Monday, October 21, 2013

Betsy's breakdown

The road away from Mai Chau is really exciting. Full of curves, paved and right true a lot of really small villages. After Betsy's rest day we expected to have her healthy back, till after 5km we got a flat tire. OK, a flat tire can happen to the best of us. A very kind young man called a repair man for us and 45 min later we were on our way again. During the waiting we learned the Vietnamese national anthem from a drunk guy that couldn't stop singing (he couldn't stand still either).
In the mountains Betsy struggled and it was getting worse. First climbing in 3rd gear, the next mountain in 2nd till after a few mountains we got to a complete standstill. After some attempts we got her running again and hurried to the nearest town to let the experts take a look. The engine gave up. It looks like a not so healthy engine with two people and our luggage driving in the mountains was too much.

Some calls to the guys we bought the bike from made them promise to give a refund for the repair costs. 4 hours, a new cylinder head, a nap in someones living room, and a good lunch (plus exciting journey to get it) later we could resume our trip to only the nearest big city before nightfall. We ended it up in Thanh Hoa.

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