::: Offroading South Vietnam

Viethorse , the ADV ambassador for Vietnam. Looks like an awesome trip with a great group. Pretty hardcore

You give meaning to the phrase....
"Work Hard Play Harder"

What is the road number for that muddy section, I dont want to take that route with my wife 2up in March.?

Oh man, those are BIG words. Thank you very much for that title. I am just an amateur and like sharing things.

Yes Sir!

Those are in a national reserved, called Nam Cat Tien forest. You will never find the way in. LOL

Done the lunch, we had to wait for some foreigner friends changing their bike engine oil. Come on, why engine oil this time?!



We started to get our torch lights. It was 5:30PM. Hopefully my sponsored LED Lenser can survive me thru the night.



At one point, I found my bike was hard to start. Tried to catch up with the frontier group to make me safer the night:



The road was not so difficult, but not easy to speed up as limitation of light. And more, it was dry then the dust was LED light killer. We waited for someone who felt in the ditch somewhere.

Before Ta Lai bridge, road was terrible. Muddy, wet, rock, slippery, you name it. The worst parts were deep, long ditch along the road. I saw by my own eyes a man felt twice from the slippery surface into the ditch.

Ta Lai bridge:













The last gas stop for the day:

We changed the plan a bit, no more dirt road, no more jungle, just paved road heading to rest area. My big friend now on the motoped:

IN ! on this RR Viethorse, two observations as I read through, looks like the jungle roads/ trails are red clay and red rock and you are in monsoon season ?

Damn, that's some hardcore off roading! Looks like you're all having an incredible fun time, all though I bet it's tiring as hell to plow through that mud.
Nice rr, I like the detailed captions :)

Thanks!
Yeah, they are, red clay. Very jelly and damn fun and damn exhausted playing with it.
Not actually monsoon season there. In South VN we have rain season and dry season. It was in middle of raining season. Monsoon for Vietnam Southern (mostly seaside area only) is from November until early March.

Thanks.
What can I say - It was damn fun time. We gonna do it many many more :)))
For the captions, I was trying to describe as detail as I could, just to bring you guys things which you can see and also feel it.

That looks like a proper messy ride!

I think your buddy with the tricked out moped needs to invest in either a front fender or a wiper for his safety glasses

Is that a 450 SX KTM? Looks like suspension is lower than US KTM bikes.

LOL. Both of them wanna sell their moped at the middle of the ride already. Both bikes fuck-up after the 1st day LOL.

I am not sure which one you mentioned about. ANd not so sure about their specs, if they are other than mine

Approx 9:30PM we reached our unplanned rest stop. All different from the plan:



Some riders went out to catch the trucks and bus and head home right that night. The rest was still no plan...





Someone were happy with the achievement of the first day:



Love my YZ250 - damn, it's a track bike!!

A broken bike showed up on the truck - happy to get the guy back in the team for dinner:



This rest area is great one. They washed our bikes for free, not even need us to ask:





And provided us good food:







We saw off some friend back to HCMC after dinner.

The rest stayed and discussed about Sunday plan. Some of senior guys proposed to go to Tam Bo, which is one of an epic route with a famous stone hill. Damn, nervous!!!!

Whatever, we decided to stay at that rest stop.
hey have some new rooms for rent with crazy cheap price. I also like the room with so many power sockets.

Dry some stuff in the room:



Need to make a good barricade system between two men. Hehe.



Tired. Slept like a dead man.

Tracklog day 1



End of day 1.
P/S: There is a note at the end of tracklog "Hết pin GPS" - mean GPS batteries died - I think there was about 20-30km more since then until we reached the hotel location.

Oh I haven't finished this trip report!!!!

DAY 2. Tam Bo trail.

We had been warned that we should get out of the jungle before dark, otherwise it would be nightmare. 5AM departing as agreed - but hell, only me and organizer. It was raining...:







Someone still had their gears laying around:



Finally, on the bus for the highland:





Suddenly saw clear sky. This turn made me miss my VFR:



Breakfast time:

Whole crew for that day - 13 bikers. Looked like not a good number though:



Looked like not a good place to spread the things out here:



Entering the trail around 11AM, sun was shining. My bike was halted right after a stream. Then I dropped the bike at a small stone hill, lucky me I have the local guy and Minh helped me out. Another drop after a slippery turn. Danm, it was not a good start for the day.

Beginning of the trail:





Friend had his bike stopped at the middle of the stream. Mine was also dead after crossing the water. Hell.



Not easy to take pix by my camera when riding on such road, quite slippery:



Met a friend with his gear lever broken. He waved me to pass:



I was steering away from a buddy who stopped at the middle of the hill, then I dropped my bike into a deep ditch. Another nightmare to pull the bike outa there and getting on the saddle. So tired.

I reached this junction and did not know where to go as I could not see any tire track because the hard road surface. Just randomly took the right one.



Really nice inside:



Luckily meeting the other guys. Told them about friend's bike issue and we start waiting here:

My YZ made me fun:





Thought we should have lunch here!



Killing time:



We had the friend's bike fixed, rolled again:



Hung, a buddy liked to stop at the middle the hill and made me struggle with it:



To me, this is real technical terrain, especially when seeing my friend at the middle of it, I could not hold full steady gas when seeing him.



Went further, we had all kind of stuff, muddy, rocky, wet, etc...