A not so merry Christmas, and a happy new year (Kunming, China – Hanoi, Vietnam).

As I rolled out of bed to the sound of the alarm at 5:45, Chris said, “Merry Christmas Stu” in the most lacklustre way I have ever heard. My response, “eurgh”.

For the Marshall brothers 2 there was to be no pile of presents, no family surrounding us (other than each other), no Tracey Marshall smoked salmon and eggs, no Pete Marshall and bucks fizz, no grandparents getting merry, and no Matt Marshall stuffing himself with chocolate to the point of a chocolate-induced coma. Just the daunting knowledge that we knew we had to cycle 150km.

We left Kunming and it was VERY busy. We decided that we should try the highway as it is much faster, and it seems to be OK to go on in Yunnan. But when we got there, it was no ordinary highway. It was just 3 lanes of pure unadulterated motor mayhem, without a hard shoulder!

But besides this, it was pretty nice…

So after a good start, doing 150km of the 430km we needed to do in 3 days to the border, it was up early again. It hammered it down in the afternoon, there were cars and lorries sliding around a bit! We even witnessed a crash. I’m surprised its the first one we have seen. When you overtake going around a blind corner into an oncoming lorry in a small car, there’s only going to be one outcome though. With such moronic driving, it’s an inevitability that stuff like this happens. Such little care for their own lives and other people’s, and no regard for the value of human life, or so it seems (when they’re behind the wheel). Generally speaking, the Chinese aren’t bad people, everyone we have met has been pretty sound. They’re just all awful at driving.

We’re making sure we maintain a healthy diet, so plenty of delicious chicken feet.

We had one final push for the border the next morning, with a big ask of 160km to do. A tall order, but not for two recent graduates of El Toro university.

After a morning of dirty filthy climbing, we finally reached the top, and with the help of this highway, we had a great chance of making the border!

As this descent went through the mountains, and down to a river, it goes on for ages. There were loads of tunnels, more tunnel than road. Some went on for 2 kilometres! Unfortunately, as we were bombing down this hill, the police weren’t too happy about us being on the highway, and pulled us over.

We were a bit worried, because we didn’t know what the police were going to do with us. This made it a bit uncertain as to whether we would even make it to the border. Luckily, after some negotiating (and some heavy flirting), we got a police escort for 45km along the highway until being kicked off. The police were pretty sound about it in the end!

After pedalling through the banana jungle that evening, we managed to get to the border. In the morning, we crossed over into… Vietnam!!

From the border to Hanoi it was possibly the most dangerous road we have been on all trip. I came within a metre of certain death when a bus almost hit me. The road was very narrow, very busy, loads of buses and huge lorries, all amongst loads of mopeds and motorbikes. Also, its been really wet and overcast the whole way too. We still haven’t seen the sun. We even saw the aftermath of a couple of crashes.
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Since we have entered Asia, there’s an entire different attitude when driving. Everyday since entering Kazakhstan, I think I’ve been almost killed at least a couple of times a day. It’s just mental.
Amongst all the moaning though, there’s always time to stop off at the funky roller disco!

We arrived in Hanoi a day ahead of schedule, making it for the 30th. So, having missed Christmas, we celebrated NYE like mentalists. We met some cool people, some hench people, and even met up with Xavi and his guapo chica, Cris.
We also went to get the bikes fixed up by yet another sound Catalan, Guim. A top bloke, who also went for a cycle around the planet we call, Earth. But he ended up opening the worlds coolest bike shop in Hanoi, it’s like a cycling shop come cafe.

Also, I heard some reviews of the previous blog, and apparently it was a bit long. So I’d just like to say, I’m really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really, sorry 🙂