Picking up the bikes.

Finally came the day to go pick up the bikes (read previous post from Hanoi). With enthusiasm and joy we went to the bike shop and saw our bikes in a nice row in front of the shop. Oh boy, next day we would be driving those bikes to the Ho Chi Minh road (from now on HCMR) and to the mountains. Yay!
Big was the disappointment when we realised that nothing was done to the bikes. The guy had three days to take the bikes to the mechanic and fix the problems we had showed and told to him. I am usually really calm but at this point I felt like losing temper but what can you do but wait for him to take the bikes one by one to the mechanic and get the things done.  Of course there were also other customers trying to by a bike and since we had already paid for our bikes you can imagine where the bike shop owners concentration was.

One surprise was also that the two Danish girls (Emilie&Stinne) had never driven a bike with manual gears. I was like "Oh my, this is gonna be interesting". While Emilie's bike was at the garage she was learning how to operate manual gears with my bike. At this point we also thought that Lee had already left the shop with he's bike. Emilie didn't feel quite comfortable with the gears and the fact that her bike was at the shop since it just didn't even run when I tried it earlier made her a bit anxious and she decided to change the bike to a scooter. A decision which made me really happy. When I saw her practise the manual gears I saw dark clouds ahead. At this point we had already waited like 2-3 hours I guess and the owners wife tried to explain something about a wedding and hence having not time to fix the bikes. Total bullshit. The waiting, being not happy with the manual gears, her bike not working and the bullshit made Emilie quite mad and she practically shouted to the owner that she wanted a scooter instead. After a few minutes debate the owner gave in but still wanted some extra 50USD for the manual scooter. I have to give it to Emilie. She got the scooter and didn't pay any extra. I learned later that you just need to make a big commotion in Vietnam if you feel like being scammed.

Finally after 5 or so hours we all got our bikes and we found out that Lee's bike had been at the garage all that time. Well I guess they at least did something to the bike there.

Not the best start but in the end we had the bikes, luggage racks, maps, helmets and eagerness to get on the road the next day. It would be the biggest convoy ever leave the Hanoi ;) Total of 7 bikes were to be in our convoy. Stinne's boyfriend, Rasmus (Danish) and Max (German) were also to join us next morning to head south and eventually to Ho Chi Minh city.

Me and my bike.