Who is Millington?

Richard Millington has been riding for more than 30 years, touring for more than 25, and has never looked back. He’s the founder of Motorrad Tours, and has ridden on five continents, guiding motorcycle tours in Europe, Africa, North and South America and Asia. www. motorrad-tours.com offers a wide range of adventures, with something for every rider... all very courteous but the policeman was getting more and more frustrated. As onlookers we realised this was a dangerous game to play and were keeping well out of it, until… The policeman threw the book through the window of his truck and dismissively waved Gary just to go. Gary, full of apology, now dug in his top box and pulled out two Snickers bars and gave one to each of the policemen, thanked them, shook their hands and off he went! Half an hour arguing and eventually surrendering two Snickers for what was probably a

$20 fine, for which he was probably guilty. Even the police were smiling as we rode away.

In Vietnam, you are supposed to always be with the official guide when travelling although they are pretty relaxed about it, until you get stopped for speeding. Then of course the rule book comes out. It is a country where the police have great powers and the locals seem to be afraid of them. However they do not know how to deal with mature foreign tourists. Fortunately one of the policemen had some English and Len, the rider, managed to communicate that the official guide, who would be snoozing in the support vehicle as it trundled down the road somewhere, had got lost and would be along, at some point, soon-ish, probably. “You must wait for the guide,” was the message, seemingly with the inference that when the guide arrived both the rider and guide would be severely dealt with. So Len, Pam and Ian who was riding with them set up camp at the police stop. They got out cold drinks and snacks and laid back to wait in the sun.

“How long will the guide be?” “Maybe another hour or so?” It is a waiting game and now the police are stuck. They cannot leave this roadside stop until the guide arrives. The only alternative is to arrest three foreign tourists for a minor traffic offence which seems like overkill and could be very troublesome. After another 10 minutes with no guide and they were all told to go about their business and strictly not to speed in Vietnam again. Courtesy goes a long way, but sometimes so does playing the long game.

Several of our tour leaders are former police officers. Mainly traffic, but some in other disciplines...