Busy downtown streets gave way to suburbia which gave way to the more familiar two-way highway, snaking its way from the metropolis of Da Nang , which they’d just escaped, and climbing towards the mighty Hai Van Pass, a coastal regional park 500 metres up with views that stretched down to the tropical beaches drawing up its borders as well as a decent look into the north and south of central Vietnam where the crew now stood. The small roadside retaining wall against which their motorbikes now leaned marked more or less the halfway point for those plithy pilgrims who braved the infamous Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi marathon by bike. As it turned out, certain members of the crew – 4 hours into their trip – were only more than happy they had chosen to give themselves a headstart and start in Hoi An instead!

As they stretched out weary lower backs and took it in turns to pee off the seaside cliff, Anthony was making the kind of adjustments to his Honda Win that would place it firmly in “limp home” mode. With the sun going down in the park, the crew wouldn’t come across the possibility of a mechanic for another hour yet, and even then would be hard pressed to find someone willing to help after nightfall. Matt swaggered up to him after peeing, pulling his pants up at a rate which ensured the others caught sight of his full moon drifting across the horizon.

“What seems to be the officer, problem?”

Anthony cast a furtive glance at the others before answering. Only Jonelle caught the genuine concern in his grin – somewhat forced for Anthony – and sauntered over.

“All good, bro?”

“Nah, not really aye!” Ant muttered in a low voice, glancing again in Cordelle, his partner’s direction, where she sat laughing and yarning with the rest of the group. “Pretty crack up actually” he smiled weakly. “The engine legit just fell out of the bottom of my bike just now when I gave it a shake!”

Jonelle gasped. “What the fuck?”

“So you uh reckon that will be a problem?” Matt ventured.

“She’s a big job, yeah” Ant wasn’t really in the mood for funny business.

Happily naive of these affairs, the rest of the gang gazed out at the view from where they stood in uncharacteristic silence. Ants’ UE Boom even seemed to have got the memo, the battery dying along with his gasping engine as they had pulled up to the spot. All across the endless expanse, purples and oranges leaped into the heavens where the immanent jet trails nearer to earth allowed for some depth perception in an otherwise transcendent view. Far below them, empty tropical beaches adorned attols and jungly headlands the crew longed to get down to but for a lack of access roads, contented themselves to merely gawk at from on high. And out to sea, a sheet of incandescent blue shone the kind of milky platinum that great swathes of water got at day’s end, dappled with the ghosts of ripples tiptoeing over its depths. To the northwest, Jared could spy the endless switchbacks in the highway fading down toward the valley floor and marking their path forward.

His eyes on the prize, Anthony indulged the Watsons in his plan for success. “Yo” he indicated a bungee chord to Matt. “Pull on this for a sec.” Ant’s hands worked deftly now to tuck the other end of the line around the decrepit engine and under itself, before adding a second bungee to the emerging spider’s web. Matt caught on and began taking up the slack.

“You just gonna tie it on to stop it from shitting itself?”

“Yoza” Ants grinned mirthlessly at them. “It’s not starting anymore either so I’m just gonna neutral it down the hill”.

“It’s like 15km to the bottom!” Jonelle half-laughed.

Anthony shrugged and suddenly stooped for his backpack as the others approached them, helmets tucked under their arms. “Lesshgo!” he called, before they could notice any changes…

…but Jamie was sharper.

“Nice rig, brother!” he looked over Ants’ handiwork intently.

“Yip” Ant’s stern gaze as placed the helmet on his head warned his friend not to draw too much attention to it.

Jamie took the cue. “Guess we’ll just pivot if we notice smoke coming off them” he grinned at Ant, jerking his helmeted head at the bungees splayed flat-tack against the steel of the engine.

Comprehension finally dawned in Cordelle’s eyes as she sized the situation up. She swung on her heel, open palms raised in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t even wanna know!” she called back over her shoulder to them as she strolled toward her scooter.

A relieved grimace painted in place, Ant raised his eyebrows a couple times in Jared’s direction whose shoulders shook with mirth at his friend’s daring.

“I’m gonna neutral down the hill anyay, he informed them, holding his chin a little higher. “give the engine a break”.

Jamie looked preturbed. “Brooo that’s like a half hour ride!”

“Yoza! Lesshgo!”

His silent ride, subject only to the forces of gravity was now, for all intents and purposes, a push bike and as such, proved to be something of a pacesetter for the crew as they raced each other around him in short drags along the straights. Jared had heard that the splendorous mountain pass was rated one of the greatest drives in the world and now he could see why. Breathtaking vistas of the South China Sea alternated with towering karst-cliff giants as the road made its way in careful esses back down to sea level. With every hairpin bend in the road the short sprint races of the crew wold taper off before it straightened out once more and the sound of Honda Win throttles would rattle out into the night.

Toucan, Kingfisher and even the odd pairing of tiny primates could be seen at whiles on the branches above them, the latter scrambling up roadside banks to the safety of the forest canopy as the riders approached. All about them, a frenzied chorus of half a billion birds, frogs and cicadas made their presence abundantly clear to the noisy humans in their midst, their deafening thanksgiving drawing their first day in the saddle to a theatrical end …or at least what Jared had assumed to be the end.

As he slapped second to slow for a corner and accelerate out again, he became vaguely aware of the fact that he had mastered the art of gear changes and it thrilled him. No longer the shaky non-starter who had entered Da Nang’s city limits only hours before, he ducked and weaved with the others as they paraded around Anthony. With their bags lashed onto the backs of their rides and nothing but open road ahead of them, Jared reflected that nothing in his life had ever before felt so freeing.

Spying Jamie’s blond locks flying ahead, he ducked around his friend’s tail light in the gathering dusk and gunned it ahead to draw level with him. His upper torso perched over the front of the handlebars he glared at Jamie, teeth bared, which – with his $200 motorbike and jean shorts – made him look like the kind of Bond villain MIQ could find and kill at a Backpacker bar.

“So you think you could outrun me that easily aye, Fraser?” he sneered nasally.

Jamie grinned and without breaking eye contact, nodded in the direction of an oncoming van, which required so much of Jared’s attention that he was forced to break character, swinging hard into the lee of Jamie’s bike. The van missed him by seconds, probably owing to the fact that the bike’s headlight – like a wind-up toy – only glowed if Jared accelerated.

He returned to his friend’s side, nursing wounded pride.

Jamie beamed. “Bloody Ghost Rider over here!”

Jared gave a single shake of his head as the steep road began to straighten out in front, “We’re actually doing it boooy!”

“Bonkers aye?” Jamie grinned.

WHOOOOSH!

This time it was Jamie forced to swerve as a silent streak of black and silver whizzed by them at 80km/hr.

“NnnnYOHNSON!” Ants’ shout of joy was easliy audible over his engineless bike. No longer restricted by braking for corners, it seemed Ant was only more than happy to oblige as gravity took its course. He vanished into the night, both Cordelle and his backpacks jostling merrily on each side of the bike.

Laughing, they took off after their friend, finding him far sooner than they expected at an intersection which marked the border of Hai Van Park with the small harbour town of Lang Co. The welcoming lights of restaurants and guesthouses glowed invitingly at them across the water. As they pulled up to the stop sign, each rider caught in the eyes of the other the gleam burgeoning in their spirits. It was contagious. They were alive and they had just ridden motorbikes over a mountain pass in Vietnam.

Anything was possible from here on out.

“That was sick, man!” Matt beamed at Jared.

“Fuck yeah”

Anthony, his engine miraculously back in action, addressed the group but his eyes found Jamie. “I reckon we keep going, whānau!”

Jared’s smile inched its way off the vicinity of his face. A sleeper bus, as if goading them, roared through the intersection, its tail lights a blood-neon blur.

“Why don’t we call it a day?” Jared eyed the very last of the sun’s rays on the horizon. “There’s a few guest houses in town here” he added, scrolling through Cordelle’s phone.

Anthony didn’t answer; just continued to gaze at Jamie for the sign off. Jared recognized the same half-mad gleam Anthony used to get in luncthime rugby games in their youth, 2 points down with 2 minutes to go before the bell.

Jamie was torn.

“We did say we wouldn’t ride after dark” he mused. “I s’pose we could do half an hour more then bail out if it’s too sketchy?”

Jared’s heart dropped. His legs and shoulders – unaccustomed to the posture of riding – were spent. In fact, now that he’d stopped long enough for the adrenaline to simmer, he realized how in need of a bed and steaming bowl of Pho he was. Mostly he knew deep down that they had been lucky to make it this far in the daylight without serious incident. Between his inexperience and the woeful condition of Anthony’s bike, he was experiencing an air of irreality at Ants’s suggestion that they continue to push that luck, particularly now that dark had fallen in earnest.

“Well where’s the next town…do we even know?” He looked at Jonelle.

Seated behind Matt on their bike, she also seemed unseasy. “Well, Matt’s the one driving us, so it’s up to you I s’pose bruv…”

Matt’s face gave nothing away. “Keen to push on for a bit”.

Cordelle accepted her phone back from Jared and caught the concern in his eyes. “Well, I reckon we shouldn’t go if not everyone’s comfortable” she warned.

There was an awkward pause as Anthony continued to look cheerfully at Jamie.

“I just think that with everyhing we’ve got through toda-” Jared began.

“Yoza, lesshgo!” Ant revved his bike into a smoking, spluttering wheelie, like Alexander the Great might have done on the cusp of battle, if he’d ridden a maimed horse. Two by two, they put-putted out into the intersection after him.

“Did he even hear me?” Jared asked Jonelle, as their bikes brought up the rear.

She looked fretful. “Guess we just ride it out and turn back if it gets too hairy?”

Jared said nothing. Just glared ahead, stewing in his anger.

Out of the darkness, the headlights of a stream of oncoming trucks returned the glare, engines bellowing, skeletal faces aglow with menace.

It was about to get hairy.