Category Archives: Vietnam

Goodbye, Vietnam: March 14th – March 20th

March 22, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

Ryan grabs breakfast without me, so I head up to the hostels free breakfast alone. I see one of the guys from our tour, so I join him. He is a young Ukrainian who grew up in Israel. He tells me he hits all the movie theaters when he travels, so we bond immediately. I mention we are going to the Crazy House, so he offers to join us.

Crazier Than The Crazy House

We decide to make the short fifteen minute walk to the famous Crazy House in Dalat instead of riding there. Kostya shows us a cheap spot to grab pizza and other things and we continue to the house. As we are all walking, we hear a cracking noise from the street and come to a stop in unison. A taxi van goes spinning into a concrete pole and bounces off of it back into the street as three bikes burst into plastic pieces and their riders go flying. This is not the first accident I have been feet from in my life and Kostya had just finished his Israeli military time, so the drill is pretty basic. Call for medical help and make sure no one moves anyone involved in the accident. This is easy if you know the emergency contact number and all of the people involved speak your language. Kostya tries to tell them not to move any of the people, but the crowd of Vietnamese ignore the English. We make sure no one needs help that we could provide and continue walking. The Vietnamese rarity of wearing a full helmet is on full display as we see some of the resulting aftermath of the accident. Talking to our hostel owner later, we find out that another car had been driven by someone high from marijuana and swerved into the wrong lane, causing the bikers to swerve in front of the van and causing the chaos. We also found out that high drivers have caused several traffic deaths in the past few months at red lights. Luckily, this post will go out once we are done riding in Vie

We arrive at the Crazy House, made by the designer of the Maze Bar. The Vietnamese woman who created it traveled to Russia to learn about architecture and came back to design these crazy maze like buildings. This one is a hotel and rooms are spread out throughout the maze. The price is a bit exorbitant but it is only two dollars to walk through, so we check it out.

On the way back, we hit the pizza place and smash a ton of delicious food for the lowest prices we have seen in Dalat. Kostya and I hit the gym after and I am joyful to be sore. The three of us decide to hit a gaming cafe for a few hours since we are tired and pay twenty cents an hour to game. Life is good.

The Silver Lining

Our plan for the day is to eat breakfast, check out and take off to the coast at La Gi. We eat and check out. My bike refuses to start. The mechanic is about fifty meters from the hostel, so I walk it over. They unscrew the side plate and show me that the fuel valve is shut off and chastize me for it. I acknowledge that it was closed, but I don’t have a screwdriver and only rode the bike the fifty meters to the hostel, so I don’t know how that happened. We load up our bags and take off. A few minutes later, in the middle of an intersection, my bike dies again. I thank a higher power for powerful legs and push my way out of the intersection. Ignoring my current state of rage and still without a screwdriver, I pull the side plate open enough for my hand to squeeze through. I reach in, flip the fuel valve and pull my now bleeding hand out. I start the bike back up and take off back to the mechanic. It dies again in the middle of a busy roundabout. More cuts on my fingers, we arrive at the mechanic.

Conversing in a language you don’t speak is hard, but hand signals cover most of the things you say in basic interactions. Most things are universal. Google Translate does a decent job of covering things harder than that. Conveying complex thought is unfortunately still not easy. Trying to explain that this never happened before they touched my bike and now when I am riding it dies and I have to flip the fuel valve is not the easiest thing I have ever done. I regret not spending more time playing charades. Finally they get the idea and I ask them to fix what they broke. They explain that the fuel valve “has wear and tear” and wire the fuel valve open. Wiring things does not make me the most comfortable. I demand a screwdriver and we head off.

Ryan and I decide not to risk it and hit another mechanic to have it fixed correctly. I hit a Yamaha dealership and they tell me that the bike is too old for them to service. I just ask them to look, as that is a basic part of a bike. The mechanic sees the wire, laughs and immediately shuts the bike. They point me to another mechanic. I call Mr.Phung in Hanoi and have him talk to the mechanic who tells him that he is too busy. We hit four more mechanics, who are all either too busy or just wave me off without talking at all. At this point, my frustration is to the point where I just want to sell the bike on the spot and take a bus to Saigon. We stop and get some pizza and I do some research.

Mr.Phung says it should be good to ride, and worst case, my bike just dies and I just stay conscious not to aggressive pass anyone in case it dies out. I open the bike and secure the wiring job the young mechanics had done. They have a lot of experience, but I am sure a physics lesson would do them some good. We have burned a few hours now and won’t make the full ride, but we can at least knock out the two hours of horrible highway driving.

We ride for an hour and I stop to check the valve, it is slightly shut. I look and it has been wired to the air intake, which is not bolted into the bike and is just bouncing around. I contact Mr.Phung and he explains that that is fine and you could ride without an air intake. I explain that since it is wired to the valve, it would be better if it couldn’t move since the tension is what is keeping the valve open. He agrees to explain to a mechanic when we find one.

We finish another hour of riding and hit the town we will be staying in. I hit a mechanic and show him what I want done. He laughs and says it is okay, because he knows that it doesn’t matter if it bounces around. Then he points at the wires and shakes his head no. At this point, I’d just prefer a socket so I could do it myself but that doesn’t work. The next part is the most confusing and happened with a few mechanics earlier in Dalat. I called Mr.Phung and tried to hand the mechanic the phone. He repeatedly stared at the screen in confusion while I motioned to him for him to put it up to his ear while saying “Vietnamese” in Vietnamese. He hit the end call button and handed me back the phone, as if Vietnamese mechanics are scared to talk on the phone. I have Mr.Phung message me the sentence to show them and we head off.

We find another mechanic and show them the sentence. They immediately start unscrewing the air intake. The message must not have fully conveyed what needed to be done so I start showing them. They grab some wire (they all love wire) and secure part of air intake that had cracked, allowing it to be secured to the bike correctly. We ride down the street and find some dinner and a hotel.

Clear Mind, Happy Thoughts

The bike broke down one more time, but this time I had been expecting it. It died the same way it had been dying before, but now I knew the immediate solution. The bike was back up and running in a minute. So either the fuel line was dirty and the dirt was just barely keeping the fuel valve open or it wasn’t fully broken yet and closing it to clean the lines finally killed the valve. Now I knew the issue, we had eight hours left of riding total and I didn’t have to worry about if my bike would die for good. With this, I would be able to sell the bike to another backpacker with a clear conscience, which only made me sad because I knew a mechanic wouldn’t give me anything for it, so I was just going to push it into the ocean, because I thought that experience would be worth more to me than whatever a mechanic would give me. We head off through the mountains and the ride is smooth. Winding up and down mountainous curves is again fun with my bike working and we are surrounded by beautiful views.

Suspension bridge to even more dragonfruit trees.

Two hours of mountains and we hit rows of dragonfruit trees and salt fields. We hit a cool suspension bridge and take off down the road. A short ride and we hit Coco Beach Camp, a beach bar where they have camp sites for travelers. One more hour and we hit Ho Tram Beach.

The sun setting over the dunes of Ho Tram beach

Part of Ho Tram each is covered in MGM Grand and Ramada, an attempt to make a mini Vegas strip. We find a hotel and head to the beach to pepper. The sand is nice but the sun goes down too fast and we end up peppering in front of a restaurant to use their light. We hit some restaurants where they stare at us like zoo animals before finding a small one. The waiter walks over with Google Translate out, the first time this has happened in the three weeks we have been in Vietnam. He takes our order and takes off on his motorbike to get ingredients. We tip him for the extra work and head home.

Goodbye, Old Friend

Personal space does not exist on the roads of Vietnam

We have a three hour ride to Saigon, our last destination of the trip. I have been growing a beard since the trip started, and decided I have had enough. I pull my bike into a little patch of woods and trim the beard down to my usual scruff. Two hours of riding and we hit the chaos that comes with the Cat Lai Ferry. The usual route people take is to hit the highway into Saigon, but we decide to make like locals and take a ferry across the river into the city. As we enter the city, we see what looks like a Vietnamese Chicago, not what either of us were expecting.

We had originally planned on selling our bikes for what we paid for them and then throwing in the nice helmets for free. Looking through the actual market for people selling their bikes, this looks like it would require some work on our part, which is why we gave ourselves a few days. I weigh the pros and cons of getting that extra money, and decide I would rather sell the bike for cheaper and get rid of it immediately. We post the bikes for forty percent less than we paid and throw in the helmet for free. Within a few hours, we have buyers. We wake up, take the bikes for an oil change and run the girls buying the bikes through everything with the bikes. My disdain for the bike has faded and I am sad to see it go. It broke down a lot, but it took me over fifteen hundred miles. We say goodbye and hit some sights.

One of many American vehicles at the Ho Chi Minh War Museum

A picture on the second floor of the war museum

The sights in Saigon are your normal toursit sites, besides the Ho Chi Minh War Museum. That thing where I said Vietnam was the first time I have felt awkward about being American? It got a whole lot worse in this museum. The museum is surrounded by US Military vehicles and the outside has a replication of the prison conditions the Vietnamese were kept it. The first floor is dedicated to other countries protesting America being in Vietnam. The second floor contained weapons and tactics used by Americans. Third was the facts and effects of Agent Orange and the fourth was just a floor of statistics. I would say my intelligence served me well and I learned a lot in school, having a good memory of most of the things that I was taught. Most of the things I learned in the museum, I definitely did not learn in American schools (and I was also conscious that there is a high chance of bias from both sides). A quick chat with my Dad about it, and I decide that is enough history for one day.

I head down the street from my hostel to a gym labeled “MMA Gym” with a rock climbing wall up the outside. I walk in, receiving the normal zoo animal stare. The day price is three American dollars and the gym is five floors of rock climbing walls, ninja warrior obstacles, heavy bags, and standard weight room equipment. My dream gym with a top balcony overlooking the city. A workout with no fans or air conditioning and I hit the hostel to shower.

Wanting to be more presentable for our volleyball camp, I hit up a place to get a back wax, my first professional one ever. It went well before I realized the hostel room’s air conditioning was broken and I would spend all night sweating. I woke up with my back completely broken out. The price of vanity is steep. I book a hotel room closer to the airport and spend the day watching movies in air conditioning before heading to a gaming cafe for a bit.

Our last day in Vietnam, but I am still caring for my back. Grabbed some breakfast and wrote this blog post(meta) while watching some Netflix. New content is released for Apex Legends, so Ryan and I plan to hit a gaming cafe and play that for a good amount of the day, since neither of us will be playing for the next few weeks.

Next, we will make our way back to Koh Phangan for the training camp and to meet up with Aaron. We will relax on the island before Ryan heads home and I head to India!

Asia, Traveling, Vietnam

Using Up My Bad Luck: March 7th – March 13th

March 17, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

Ryan wakes up early for once and heads to volleyball. I decline to do some yoga but am woken back up telling me that there aren’t enough people to play and I have to go. I walk the ten minutes to play and it’s about as good as I imagined. I guess we could use the ball touches before we embarass ourselves in front of Olympians. We grab some breakfast at a place filled with ex pats working on laptops and the waitress is overly impressed at me knowing how to say “noodles with beef” in Vietnamese, which makes me sad about tourism. Off to Hoi An we go.

Fairy Tale Town

This blurry picture is all I got of the beautiful canals of Hoi An.

Hoi An resembles a town in an old fairy tale or a Zelda game. Filled with a ton of shops all identical to each other, like someone designed one and just copy and pasted. It’s all restaurants, souvenir shops and tailors. This is the town to get a suit made for under a hundred dollars and in twenty four hours. As enticing as that sounds, we opt out of lugging suits around on our bikes. We roam the streets and look at all of the tourist spots from the outside. Hoi An missed the memo on tourists wanting pictures of things. The good pictures of the outside are free, but the walk through the things costs money. Easy enough. We sign up for a cooking class and opt for some rest before getting up early for the class.

Ryan confirms he wants to stay vegetarian.

The course begins with a walk through a market and a talk through each of the ingredients, much like our class in Thailand. We take the ingredients on a ferry and ride forty five minutes to the kitchen. When we arrived, we were shown how to grind rice milk which would be used for the batter. Each of us get a burner and are run through making spring rolls, banh xeo (Vietnamese pancakes), beef noodle salad and Pho. Ryan got to learn the vegetarian versions of each and his soup broth was actually a bit tastier. At the end, we all received recipe books and chopsticks to take home. We were given Vietnamese straw hats to wear and put in boats to row back to the van. The woman in the other boat suggested a race, but Ryan and I were in the same boat, so that victory was guaranteed.

Presentation unfortunately does not add to taste.

We are rewarded with the fruits of our labor and passionfruit juice.

After the cooking class, we roamed the streets a bit and each grabbed a knockoff Nike DriFit tshirt for three dollars. I regret not grabbing another because it has proven perfect for the Vietnam heat. From there we took our bikes to a mechanic suggested to us by the man we bought the bikes from in Hanoi. When we arrived, he saw the sticker on our bikes and told us that was his brother. He tightened all of the things we needed and checked our bikes for free. When we offered to buy him food or beer, he hugged us and said goodbye.

From Bad to Worse

My bike was running well. After the cooking class, our next destination was Qui Nhon. This was about a eight hour ride, so we figured we could knock off two or three hours and finish the ride in the morning. Vietnam is filled with random hotels that all basically contain a double sized bed, a bathroom and a tv for about nine dollars a night, so finding a place to crash for the night is always easy. As usual, we took a route that kept us off of the highways and this time it took us down a picturesque dirt road. The bumps in this road were actually remniscent of our time riding in the mountains of Laos.

The roads in Vietnam pale in comparison to the treacherous roads we tackled in Laos. However, our motorbikes are also much less capable than the ones we had in Laos. Not to mention that my luck has been pretty much non existent since leaving the life of paradise that was my week on Koh Phangan. What all of this is basically preparing me to say is this: things kept getting worse. I found a line where the bumps seemed manageable and drove at a slow speed. Upon clearing a large hole, I felt my bag against my back. The bags are secured with three bungees, so their ability to move at all is pretty much non existent. I stopped my bike to see if my bungees had snapped and could feel that they were all in place. I lifted on the bag and the entire rack moved. The rack was bolted to the rack piece of the bike and that had snapped on both sides. I began to laugh out loud as I threw my bag where Ryan’s feet go on his bike and strapped my broken rack to the back of Ryan’s bike. I could see that my rack had previously been welded and the rack broke on the weld lines. Vietnamese children were pointing and laughing. Oh well, Ryan gets to carry my stuff until the next town so we can find someone to weld.

*WARNING : Mom’s please skip this paragraph *
Shortly after the bag breaking, we hit a narrow bridge over a wide river with people walking across it. Someone was slowly moving their motorbike down the bridge. Ryan and I agreed to push on. The bridge was about as wide as my shoulder, with some barrier poles every few feet. There was a gap between the poles and the bridge, which looked like enough for a motorbike to fall through on either side. As I began to move forward, I remembered how hard the motorbikes are to control at slow speed. The pieces of bridge were not all in line, so you had to navigate bumps as well. This anxiety inducing bridge went on for what seemed like forever. As I reached the part of the bridge that raises for boats, the barrier poles disappeared and there were some screw like poles rising up from the bridge about shoulder width apart. My handle bar clips one of the poles and I shoot a hand out to stop from shooting off into the river. I park the bike and walk back down the bridge to a visibly shaken Ryan. He also almost slipped off the bridge, but with both of our bags. I help pull his extra wide bike through the screw poles and we get off of that nightmare bridge.

If you look close, you can see Ryan on the other end of this horrifying bridge.

We roam the city looking for someone to weld my rack. Not only is finding someone who can weld a difficult task, but getting them to understand what I need is a second difficult task. We find someone who can weld but not until the morning. We hit a few more mechanics who wave us on. We find one that is actively welding and ask. They make a confused face at me and then shake their head yes,. The woman walks away and comes back with a new rack. Duh. We don’t need to weld it, we can just replace it. Making practical solutions under duress is not a strong suit. She motions that it does not have a rack like mine and I tell her it is okay. She puts a hole in the new rack and adds the full back rack. All of this for a few dollars. Easy peasy, we head another hour while the sun is up and find a hotel to sleep in.

We find a hotel on the highway and drop off our stuff. We walk down the highway in the dark to find some dinners and everyone looks at us like we’re zoo animals again. We decide we won’t find anywhere to serve us and hit a minimart. A twelve pack of ChocoPies, two bags of chips and two one point five liter bottles all for three American dollars. The hotel room has Netflix on the television, a rarity in Vietnamese hotels. We smash chocopies and binge watch movies for a few hours. All is right in the world.

Three dollars goes a lot further in rural Vietnam than anywhere USA.

The Myrtle Beach of Vietnam

The ride to Qui Nhon was supposed to take us fifteen hours of mountain roads from Hoi An, but we opted to do half mountain roads and half horrible highway to drop it down to eight hours. We finish the few hours of beautiful mountain roads and soaking in the views and hit the highway. The highway is hot and boring and trucks flight past as you ride the shoulder. This part of the highway was especially bad because the terrain was flat on either side with mountains surrounding. This caused the winding to come in hard across the highway. Driving down this highway required you to lean into the wind, the same way you would if you were turning. Not only is this terrifying as you feel your tires slide around, but when trucks pass you, they block the wind and create their own draft. This requires a lot of focus and induces a good amount of anxiety.

There is no argument about Vietnam’s beauty.

I usually ride in front because my bike is more likely to die and I don’t trust Ryan to pay attention and stop in a reasonable amount of time. I’m a little more neurotic so I check my mirrors all the time. Usually unnecessary but this day, I happened to be looking back at Ryan as the whole front cover of his bike popped off on the highway and exploded on the ground. He grabbed it and we taped it back on. Standard Ryan luck, everything still works but the headlight cover was broken. On we go.

We underestimated the riding time and ran into the night time. We raced the sun to get out of the mountains before it got too dark. By the time it got dark this time, we were in a somewhat civilized area. Shortly after, we hit a stretch of well lit highway and then brightly lit hotels and monuments. We turn off the main road and find our American Rock and Roll hostel. We are welcomed with a beer, which neither of us particularly want, but the gesture is nice enough. We grab some way too big burgers and head out.

We walk down the main road to check out the monuments and city square. We find a large carnival and walk past to find paths filled with small children riding bicycles with bluetooth speakers attached. As we continue, we find a large square filled to the brim with children and teenagers riding motorized vehicles. We keep walking to find that there are a myriad of riding options and they all seem to be free. We chuckle about the lawsuit that would ensue if something similar existed in the states and continued down the street. Outside of the hostel, we were the only Westerners. This was confirmed by the fact that every restaurant we passed, every head in the building whipped around to look at us. We have enough of being zoo animals and head to sleep.

This is only a fraction of what the children can use for free.

We head up a mountain for a beautiful view of the city and the coast and then head back to the hostel to escape the heat. We get oil changes and go looking for haircuts. We find a barbershop and they are ecstatic to have us.

Qui Nhon city and coast views from the mountain.

They offer us a price of fifty thousand dong as the woman in the shop runs up yelling “One hundred, Vietnam!”. We give them the “We know you’re overcharging us for being white” face and they agree to fifty. We sit down and then pretend to cut our hair while other people in the shop take pictures. The guy cutting my hair seems to be the owner and is doing a lot of flourishes, clipping the scissors and tapping things. Ryan’s guy gives him exactly what he wants, my guy basically ignores the picture I showed him. Following the haircut, he asks if I want my cheeks straight razored. I mistakenly agree. A female employee begins straight razoring my cheeks. She begins grabbing my biceps and saying “Massage?”. I laugh and say no. She continues to ask adding “Please”, “Boom boom” and “sucking boom boom” to the proposition. Nope. I am ready for this to be over. After about five minutes, the owner returns.

He returns with a handful of metal tools and a light. He turns my head and puts one of the tools in my ear. He begins pulling out earwax. This is likely the cleanest my ears will ever be. Afterwards, he razors inside. This is too close to my eardrum, I can hear it. Not a fan. Then one of the other employees begins using a deep massager from the eighties on my head, arms and legs. There is a reason they switched from hard plastic to rubber. It was brutal and he was going over the bones in my hands. Fearing that the language barrier would cause more issues, I just dealt with it instead of saying anything. After the haircut, the owner offered a massage from another female employee. Nope. He offers one to Ryan, Ryan loves massages. I say no for him and walk out.

We head to the beach to pepper. The wind is wild and we fly wildly around picking up the ball. We are the only Westerners on the beach so we have an audience. We run some diving drills. A local walks up and motions that he wants to play. We don’t know how to convey no to him, so he peppers with us. He can bump in a desired direction, so it’s good enough. He gets tired and leaves and we continue. Another younger local comes up and speaks decent English. He is in jeans and tells us he hasn’t played in a while. This is never a good sign. We begin and he has much less control than the first local. He was sending the ball wildly around, which makes good practice for diving after unpredictable balls. He alternates between getting tired and watching and sending us running for balls. After a bit, we decide it’s time for dinner and head home.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go

Our ride from Qui Nhon to Nha Trang was some of my favorite riding we have done so far. The coastal road near Vung Ro Bay had ocean to one side and mountain on the other. I personally think it is much better than Hai Van Pass, but Top Gear didn’t go there so nobody knows about it. We grabbed some pictures and a snack near the lighthouse of the bay and took off. We rode all the way down the Hon Gom Peninsula to get some cool shots of the view and then finished the ride to Nha Trang. Otherwise, the riding was uneventful, but here’s some pictures.

The view from my favorite road in Vietnam. This spot overlooks Vung Ro Bay and its lighthouse.

Ryan snaps a picture of the view at Hon Gom Peninsula.

Nha Trang is just a touristy coast city with a beach. As with all the developed beach towns in the Southern part of Southeast Asia, it is filled with Russians. Again, all the signs are in Russian. Everything is expensive and touristy. We grab a ton of Indian food and Ryan heads home to do some work. I head to the mall to see Captain Marvel. Six dollars American for a movie ticket, cup of Coke Zero, bag of M&Ms and a small blizzard. Life is not bad.

The following day we hear about police traps confiscating foreigners motorbikes in tourist areas of Southern Vietnam and change our plan of going to Mui Ne, where the most famous trap is. As we learn this, we grab breakfast and see someone have their bike confiscated with our own eyes. Time to get out of dodge.

Stressed Out

The ride from Nha Trang to Dalat offers a pass more treacherous than Hai Van Pass and I am excited. My bike is not as excited. We have come to the conclusion that some part of my fuel system is dirty and that is what is causing the issues. It breaks down again. I begin the cycle of moving it and letting it sit and trying to get it started that has worked the previous few times it has broken down. We are sitting in the sun in the middle of the highway. A local comes and tries to get me to follow him to a shop, he is not grasping that the bike won’t start. Again, he uses his foot to transport me a few kilometers to a shop. I try to explain to him that the fuel system needs cleaned, but he runs the bike and exclaims that the spark plug needs replaced. I replaced it a while ago but he seems confident. He also replaces the spark plug cover that is cracked. He then takes us to another shop and adds transmission oil, which the bike had none of. We are still in the middle of nowhere, so at the end, he offers me some exorbitant prices and I haggled a bit. I knock off a small bit, but still end up paying way more than I would if I wasn’t stranded in the middle of nowhere. We see a gas station but decide to wait for the next one.

The treacherous mountain starts immediately and as we get into the clouds, the bike breaks down again. I am not pleased. Actually, I am the opposite of pleased. I get it going again and it is crawling. If we can make it to downhill, I am okay. The road continues uphill at a good incline for twenty nine kilometers. We are far above the clouds. I am very displeased.

The first set of mountains on the path to Dalat.

We finally make it to the downhill part and my bike runs out of gas, or dies, or both. I am not sure. We find some gas at a nearby shop and I get it going. We finish the ride to Dalat and grab some dinner.

We sign up for a tour at our hostel, which we haven’t done since probably Thailand, and I find a mechanic to take my bike before the tour. I wake up at 7am to take it to the mechanic and am waved off by three mechanics. I finally find one by the hostel that will do the fuel system cleaning for much cheaper than the guy who didn’t fix anything. I head back to go on the tour.

Tourist Time

I paid a bit more to rent one of their bikes while mine is in the shop and Ryan takes his. The bike I get has some weak brakes and no mirrors. I miss my broken bike. We head off in a group and the guides show us some cool views.

One of many cool views to start our tour.

We are taken to a small village called chicken village and see some locals working. I don’t take pictures of locals when I am traveling because it seems invasive. Tour guides always offer this, but it’s not for me. Some local kids come and playfully mock our English before we head off.

We got to see how mushrooms are grown in the villages, as well as how rice noodles are made. Then we headed to the famous waterfalls of Dalat. They are good for some pictures but you can’t go in the water so it’s not ideal.

Next stop, we see how incense are made. I am amazing by the precise work done by hand. Each bundle is made into a hexagon by hand, and it is oddly satisfying. One more and we see how silk is made. There are baskets filled with cocoons and machines for boiling them and pulling the silk threads. We are told each cocoon contains about a kilometer of silk thread.

One of many baskets filled with cocoons.

The Elephant falls make our next stop. We walk down some paths that are surrounded by some wacky railings that almost make it more dangerous. Tourists make horrible decisions on when to pass others and when to stop and make it even more dangerous. The water is dirt brown, so swimming is definitely out. We grab pictures and head to the pagoda next door to check out some work they are doing on a very large statue.

The giant statue in progress. Those are full sized humans working all over it.

Rice wine and weasel coffee fill our next destination. We see the entire process of rice wine being made and get to try some. The liquid is almost hot, which really brings out the alcohol taste. We then see tons of containers of rice wine filled with snakes and other animals, which apparently can make it more potent. We try some weasel coffee, which is made by feeding weasels coffee beans and then using the beans they poop out. Gross, but supposedly it is very popular coffee. We try it, and I think it tastes like poop. In its defense, I think all coffee tastes like poop, but I wanted to be able to say I tried it. I toss a bunch of condensed milk in and then it’s perfect. Across the street, we find a restaurant serving cricket. We see the insane number of crickets they have and the guide orders two plates. With just toothpicks and vietnamese sweet and sour sauce, we make the crickets disappear and wash it down with rice wine.

Drip weasel coffee, a delicacy, I guess.

It starts to rain, but we endure to hit a flower garden and see some more views. This concludes our day as tourists so we head home. The hostel holds a family dinner of Vietnamese noodle soup and I head to the gym next door. Vietnamese gyms are usually filled to the brim and there is a general sense of chaos with everyone just using things and leaving them wherever. Workout done, time to socialize.

We head to the Maze Bar, a five story bar that is filled with a maze. Each floor is filled with tunnels and stairs randomly leading you around. The front part of each floor contains a bar area, so we hop in and I lose Ryan almost immediately. We end up finding people from the hostel and hanging out with them. They tell us they are going to another bar to get a free shot for staying at our hostel and we agree to join. This bar is standard party backpacker haven. Drunk Westerners sucking Nitrous Oxide out of balloons. We ask a few and none of them seem to know why it makes them feel the way it does. For the uninformed, it is the same as Whip-Its in the states. None of them know they are inducing brain damage. Awesome. We head home.

We stay in Dalat two more days before heading to the coast and then Ho Chi Minh City to sell our bikes and head back to Thailand!

Traveling, Vietnam

Two Wheels, No Luck : February 28th – March 6th

March 8, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

I wake up and notice my stuff is the level of damp that is usually attributed to something spilling. I climb down from my bunk, which I guess is closer to the height of a volleyball net than a normal bunk bed, and grab my bag. Damp, as well. I walk outside and notice the morning dew has covered everything in water, so the doors must have been open the room and let the water in. A necessity in the quick stopover type travel required for our time limited motorbike trip through Vietnam is that anything wet be dry before we leave for the next city, so this doesn’t help. I shrug it off as beyong my control and head outside for breakfast.

Back to Being Tourists

For the most part, the maximize the use of our time by shooting from place to place in a city to try to see as much as we can. In Trang An (the area of Ninh Binh where the cool stuff is), we find five or six suggested things and estimate we can do about three of them before we run out of sunlight. We start with a popular boat ride through some caves.

The problem with doing very touristy things lies in their objective. The experience needs to be simple enough that anyone can do it, so it essentially amounts to being herded through an experience for however long they decide it should take. That is not ideal for maximizing the use of your time. We are given a choice of four routes, two of which contain a filming area for the movie Kong: Skull Island, but we choose the route with the most caves.

We hop in a boat with two British girls and a small Vietnamese woman rows us down the river. Normally, Ryan and I do not hesitate to do physical labor, but we are far past doing labor when we have paid tourist prices for things. We soak in the view of the limestone karsts as we head into caves. Each passage through the caves requires precise navigation from our guide and usually reminds me how grateful I am that yoga has made me flexible enough to fully fold forward as rocks narily miss me. As we weave in and out of caves, we stop off at small temples.

The downside of the ease provided by the touristy activities is that we are stuck in the boat long after we have fully taken in the views. We have no option to speed the trip up. Nevertheless, after we finish, we thank our guide and speed off to Bai Dinh Pagoda.

We arrive to the gate that Google has marked as Bai Dinh Pagoda and it is closed, but we see some nice views and decide to stop off to take some cool shots of our bikes. Afterwards, we roam around until we find a parking lot. Everywhere in Vietnam, you have to pay to park. The place to park is a decent walk from where we want to actually be. A short walk takes us to a ticket office where they offer to give us a ride in an electric car through the pagoda or to go down a road and just walk it. They say it is about three kilometers, so we opt to walk.

The initial walk is through a gauntlet of little shops selling the same stuff as you walk all the way down. We walk up a long, gradual slope until we reach the Bai Dinh Pagoda and grab some pictures. Honestly, we thought this was the only attraction in the complex until we looked over and saw a giant Budda statue over on the hill. We walked up some stairs and saw some signs for other things. We continued moving from attraction to attraction until we reached the area with signs that the electric car could drive us back. It was about a dollar to not have to walk the three kilometers back, and it went through a perimeter road that let us see some other things, including a beautiful garden area they had made around the perimeter. Just a bit more tourism and we could call it quits.

The next ride took us back past our homestay to a mountain called Hung Mua. After some touristy shops and restaurants, there is a set of stairs leading up to two viewpoints, one with a pretty cool dragon on top. The steps were all uneven and there were more than a few of them, but a little quad burning never killed anyone. As we reach the top, we see people in full wedding attire up there taking pictures. Kudos for not sweating through that stuff. As we reach the top, we see plenty of people have climbed up to the dragon. It doesn’t look particularly safe, but I climb up to get a view of the sunset. Other tourists are trying to push past each other near the dragon, where there is about enough room for one person on either side and a straight drop down if something happens. We head back down the mountain and go home.

I acknowledge that we have a timeline for the trip and want to see as much as we can, so I sit down with dinner to map out our desired route and figure out things like driving time and distance between cities. With this information, I figure out what days we should be arriving in each city, when we will need oil changes and how many days we can stay in each city. This takes significantly longer than I had planned and I realize our next day of driving will be about ten hours to our next destination, our longest day of riding. So to sleep I go.

Jumping in the Deep End

Our first big day of riding being the longest day was not particularly ideal. The route I had mapped was a scenic one that kept us off of the highway (QL1) because that’s boring and pretty dangerous with how wild the trucks are. About two hours in we stop to check out a UNESCO world heritage site and then continue through. A few more hours of riding and we stop for lunch. We get some delicious fried rice Vietnamese style and see some signs for “Happy Full Month” with what looks like a birthday cake. A Vietnamese man at the table tells us the party is for him and offers us some beer. We drink with the group before heading back onto the road. A few more hours of riding and we hit some beautiful mountains but it’s starting to get a bit dark.

We have about an hour left, so we decide to power through. We stop for gas and it gets darker faster than we anticipated. We continue and everything turns to black, the headlights don’t do too much. As we continue through the mountains, it starts to get colder. So now we can’t see and we are shivering. Going faster makes us colder, so we are torn at what speed to move at. Nearing one of the many sharp turns, I see a dark figure move from the left and realize it is a cow running into the road. I slam on my brakes and swerve around the cow at the last second. We go a little further before I motion Ryan to stop. The cold and darkness has significantly decreased our speed, so our estimated arrival is getting later and later. As we decided to find a hotel, a light turned on and a dog ran out of a house towards us. As we took off, I looked behind me to see the dog just barely missing the back of my bike.

We hadn’t seen any civilization in about thirty minutes, so the hope of a hotel felt slim. About two hundred feet after the decision was made, we see the sign for a hotel. We pull in, the owner locks up our bikes and offers us dinner. We put all of our stuff in the room while he prepares dinner. I head out of the room to get food and the owner is sitting with another man. The man reaches for a handshake and as I reach out my hand, the owner is typing into Google Translate. Out of his phone comes “This is a Vietnamese Police Officer”. Welp, this is the end of our journey, I guess. Technically, it is a little less than legal for us to be riding bikes through the country since it is close to impossible for a non Vietnamese citizen to get the necessary license. The owner then informed me that the officer was her to fill out temporary residence information, something we have to do everywhere, but never with an officer before.

We fill out the papers and are led inside for dinner. The owner pours us shots of alcohol and we take two as a group, including the officer, so we can check that off the bucket list. We eat the traditional meal of rice, morning glory, pork and tofu while the owner’s wife puts us on Facebook live. Enough of that and we finally get to sleep.

Time With Locals

We finish the ride to Phong Nha in the morning and arrive at the hostel just in time for the morning information speech. The hostel employee runs through pretty much everything to do in the area. We had already decided to check out some of the caves while we got oil changes because some of the best caves in the world are located in that area. It was going to be a pretty pricey day but the hostel offered a group trip to some of the less expensive caves for even cheaper, so we did that. The first cave was a boat ride through and then a walk out an impressive cave. We had sat on boats and seen smaller caves in Trang An, so although more impressive, it felt like more of the same.

For the second cave, we hiked up about four hundred steps. Catwalks led us through the cavern in a setting that looked like it was ripped out of Gears of War. We made our way back to town and grabbed our bikes from the shop and got lunch. The girls in our room had mentioned going to something called the Duck Stop so we decided to head there.

Google led us to a bumpy dirt road and we found the dirt road. The first sign as you enter reads “Donald Trump’s Office”. We parked our bikes and an eleven year old Vietnamese boy told us to sit down. He cracked open some peanuts, grabbed a few pepper pellets and a red powder and put it into my hand. Delicious. He handed us a menu and told us to pick an option. The available options were one free drink, one traditional vietnamese pancake, a garden tour with a view, a duck massage and riding a water buffalo through the rice fields. The choice was to do all of them, or to do everything except the water buffalo. For about two dollars difference, we chose the water buffalo.

The boy led us through the garden, explaining what everything was while we tried to guess at what vegetables he was trying to say when his impressive level of English happened to fail him. After that, he gave us some oddly feminine shoes and a straw hat and sent us into an area called “Duck Heaven”.

We entered and were greeted by at least twenty ducks. The man in the area had each of us stick out our hand with food in it and lower down to the ducks. As the ducks ferociously slammed their beaks into your hand, it created somewhat of a massage. Then he had us do a few more tricks before having us hide food under our feet while squeezing them together. The ducks again smashed their beaks towards the food creating an intense massage. As a finale, the owner showed us how to hold the ducks and got a cool slow motion video of us tossing them into some water. Now to meet our main man, Donald.

Donald Trump is a water buffalo who lives on the farm and does very little work. He worked on other farms for years before coming to the Duck Stop. I was a bit worried about riding him, after all we had learned about riding elephants, but as I hopped on and felt the amount of muscle, I realized he was unphased by me. I rode him through a bit of water and then did a little photoshoot with him before hopping off.

We looked for our original Vietnamese friend to say goodbye and were told he was at the viewpoint, which he didn’t take us to. So another Vietnamese boy, about eight, took us to the viewpoint to say goodbye. The younger boy was much more playful, so we raced up the hill and joked around as we got up to the viewpoint. He asked for my phone to take a picture, and as soon as I handed it to him, he found a game and started playing. Impressed, I taught him how to play the game. On the way down, Ryan offered him a piggyback ride, but he opted for my back instead. A quick farewell to our new friends and we were off.

We hopped in the pool at our hostel and searched around for food. The hostel had a pretty decent looking burger, so I chose that and we grabbed some drinks while making friends. It has been interesting throughout our trip that every country we have gone to, we see patterns of people from the same countries. Thailand was Dutch, German and Russian. So far Vietnam has been mostly Americans and British. While we ate and drink, our table slowly filled up with British people until it was the only accent you cold hear. After a bit, we decided to get some sleep for our ride the next day.

Adaptability

Our ride to Hue was to take about nine hours, plus we wanted to stop at the Vinh Moc tunnels, which would add about an hour and require some highway driving. After some research and finagling, I managed to find a route that took us through the beautiful Phong Nha area for a bit before shooting us down the coast to Vinh Moc and then further to Hue with minimal highway time.

The Vinh Moc tunnels were an amazing experience. Essentially an entire village lived in and out of the tunnels for about six years while Americans dropped seven hundred tons of bombs. Again, these sites are sort of an awkward situation to be American, but after learning our biased history of the war, it’s interesting to hear theirs. We have been saying it would be interesting to see what a non biased country teaches about the war. Regardless, the tunnel is made of clay, covers several kilometers and consists of three levels. The first level contained meetings and higher ups, it was only about ten meters deep. The second level was about seventeen meters deep and contained all of the living quarters, each of which consisted of less than a three square meter room for an entire family. Each level contained slides down to the next level in case of a bomb dropping, they could get deeper into the tunnels. The third level was used for storage and was over twenty meters deep. These numbers did not calm me.

Descending into the tunnels was quite the experience. Vietnamese people are a bit shorter than me, so the ceiling of most of the tunnels was about five foot six inches, Crouching required. The bigger rooms were of a height that Ryan and I could both stand comfortably, but the through tunnels definitely left some clay marks on my shoulders. About an hour of being led through the tunnels by an English speaking guide and hearing about the not so nice things America did and we were headed back down the coast.

A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted

Hue looks like any tourist city, a sharp contrast to most of Vietnam

We arrived in Hue and checked out the city. For the long rides through Vietnam, we see no other white people and get to see the real culture. Every city that we are suggested to stop in is filled with westerners brought in by the buses. Most of these people will likely never see the real Vietnamese culture. Hue reminds me of what it would look like if you just told someone what tourists like and they tried to recreate those ideas without ever seeing them. It works though, it was filled to the brim with tourists. We spent the first night checking out the city and making a plan for hitting the tourist spots the next day.

I woke up early and Ryan wanted to sleep, so I decided to hit some of the spots alone. My bike wouldn’t start, so I decided to kickstart it. Kickstarting wasn’t working. It was already hot, so I was already sweating. Vietnamese people are helpful, which is great most of the time, but some of the time, they are a bit pushy with their help and the language barrier limits a polite way to ask them to stop. The front desk girl at the hostel came out and proceeded to blast me with questions about the bike that I had already checked. She grabbed the ignition and repeatedly tried to start it, which sounded like it was just making things worse. I finally managed to get her to walk away and another man walked over, looked at my bike and immediately started it. I said thank you and he turned it off, then it refused to start for either of us. He offered to take me to a mechanic.

Frustrated and sweaty, I agree. He pushes my bike into the street, rides alongside it and tells me to get on. He then puts his foot on the bike and then pushes my dead bike through insane traffic with just his foot. A wild experience I won’t soon forget. He takes me to a mechanic and they diagnose a few problems. He tells me an exorbitant price, but at this point, I’m so frustrated with the bike that I just agree to pay it. They tell me it will take an hour. I come back in an hour, mind much clearer, and realize that I wildly overpaid. I ask for the man who spoke to me about the repairs, they say he is not there. I decide to just come back.

I ride about ten minutes, the bike sputters and dies in the street. Again in the sun, my bike will not start. I take it to another mechanic,and thanks to Google Translate, we diagnose a problem that will take a few hours to fix. Frustration increases as our plan to leave the city that day come to an end and I hop on Ryan’s bike to check out the tourist sites.

We ride to an abandoned waterpark and reminisce about Geauga Lake. A three story dragon that used to house an aquarium is now filled with broken glass and graffiti. We snap some pictures and see some more of the park before headng off.

We both decided we don’t want to spend money to walk through more temples so we skip some. We head to the pagoda dedicated to Thich Quang Duc who self immolated himself in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam. The pagoda is beautiful and contains the car he drive to Saigon, which can be seen in the famous picture of his immolation. We depart to grab some roadside lunch and have the locals laugh at our attempts at Vietnamese.

A quick stop to the Purple Forbidden City, which we decide to just drive around since we don’t really want to pay to see more tourist stuff. As we are leaving, we see an entire area filled with American military vehicles obtained during the Vietnam war. We stop to look through all of them and notice all of the signs refer to America as “US Imperialists”, awkward. Enough tourism, time to head home.

We head to a local coffee shop to grab some egg coffee, a Vietnamese treat which whips an egg into coffee. The first sips is a frothy, sweet custard and both of us quickly exclaim our joy at a coffee we both like. As I get about halfway through, I taste a sharp bitterness. Most things in Vietnam are brought to you in a visually pleasing way and then require you to mix them. The coffee was no difference. I had already consumed most of the sweet part, so I mixed the remainder and then suffered through the extreme bitterness of Vietnamese coffee. Lesson learned, time to go get my bike.

We head back to the shop, I pay even more money and grab my bike. It seems to be working, so I ride back to the original shop to get some money back for the lack of repair. As I have a back and forth with the two remaining guys at the shop, Google Translate fails us. A nearby Vietnamese man walks by and talks to the mechanics. Then he informs me that the original man that I dealt with had nothing to do with the shop, took all of that money he said the repairs cost and then paid the mechanic what they said the repairs cost. In all my travels, the first time I have been scammed. I am not happy, but the consequence is low when the buying power of the US dollar is so high here, so I take it as an expensive lesson.

Top Gear Style

The ride to Da Nang contains the Hai Van Pass, made famous by Top Gear as one of the best coastal roads in the world. We whip around sharp turns up the mountain, overlooking the ocean on all sides. We arrive at the top and find buses of tourits. We find a road that goes to an even higher vantage point. My usual downfall kicks in and I get overzealous about how well my bike has been working. We begin going up the steep incline and my bike is chugging along before coming to a complete stop and refusing to start again. We leave my bike and Ryan’s takes us both up the hill.

The view is nice but it is just higher, not worth killing my bike. I make it back to the bike and ride it straight down the hill with no engine. I sit there and try to kickstart it before another traveller comes over and says he is a mechanic. He walks up and just starts the bike. I tell him he’s not the first person to do this and he runs me through a checklist of things that usually fix a bike not starting and then we take off down the hill to Da Nang.

ExPat Heaven

We get into Da Nang and hit Rom Casa, a two building shipping container hostel, complete with shipping container pool. As we explore around Da Nang, we find it is a city size similar to Cleveland. Ex Pats find it as a good mix of culture and metropolis, so there are quite a few. We grab out ball and hit the beach. We pepper in the extreme wind and finally get some touches in for the first time in weeks. The sand here is nice and volleyball is more fun than tourism.

I could watch precision pizza making all day

For dinner, we hit up a place called Pizza 4p’s, which looks very upscale. A japanese restaurant that makes pizzas with such precision that we sit at the bar and watch them make pizzas for almost two hours. Although it looks extremely fancy, three pizzas and a pot of tea cost us about twenty American dollars. A short ride from the pizza place we hit the dragon bridge, a beautiful center of the city. The bridge supports make a giant dragon that changes color every few minutes and on weekends and holidays, it shoots fire and water. We find a volleyball group and agree to play at 7am.

We go and play some volleyball, which isn’t the best we have played on the trip but it is better than nothing. After playing, we find a row of burger places and hit the highest rated one. Easily one of the best burgers I have had on the trip, but I am still hungry, so we hit the cheapest of the burger places and I grab another good one. Da Nang caters nicely to the western taste buds.

Ryan heads to a vegetarian restaurant while I make some friends at the hostel bar. One of the guys I meet is another American, and after a bit of conversation I found out that he had been traveling with one of the guys we had been hanging out with on Koh Phangan and had been in contact with to set things up for when we return at the end of the month. The world is oddly small.

I invite him to come with me to try some Mi Quang noodles, a local specialty. We eat and discuss similar career interests before the other people we met invite us to a live music bar. A half Colombian half Israeli duo plays covers on a guitar and saxophone while we hang out with the local ExPats. Getting away from the tourism is pretty relaxing.

The following day we will head to Hoi An, back into the tourism, and then further South.

Asia, Thailand, Traveling, Vietnam

A Long Way to the Bottom: February 21st – February 27th

February 27, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

The View From The Top

Due to some miscommunication (and definitely not Ryan leaving his computer on US time), we set our return to Bangkok a day earlier than we needed it. We had the perfect set up in Koh Phangan, and neither of us were fans of Bangkok, so we ate the cost of the non refundable ferry/bus/train tickets and booked for the next day. With our extra day, we grabbed scooters and headed to Malibu Beach. This is the location of the other group of volleyball players on the island. Far from the tourism of Haad Rin beach, a low key area held a beautiful landscape and a much quieter beach area. We checked out the two courts, one free near the water and one for reservations surrounded by trees near a restaurant. The sand was nice, but we didn’t have time to play. Our new friend Florian was about to play at a ping pong tournament nearby.

We took off for the ping pong tournament, had to make an emergency stop for gas and a necessary 7/11 run, so we ended up arriving right as his game finished. The ping pong tournament took place at a little boutique homestay called Carpe Diem. As we walked up the finely manicured gravel path, we saw a small pool and bar and private rooms. As we turned the corner, we saw the ping pong table and a group of people, some familiar faces from volleyball. We wanted to just watch some points, but the level of play was so high that we ended up staying to watch through finals. Afterwards, Maria offered to show us a more private beach on the island.

The private beach provides a solid sunset view

A short ride and we walked down a long set of stairs to a private section of beach with open water, just in time for sunset. The view was insane and Maria and her family offered to teach us to play Kubb, a Swedish lawn game where you throw wooden rods to knock over other wooden pieces. We played two games (I won both, Ryan did not.) and enjoyed the sunset. Hunger kicked in, time to have Indian for the first time since it poisoned me. Last night of beach, so we grabbed some drinks on the beach and laid around under the moonlight until it was time to get up. Florian wanted us to come play doubles, so we had to get moving early.

In the morning, we took off to Malibu Beach and played some doubles while Maria grabbed some more cool shots. Then we took off and returned our scooters, checked out of our hotel and haggled a songthaew to take us to the ferry port. Two hours on a ferry boat and then we got into a mini bus to the train station. Like a fool, I made a comment about this being the first public transportation that went well and arrived on time. We had a few hours to burn before our train would come.
We were in an area entirely devoid of tourists. Local markets were strewn about. Somehow, Ryan found the nicest coffee shop I have ever seen and we posted up to use their electricity. While we charged, we took turns roaming the shops. We got entire packets of homemade snacks for ten baht, which is about thirty American cents. Ryan had been looking for a power bank, so he picked up a pink one with a dog on it for super cheap and I tried out a bunch of different food. An hour until our train, time to head to the station.

Around this point, I messaged Dani to tell her how great my week in Koh Phangan had been, and that I was genuinely worried that things were going to well and something had to go wrong. We arrived early to the train station, asked a worker where our train would come and began to wait. Our train arrived slightly behind schedule and we got to the door. People began unloading things so we continued to wait. A woman stood in the doorway. The train made some noise, so we decided it was time to get on. The woman shook her hand no. We showed her the ticket and she shook her hand no again. The train left. We asked a guard, he called over the walkie, the train slowed down and then continued moving. He took us to the ticket counter.

I explained the situation as best I could with the language barrier, but it wasn’t going well. They wanted us to buy another ticket and we just wanted them to let us on the next train due to the worker telling us no. All the while the next train is arriving. We are basically arguing at this point so I just asked to buy a ticket and will handle the money after. She tells us there is no second class (padded seat with fan/air con) for the next three trains. We tell her just to give us a ticket. We get on the bus with the locals. It is just benches in an open train car. Each seat is wide enough for my butt to dangle over the edge with my head against the wall. The sound of the train is so loud that I can’t hear music with noise cancelling headphones on. I chuckled as I message Dani that I was correct.

The Snowball Effect

We power through the train ride. I don’t necessarily know that I slept at all on the twelve hour night train ride, but I do know that I was unconscious. We arrive in Bangkok and feel a tinge of happiness. They opened a Taco Bell in Bangkok since last time we were there. We head there and get some food. It’s like a knockoff of American Taco Bell, but good enough. Thai people love spicy, so of course their Taco Bell comes standard with Fire sauce on everything. A coworker from Rockwell tells me she is staying a few minutes from where we are staying.

I walk over to see Robyn and check out where she is staying. She is in Southeast Asia doing some work for Rockwell. The points she’s accrued from all the travel have her in a two bedroom suite, a little different from where I am staying. We trade some Asia stories and I think about what I walked away from. She heads to the airport and I go get Ryan.

We have seen Bangkok and the sand courts don’t have any play going on, so I suggest we find a gaming cafe. We search google results for a few hours, all to no avail, but we find one as we are about to give up. Fifty baht for three hours, less than two American dollars. We spend a few hours playing Apex Legends and then head home. I mention that the sleep on the train probably left my body all wonky, so I am worried about waking up for our 7:40am flight.

I wake up at 8:10am, I head over to Ryan’s bed, he’s asleep too. I tell him I slept through four alarms, he tells me he never even set one. We book another flight and I head out to get breakfast, call my dad and finish the blog post I was days late on. I come back in a better mood and we hit Taco Bell a second time. Then we head back to the gaming cafe. We come back early and get some sleep. A short flight and we arrive in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Good Morning, Vietnam

We make it through immigration and take a local bus to Old Quarter and throw our stuff at our hostel. Now we begin our search for our rides. We are looking for Honda Wins to take all the way down Vietnam, over two thousand kilometers. Like always, I do a ton of research. There are no real Honda Wins in Vietnam. You can find some reliable Vietnamese and Indonesian copies and some unreliable Chinese copies. We scour Facebook, Craigslist and local shops looking for the best deals. We find some bikes for under three hundred dollars and decide to grab them the next day. We check out the city a bit, but after becoming so comfortable on the islands, the city immediately makes me irritable.

We head over to the shop that offered us the best deal. The woman working tells us the bikes are at her other shop and they will send someone to get us. Silly us, we thought they would send a scooter and we would each ride on the back of a scooter. This is Vietnam. We both got on the back of one scooter. No mirrors and the driver never turned his head. We whipped onto the highway and blew red lights. Arrived in one piece for the owner of the shop to tell us that the deal the woman offered us was insane. Tried to talk us into the real prices, but we were good. We did some more research. Most of the people posting blog posts about buying the Vietnamese bikes for low prices either got extremely lucky buying from other travelers or they were sold Chinese copies with Detech (Vietnamese company) engine covers. We meet up with the English guys who offer to sell us some scooters.

We learned to ride motorcycles in Laos, but we have gotten plenty of scooter experience on this trip. Motorcycles are way cooler. They look cooler, they feel cooler and changing gears feels cool. Realistically though, the scooters tend to be more reliable and we have much more experience on them and don’t have to worry about gears in the insanity that is Vietnam. The bikes the guys offer us have a few more issues than we care to deal with so I message dealers about the scooters.

The mechanic we were going to take whatever bike we bought has some scooters for sale so we check them out. We look at the Nuovo 3, but for a little cheaper we grab the Nuovo 1 and an Attila. We grab them for a price that we should easily recuperate upon hitting Ho Chi Minh City. We ask that they be washed and have a few things added and looked at and we head back to the hostel. We head to check out the Old Quarter area and grab some dinner. Mostly travelers partying, but there are some cool hidden things. We head to the Skyline bar to check out the view from the rooftop bars and then head home.

On the Road Again

We wake up and check out of our hostel. Quick taxi to the shop and we grab our scooters. Ryan cracks a joke about how no matter what bikes we got, his would be fine and mine would have problems. That has been the theme since I met him. We leave the shop and go grab some gas. My blinkers are already not working. Oh well. We find some helmet shops and I go back and forth on the three quarter helmets I have been wearing or a full motorcycle helmet. After feeling around, we both decide on modular helmets, a full sized helmet with raising face shield, where the bigger place part covering the chin also raises. Heavier than the other options, but a good mix of safety and breathability.We head on our way to Ninh Binh.

Taking the highway, Hanoi to Ninh Binh is about two hours. The highway is where all the cars and trucks go wild. We stick to the other roads and it’s about four hours. Around the two hour mark, we stop to grab food. The area we are in doesn’t seem to use much English, which is where I usually just use a smile. Ryan doesn’t have that luck, he uses Google to tell them he is a vegetarian. They laugh at us a bit and bring him a large plate of vegetables and fried tofu, me a plates of fried eggs and what I assume is pork, and some rice to share. Ryan grabs a Red Bull and we devour the plate full of food. The whole thing ends up costing us about three American dollars. We head off the next two hours.

Vietnam looks like someone told designer to use all of the available landscapes to make the most beautiful thing they can imagine. It’s all rivers and mountains and rice paddies. I lead the way and every few seconds think “I wonder if Ryan wants a picture of that”. Even if we stopped every five minutes, we would still miss pictures. We stop once or twice and make our way to Trang An. Hidden among small mountainous hills similar to those found in Halong Bay, we find our homestay. Ryan informs me that my rear lights have not worked the entire time.

I head to a nearby mechanic and they fix my blinker and lights in under ten minutes for less than two dollars. We take off to find an ATM. About a kilometer later, I feel something give, my bike slows and my throttle has no resistance. Ryan is leading and continues to the ATM, I sit in the dark and text him what happened. I figure it is the throttle cable and start walking the bike back to the shop. This is standard, I just left a shop and this happens. I walk the bike back the kilometer in the dark. Ryan shows up and begins to crack jokes and ride behind me. As we arrive, the shop is closed. Ryan rides around to find another shop and the shop workers begin to leave the shop. They recognize me and fix my now busted throttle cable. In starting up the engine, it floods and kickstarting is required. He tells me the price and I just hand him a handful of money for working on it after they closed. My total for the two repairs is still under four American dollars.

We head home and decide to stop for dinner. Ryan sees a restaurant with a sign with the word that means vegetarian, so we stop. He orders what he thinks is vegetarian rice and I get goat with rice on recommendation for our waiter. The food arrives and Ryan gets what looks like rice crispies and some soup. I get a sizzling plate full of goat and garlic, and a big bowl of white rice. Ryan dips the rice into the soup and eats a bit before asking me to try the mushrooms. I have eaten a good amount of mushrooms in my life, and these mushrooms are definitely beef. The karma for teasing me about my bike has come quickly. I eat my food with a smile and Ryan tries to figure out what else to eat. We get up to pay and realize this restaurant is about six times more expensive than all of the other ones we have seen. A reminder not to follow Ryan places.

We head back to the hostel where Ryan gets more food and I get some Oreos. We make some plans for what to do in the Ninh Binh area the following day and what route to take to the next city the day after that and I head to bed to write this post. So meta.