My brother had the advantage of already owning a bike which was suitable for conversion to a touring cycle (Genesis Croix de Fer 2012) which he did by adding a rear rack and panniers. We decided to travel relatively light and so only went for this option.
At Christmas I'd asked him if he wanted a GPS for the journey and he said we should just get the best maps of Vietnam available and navigate the old school way. We will have the fallback of one smartphone and after that it will be the mining of local knowledge. Time will tell if that knowledge will prove to be gold or coal dust!
That final week before our booked departure on Monday 11th March on a Malaysia Airlines flight to Hanoi via Kuala Lumpur was pretty hectic. My bike still hadn't arrived, the online place I'd ordered my panniers from sent me the wrong ones (so I had to get them sent back and buy them elsewhere with guaranteed delivery), I was still having my second round of travel jabs. It was last minute territory but somehow I felt that things would actually fall into place. Those who know me well will know that this has always been my modus operandi and that I usually make it through whatever tight spot I've self-manufactured.
So it turned out. I called the bike shop and ensured delivery of the bike by the weekend, getting them to work double time (there were issues with the frame welding for my stabilisers...joking!), sorted my jabs out (I would have to have my final rabies and hepatitis B done in Vietnam). My panniers turned up and all the rest of the stuff like spare tyres, tubes etc were sorted out. It was also my job to ensure we had the visas for entry.
I opted not to get our visas from the London embassy for certain reasons, so I used an online company (www.vietnamsvisa.com) to arrange for a pre-approved visa letter. The idea is that they take your name and passport details then somebody in Vietnam goes to apply for the visa on your behalf. If approved you get a letter (e-mailed scan) which you show upon arrival at the airport, whereupon you are invited to pay the appropriate fee for your visa stamp. That my letter looked kind of dodgy (like a poorly scanned photocopy) and stated that we were visiting Vietnam on three months' business was a little worrying, so I fired off an e-mail to find out why it did not show 'tourism' as according to my application.
The reply came that Vietnamese 3 month visas are all for 'business' by default and said that it would be fine. We had no choice but to trust them and hope that the letter would stand up to scrutiny, as being the weekend, we had run out of time for the embassy fast track visa option.
Sunday came and we spent the day taking my mum to Kew Gardens for Mother's Day. We stopped for dinner at my sister's place nearby Richmond and did not manage to get home until past nine o'clock, mainly due to traffic caused by England playing a Five Nations rugby match that afternoon at Twickenham. Once home I took my bike for its first ride around my dark local park, checking the gears and brakes. Ten minutes later I was back at home removing the handlebars ready for it to be bagged up. There was no time for a more testing examination, I would have to trust the bike shop mechanics.
We reached Heathrow with our bagged bikes and checked in after deciding to box them up. The transfer at Kuala Lumpur presented further danger of damage to the bikes, which the friendly Malaysian Airlines check in staff pointed out and they showed great patience as we dismantled our bikes to fit the boxes.
After boarding the flight there was nothing else we could do but hope that we would see the bikes undamaged around sixteen hours later in Hanoi. Take off was delayed as they were de-icing the plane and I noticed that it was snowing as we taxied onto the runway.
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