Motorbike dreams and admissions
Posted: August 13, 2010 Filed under: travel | Tags: holidays, motorbikes, rally indochina, travel, trips, vietnam 4 Comments »
First the truth: as much as I love driving my little SYM bike around Hanoi, the furthest I’ve ever driven is to the inlaws on the outkirts of town.
I’ve long wanted to do a long bike trip but, to date, assorted situations have conspired against me. While I was a VSO volunteer, although riding a bike wasn’t banned they really didn’t encourage it and expected, not unreasonably, that if you did ride then you had to ensure you were 100% legally registered. Not an easy state to achieve in bureaucratic Vietnam.
Later, on my return, I bought Miss Hoa. She’s an angel but she’s no long distance vehicle. Somewhere in between, it felt like friends who might have made long distance motorbike trips with me, had settled down and had families rather than bikes to spend their weekends with.
Soon I will join their ranks.
Next weekend we’re headed to the countryside and I’m a little excited. An in-law is getting married in the sticks and we’re making a weekend of it. The route is flat and gentle for Miss Hoa and Loan will ride pillion. We’ll stay in a hotel Saturday night, go to the wedding on Sunday and head back that night.
In the future? Well what about this?
Experience has shown that the concept of “getting something out of your system” doesn’t actually work. I am now living permanently in Vietnam as a result of “getting travel out of my system” when I went backpacking eight years ago. But it does seem epic enough to break my proper motorbike trip duck, see the best bits of Vietnam and then settle quietly into being a family man.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail, (not this appalling insult), Red Army bikes, jungles and mountains. Could it be more perfect?
The truth is I really want to do it and a large percentage of the fee also goes to the excellent Blue Dragon.
My mind is abuzz with ways of trying to raise that sizeable $5,000 entry fee. Clients to shakedown, a Chip In donations button on the blog. Could I sing for my supper? I’d love to blog the trip and post live updates from the road. Could I help in promoting the event? Would that reduce the non-charitable part of the cost?
I’m intrigued and excited about the possibilities and it seems like if I did it, then I’d have to be looking at ways in which to justify it, not so much the money, as the time away from building my own business. This needs to be done in a way that will promote either my business or a client’s.
All suggestions and encouragement welcome.
You seen the Top Gear Vietnam Bike Road Trip episode? Very good.
Yikes – Is it not like 1500 km – blimey – need stamina for that distance as someone not used to the long haul – any way good luck!
As for sponsorship – This could be the best opportunity you have in developing new business (not for raising the $5,000) but for building new prospects.
Fist find a crazy association with your target (you would feel is ideal for your tallents as a business provider) …promise them say 20 videos at every stopping point and interview someone about some brand value (that is associated with your sponsor) – Or whatever media you create the idea is the same – offer the service to your target not as a cold call looking for work – but as a genuine great opportunity for them to give to charity (great pr for them) and they get massive value content you will provide for them that earns them revenues.
OK the reason that this is good – Is that you are not selling your services, but helping them give to good causes and you will be giving your time and services free – so this makes you a good guy (you probably are already – but you get the idea).
Obviously you are not free – Its a different way to get extra traffic – to spread the word deeper and faster that you have a great business service.
If they don’t want to contribute to charity – you have your service in front of them – the result is that they now possibly follow your tweets / blog or at least know you have a commercial offer also .
As I am guessing here and I can only guess – I guess that most of your readers are not actually your target business owners, but interested consumers (who will not buy what you sell). So you can build up a more targeted business profile for you readership.
Even if you do not get the money to do the trip – you have a lot more people that you want to do business with – knowing what you offer, which is the first step in marketing
Anyway sorry for the long post (again) – Best of luck and its just my two peneth worth.
You expect me to encourage you to do something that I’ll be eternally jealous of you for achieving? Pah!
To give you some advice, I’d recommend going for the “driver” rather than “pillion” option, just in case you were thinking of the latter. Having done HCM – Mui Ne – Nha Trang – Da Lat – HCM last year, I can tell you that the front seat is by far the comfiest over long distances!
I sent you a message regarding this post via email to ourmaninhanoi at gmail dot com but haven’t received any reply so far. I wonder if it got into your spam box or something.
Regards