Top Gear · Season 12, Episode 8
“Top Gear: Vietnam Special (December 28, 2008)” · Season 12, Episode 8
In this episode: Jeremy Clarkson (18), Richard Hammond (13), James May (12)
[Introducing the special from the studio]
Hello and and welcome to a sea of disappointed faces. Because these people have driven all the way down here today only to find the show isn't actually coming from here today.
No, it is in fact coming from six thousand miles away, here [points on map] in Vietnam.
Yes, we were told to meet in the centre of Saigon and await further instructions.
So, sit back, enjoy the ride.
[Reading the first part of the challenge]
Since you can buy Rolexes here for a fiver and lunch for 50p, you're standing in the world's biggest Pound shop. You should therefore have no trouble at all buying some wheels for fifteen million ??ng.
[voiceover] Delighted that for once the producers had been generous, we headed for the showrooms. [out loud] I love having inches of money! [voiceover] But our joy was short lived as James discovered when he tried to buy a bog-standard Fiat 500.
[pointing to car] Can you tell me how much?
Uh, five hun-- five hundred and sixty million Vi?t ??ng.
Five hundred and sixty million?
Yeah
How much is fifteen million ??ng?
Just about one thousand U.S. dollar.
[meeting up after finding the money they've been given isn't in fact worth very much]
I'll tell you the problem, is cars only came to Vietnam a few years ago, ok--four or five years ago? They've got the two hundred percent import tax on them, they haven't had time--in the four or five years since they've been here--to get cheap.
So there are no bangers.
Everything's expensive and we're actually quite poor.
[James gets Jeremy's attention and gestures to the motorbikes behind them]
No.
Go on.
Look around us, what do we see everywhere?
You know I can't do that.
Well what else is there? [pokes box of money] Bet you can get a bike for that!
It's our only option.
I bet you could get a lump of excrement for that as well, it doesn't mean I'm going to go...
It's transport, with an engine. It's the only choice we have.
Come on!
No.
Look, that's all we've got. [Holds up a bundle of money and puts it back in the box] Bikes.
[Jeremy describing his bike without any of the enthusiasm the other presenters have shown]
I've bought this, which is um... a motorcycle.
Well technically, this is a scooter. [picks it up into the upright position]
If you let go now it will just fall over.
No, it's got a thing called a stand!
You really don't know anything about bikes do you? I mean, really...
Nothing.
Tell you what I will say, it's actually very pretty. But it's going to be useless because whatever the challenge is, tiny wheels and looking good--that's not going to help.
Why are tiny wheels wrong?
Because the holes are big and the little wheels go further in.
What holes?
The holes in the road.
So you're going be [wobbly sound] all over the place.
How many cylinders has it got?
One.
One?
It's a two stroke.
[Reading the main challenge]
You'll now attempt to achieve in eight days what the Americans failed to achieve in ten years: get from the south of Vietnam to the north. You will ride from [laughs] here in Saigon to Ha Long City, near the Chinese border, which is one thousand miles away.
[Jeremy looks daunted]
That is excellent!
Wow!
That is the best challenge we've ever had!
That's fa-- I'm going. I'm getting--Get his bike started. [runs back to his bike]
Honestly, that is fantastic. [leaves too]
I just-- I can't do that. I can't do-- Guys, I can't do that! I can't ride a bike. I'm sorry, this is stupid. [points to crew behind the camera] And I'm not joking, it is-- I don't know who came up with this, but it's daft.
I think it's brilliant! I'm more excited than anything we've ever done.
I can't believe you're being a misery-guts.
Because it's a thousand miles in the rainy season...!
I know, that's the best thing about it!
...a thousand miles, in the rainy season, in a country with not very good roads, and I can't ride a bike!
[voiceover] I honestly believed that at some point on our long and torturous route, one of us would be killed. Probably wouldn't be Hammond though. Because unlike us two, he at least could get a helmet which fitted.
The reason I don't ride a motorcycle is because I have a large brain.
No, you have a big head.
The reason why crash helmets are small is because people who wear them haven't got a brain. Otherwise they'd have a car.
[Jeremy is having lunch while his scooter is being repaired]
[picks up a piece of meat with his chopsticks] You look at this and you think "what noise did this make when it was alive"? Did it go moooo, or did it go tweet tweet tweet, or did it go neigh! [eats it] I think it went ruff! rrrrr-ruf! But it's delicious.
[Richard and James are having lunch somewhere else]
[looking at the menu] Uhm, well I think this thing here is a sort of squid thing with some... weird paste.
[looking unhappy] Don't like squid.
Ok, well you can have crab with...
Don't like crab.
Razor clams!
Don't like clams.
[Jeremy is broken down by the side of a road]
And here we are again. It's a lovely evening in south-east Asia, as you can see. And I'd be enjoying it in any means of transport apart from the motorbike. If somebody said to me "would you like to hop to Hanoi?" Yes I would. [hops off on one foot down the road]
[Richard and then James arrive at the meeting point, a restaurant]
Well, I went to check ahead if it'd gotten any steeper. It did.
I know.
Where is he, do you reckon?
Dunno.
Do you think he's enjoying his first biking experience?
[Cut to Jeremy, who is riding through town in the dark]
[Very, very angry] I am the most miserable human being alive! Where's this restaurant?! Where is it?!
[Just before the rain starts to fall]
[voiceover] Still, at least I'd been assured it wouldn't rain.
[And with that, the heavens open. Jeremy and James ride along, soaked by the torrential rain]
Name an upside to this, May! Name ONE upside!
Well, you're not hot anymore, are you?
My light's dying. It's dying, my light's dying!
[voiceover] There was an upside though. Richard's Taliban bike had decided it liked the rain even less than me.
Come on now! [hops up and down whilst still on his bike] That's not so effective as I'd hoped it would be.
[shouting whilst driving through a big puddle] Oh my god! What the hell is going on in my life?! Why has my life gone so wrong?!
It's good for you!
[still shouting] It's not!
[Getting annoyed] It is! Stop whining!
[Jeremy and James passing a small truck]
Hit that. Cheer me up--kill yourself.
[James overtakes Jeremy and begins to sing The Beach Boys' "Little Honda"]
#I'll take you anywhere you want to go, I'll ride my Honda tonight-#
I hate you!
[Ignoring him] #First gear, it's all right. Second gear, I lean right. Third gear, hold on tight#
[James has run out of fuel in the pouring rain]
Cock. This is a massive "Oh, cock". How can it have run out? That rain makes a really annoying noise on my colander-- helmet. And it comes through.
[later]
this nice man has stopped on an old Russian motorcycle and I think he's going to give me some petrol. What a nice man. In fact, I think I'll pay him. [he starts to remove of his gloves, then sighs] Me d?ng's going to be all soggy, isn't it?
[After bring told that they couldn't get any more spare parts for their bikes and found out that the "backup transport", if they couldn't keep their bikes going with tools is a Honda Chaly mini-bike with a "Stars and Stripes" paint job]
Oh god!
Oh yes, that is a bit...
Oh, God, I don't think so!
It's slightly conspicuous
[some music starts playing loudly, it's "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen, it's the "Star Spangled Banner" in the DVD edition]
That's "Born in the USA", evidently.
[some thunder rumbles and some Vietnamese start running towards them in the distance]
That's thunder...and the village...have you noticed there was a rumble of thunder, and the village arrived..? I-...
[He struggles to find the right words]
Children, if you're watching this at home and you don't know why this is inappropriate, ask your parents, but this is as inappropriate a bike as it is humanly possible to conceive.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Top Gear pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
