We left the cool spring like temperatures of Dalat and
continued heading further south where temperatures began to rise. Once we were down the twisty mountain road
the road became straight and congested. The
hard part about driving in Vietnam is that you rarely have a chance to
relax. At home you get in your car, grab
a latte’, cruise through town and you feel safe that people are going to
respect your space. You rarely have to
worry about spilling you latte’ much less about dying because a bus, tractor or
cow is going to breach your lane. As I
was driving I realized that even when I hugged the far right side of the road,
that is less than one foot of the road, I was still in danger of traffic coming
the other direction. On the road
vehicles will use every inch of the road if it was available without concern
for which direction they were headed.
Pulling far to the right just gives the buses more room for them to pass
or avoid obstacles. Stay on your
toes.
Today there did not seem to be much difference in the towns
we rode through but the traffic seemed to be a little more aggressive than what
we had previously witnessed. There
seemed to be a different vibe about today’s traffic. A few strange moves by drivers and a bus that
came less than an inch from my bike made us call out to each other, “Be careful
today guys.” Our premonition was
unfortunately proven accurate when Scott, trying to navigate around a tractor,
was clipped doing about 30 mph. I watched
as Scott attempted to pass the tractor that was going in the same direction. He began his pass and the tractor started to
slowly move to the left pushing Scott further and further over. I thought that he would have no problem
making the pass when the tractor all of a sudden turned left into him as he was
almost passed. The
tractor hit him square on his foot and the back half of his bike lifting the
back half of the bike off the ground. How
Scott managed to keep control of the bike and not go down is a mystery to
me. The bike seemed to survive without a
scratch, but Scott’s foot appears to have incurred some damage that has left
him with a slight limp. Thankfully, I am
sure Scott’s injury will be temporary while the experience will live on.
Our bikes limped into Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Bald tires, blown fork seals, broken levers
and a broken clutch cable did not prevent us from completing our journey from
North to South. We dropped off our big
bikes and are now going to start our adventures on scooters. This is going to be much more difficult. Being on big bikes you have the power, and
the respect, to get through traffic. On
scooters we will be, although much taller than everyone else, their equal.
HCMC has many more tourist than anywhere else we have
been. Last night we walked the streets
and markets and discovered an amazing place for dinner that was minus any white
faces. This place, that was off the beaten
path, was packed with locals. We had
some delicious food that included chicken with wild mushrooms and ginger. A ton of food with a few beers mixed in and
our total bill was about $3.50 each.
Posted by Robert the one who didn’t get hit by a tractor or
hit a cow.
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