fingers all the way up through my shoulders and into my back. I told Shana to get off and walk for a little bit, if we fell I didn’t want us to both go down.

She walked ahead and found a small deserted chicken shack, I brought the bike under the shelter of the rain and sat down on the muddy ground. Exhaustion. Both physical and mental. Pure and utter exhaustion made my body feel like lead. It felt like I had just gone through my three hour physics 2 final and played an hour and forty minutes of rugby. The constant stream of adrenaline rushes I had been through had begun to take their toll.

At this point it was 5pm. The number one rule of driving in Vietnam is you don’t drive at night, at 6pm you stop and look for a place to spend the night. We weighed our options at this point, a rocky gravely uphill lay behind us so there was no turning around, we could either take our chances and move forward, risking getting stuck on the deserted mountain in the dark. The other option was to take out my hammock and sleep in the muddy chicken shack for the night. We decided to keep going. I picked my heavy body up, took a deep breathe in, exhaled all the exhaustion, got on the bike and turned to face the rocks.

After twenty minutes of inching the bike along down the rocky hill we turned a corner to find pavement. Sweet, soft, beautiful pavement. The front wheel got on the pavement followed by the back one, I will never forget that feeling.

We continued on the paved road for a little bit longer further making our way down the mountain, with a feeling that the worse was over, we quickly realized how wrong we were. Another turn and we were faced with, mud. Mud is the worse thing you can face as a motorcycle driver, because you don’t drive over mud. You slip in small, (hopefully) controllable increments and slowly move the bike along keeping your feet out on the side of the bike to help guide it. Small falls and slips are inevitable. Take a look at the pictures below to see what it looks like, again those were taken on another day where we had people around us. We inched our way along, with only one scary slip that brought us near the side of the mountain with an overflowing river below us. A couple inches more and we would’ve lost the bike and our stuff. Another deep breath and twenty more minutes of fighting the mud brought us back to sweet, merciful, loving pavement.