The pursuit by Robert

Our last full day in Vietnam did not disappoint.  After a few café su nongs (Hot coffee with cream) we headed out of Saigon on our scooters.  We headed south with intentions of viewing the South China Sea.  The 33 mile drive to the coast does not sound like much but when your vehicle is a 50cc scooter and your travels include getting through Saigon traffic and taking a ferry across the Saigon River your travels can be difficult. We managed to make it all the way out of Saigon and onto the ferry without one beer stop.  But once off the ferry our quest for beer was inevitable.   Our short ride across the Saigon River is unlike any ferry ride I have ever taken.  The chocolate color of the Saigon River was accented with a large amount of green mangrove leaves floating in the river’s current.  The traffic rules that dominate the Saigon streets appear to be no different on the waterways.  With ships passing in close proximity to the ferry with little or no reverence to personal space it is very reminiscent to the streets of Saigon.  The ferry crossing was made memorable by the fact that we made our way past the barriers and up to the deck where the captain let all of us take a stint at the wheel.  And, just like navigating the streets, our ferry crossing was completed without incident, but with much anxiety.  

Once across we made the acquisition of beer our primary goal.  Accelerating down the roads at speeds that were not intended for our scooters we came upon the perfect spot.  We crossed a narrow man made dirt passage that brought us to our beer oasis that was elevated above the swap lands that surrounded it.  Once across we enjoyed our beers on hammocks that were suspended above the swap with only slits of bamboo below us.  We enjoyed only a few beers while a man and woman worked next to us vigorously plucking the feathers from a duck that I assumed was going to be on the night’s menu.  A small puppy, who was wandering the floors of the restaurant, became my new companion while I enjoyed lounging in my hammock.  We toasted our good fortune as we pondered how the day, that had just started, could get any better

. 

After our short stop we continued on to the town of Can Gio which is situated just past the exit of the Saigon River on the South China Sea.  We consulted our map and turned right off the main road to what, according to our map, looked like a road that paralleled the sea.  Once we ran out of road we discovered that the road on our map was in fact nothing more than a dirt path.  Undeterred by what some may have determined was an inadequate road we follow the road with the South China Sea on our right. 

Some of our greatest adventures have begun in the pursuit of beer.  

At this time it was determined that a beer was needed to adequately enjoy the views that the South China Sea had to offer and, since it had been fifteen miles since our last beer stop, we were thirsty.  As we traveled along the dirt path I noticed a hut to the left that had people inside sitting around a table that had a copious amount of beer cans littering their table.  Thinking it was a restaurant I waved down Keith and Scott and told them that I found a place that had beer.  What happened next could be deemed, without exaggeration, as one of the greatest moments of our trip.  We parked our scooters and realized that what we thought was a restaurant was actually someone’s house.  I use the term “house”, but most of my American friends would have trouble defining this place as a house.  This was a one room ten by fifteen foot wood structure.  We walked in the open door to discover nine guys surrounding a table with pots of crab and numerous beers on top of the table and remnants of both under the table littering the floor.  We were immediately welcomed in and seconds later cold beers occupied our hands.  We sat down with them as a pot of fresh baked clams made its way to the table.  It was quickly apparent that none of us could understand a word the other was saying, but that we all spoke the universal language of beer.  “Yo,Yo,Yo!”  Before we were able to finish the beer in our hand another one was on the table waiting to be opened and enjoyed with the pot of snails that suddenly appeared.  I enjoyed the clams and the crab but the snails, which I tried, were not my thing.  Despite the language barrier much laughter was shared by all.  I am not sure that we were laughing at the same jokes, but we were all laughing at the same time.  After our third beer it became obvious that this party had no end in sight.  If we so desired we could have imbibed until the water buffalos came home, (Oh, he was grazing just outside the door) or until we fell down, which every came first.  Showing some constraint, and not wanting to embarrass ourselves any further, we quickly finished our beer on hand and stood up to thank our hosts before another arrived.  Since we just barged in on the party, drank their beer, enjoyed their food and were so grateful for the experience, we attempted to give them some compensation.  We started to pull some dong out of our pockets and we were met with a universal “No,No,No.”.  Not wanting to offend any further we quickly put our dong away and graciously shook everyone’s hands before we retreated back onto our scooters. 

We rode down the dirt road a ways and stopped at a wall overlooking the South China Sea.  We all took a moment and reveled in the greatness of the moment that just happened.  This truly is a great country filled with great people. 

Posted by Robert the ferry boat captain

The teacher or the student? By Robert

Our hotel is just a block away from the Ben Thanh market.  The market, located in District 1, is an intense experience.  The main entrance is marked with a large bell tower but the large square structure, that covers many city blocks, can be accessed from any of the adjacent streets.  Once you are inside all your senses are inundated from every angle.  If you are claustrophobic, germaphobic , agoraphovic or an aphenphosmphobic (Fear of being touched) Ben Thanh market is not for you.  Inside is a maze of stalls where it appears that almost everything is available if you search or just ask.  While inside you are swarmed by vendors pitching their wares.  Your personal space is constantly attacked by aggressive vendors who will grab you by the arm and attempt to pull you in the direction of their stalls in an effort to extract as much of your dong as possible.

 

Here is where the art of negotiation is required to ensure that you don’t get fleeced and leave the market penniless (dongless).   In the market there are many vendors selling some of Vietnam’s finest coffee.  Weasel coffee is some of the most expensive, and most desired, coffee in Vietnam.  Weasel coffee is made by first having a weasel eat the coffee berries.  In the digestive tract the weasel’s proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans making shorter peptides and more free amino acids.   After passing  through a weasel’s intestines the beans are then defecated.  The beans are then gathered, thoroughly washed and then sun dried.  The result, although it sounds strange, is some great coffee.  (How do these people think of this stuff?)  Throughout our trip we would often order coffee which was served to us in cups with their own small coffee drippers mounted on top of the rim.  We would wait patiently, sometimes, as the thick coffee would slowly drip into our cups resulting in an amazing cup of coffee.  I really wanted a few of these and some coffee to bring home and in Ben Thanh Market they are readily available.  I walked around for a while asking multiple vendors their asking price for this item.  Once I found a reasonable starting price, the negotiations began.  The vendor I chose started his pitch by telling me that he was going to give me a kilo of his finest weasel coffee and four drippers for a discounted price of 400,000 dong ($20).  After telling him that his “discounted” price was still way too high, his price began to fall reaching 300,000 dong quickly.  Not good enough for me I told him, the price then dropped slowly to 250,000 dong.  Still not good enough, I made my offer.  “I will take four drippers and I.25 kilos of weasel coffee for 200,000 dong ($10).”  “No, no, no.  That is too cheap.”  He cried.  “I will sell you four drippers and one kilo of a lower grade coffee for 200,000 dong.”  He countered.  “No thank you.  I will find another coffee seller”, I replied and began to walk away.  As I turned the deal was made.   (I still think I paid too much.)

Elsewhere in the market you can find every souvenir that you can think of, and then some.  From t-shirts to Gucci knock offs to ivory inlaid chopsticks.  It is all there.  There is also a food court.  Not like your local shopping mall, this place is crazy and does not get any more authentic.  Your food is cooked right there in front of you sometimes before it stops squirming.  There are also few sections of the market that are dedicated to fresh foods, and I mean fresh.  I stopped to take a picture of a little old man who was cutting up some crab and a fish jumped out of a tub and landed at my feet.  A lady quickly scooped up the fish that was flopping at my feet and threw it back into the water filled bucket.  Live squid, sea snails, clams, crabs and a lot of other things that I have never seen before are available for sale.  Another isle is a vegetarians worst nightmare.  Meat is on display everywhere.  Cow brains, intestines, cow hearts, pig’s legs, pig heads and much more are all out there in the open air on display.  While the meat section maybe a vegetarian’s worst nightmare, the produce section would make them drool.  They sure do grow some weird stuff here, but it is tasty. 

After the morning in the market and a day filled with terrorizing the streets of Saigon, we decided to try to gain some good karma that may offset any of the bad that we may have achieved on the streets.  We went to a local school and taught an English class.  We, with the assistance of one of Keith’s friends, each took a class and spoke with them for an hour to help them with their conversational English.  My class began with them asking me many simple questions about myself and where I lived.  One of the students asked me about my house and if I had a car.  When I explained to him about how I lived back home he said, “So you are very rich.” I quickly replied, “I don’t think so.”  I then followed it up with, “I have traveled through many poor villages during my time in Vietnam.  Compared to them YOU are very rich.”  I also added, “You have made me much richer by allowing me to speak with you.  Cảm ơn.”  (Cảm ơn= thank you in vietnamese)  I hope that they gained as much from the class as I did. 

Posted by Robert the teacher and the student.

Cu Chi tunnels by Robert

It took us over an hour to go eight miles out of town and then another hour to go the final twenty two mile to our destination. (Of course we had to stop for beer)  The Cu Chi tunnels are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels located in the Cu’ Chi district of Saigon and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country.  First started during the French war they were intensified and multiple layers were added during the Vietnam War.  Before you are allowed to go down into the tunnels you must first watch a very interesting propaganda video made in 1967 about the Cu’ Chi district, the American aggression and the tunnels that were used to fight off that aggression.  I only have two things to say about the video:  War is a terrible thing and there are two sides to every story. 

(Enough about politics)  I, all 6’ 1” of me, descended down into the tunnels by placing my hands above my head, the only way you can fit, and dropping into the entrance.  Once inside I scurried along a corridor that was maybe three and a half feet tall until I reached a room that was used to shoot at enemy combatants that were above ground.  The temperature today was in the 90’s with about 95% humidity.  Inside the tunnels it seemed at least ten degrees hotter.  I was soaking wet when I emerged from the tunnels.  What an experience.  I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the Vietnamese to fight from such a position or for American troops to go into these tunnels to flush out their enemy.  Very tight, dark and heavily booby trapped the tunnels must have been hell for both sides. 

Once we left the tunnels we found out just how fast a 50cc scooter can go.  With our heads down to reduce drag we accelerated to over 100km per hour.  That is only about 62 mph.  But on a scooter that feels like you are really moving.  We were able to make the return trip in about an hour and a half with no beer stops.  We did stop to cross a small wooden bridge on our scooters.  Once we got closer to the city we again hit rush hour traffic.  This experience boggles the mind.  We luckily found our way back to our hotel safely. 

After a shower at our hotel we headed out to dinner where we ate and attempted to tell some local women some jokes and, unsuccessfully from my perspective, explain to them why they were funny.  We did get a laugh out of them, but I am not sure if they were laughing with us or at us.  Either way we all laughed and had a great time.  Communicating with women is difficult without the language barrier.  Add the barrier and it is almost impossible. 

After dinner we cruised around town for a while on our scooters before stopping into another bar for yet another beer.  The Guns and Roses music emanating from the bar before we entered made me a little apprehensive, but once inside I got a great laugh.  In this bar, that sported a western theme, there was a center bar with waitresses dressed like cowgirls with their white daisy dukes, mid drift tops and a fake holster on their hip.  As if that was not entertaining enough, on stage was one of strangest bands I have seen doing 80’s rock cover tunes.  The cheesy Vietnamese lead singer was backed up by three Vietnamese women who could not properly pronounce all the lyrics and guitar players that looked like they stole all their moves from Mtv in the 80’s.  After a few songs which included: Pink Floyd, Bon Jovi and yet another GNR song we had to leave.  Vietnam is all about the experience. 

Posted by Robert the tall man who survived the Cu’ Chi tunnels and a cowboy bar in Vietnam.  

Insanity. by Robert

Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.   If old Albert would have traveled to Saigon and witnessed rush hour traffic from a scooter he may have formulated another definition of insanity.  Melville and Hemingway put together would have trouble portraying the madness of such an event.  This is one thing that truly must be witnessed firsthand.  There are 7.4 million people in Saigon and I swear every one of them is on the road at the same time.  It is not just the mass of people that is overwhelming; it is also the way that they interact.  Imagine a thousand people on scooters and a light turns red.  Once everyone has piled in as tight as they can then the people in the back start using the sidewalks and the left lanes to get to the front of the line.  Before the light turns green there is a sea of scooter waiting to explode once the light turns.  When the light does turn green people go in all directions.  People going left go through people going straight without stopping.  There is no such thing as a left turn arrow or yielding to oncoming traffic.  People coming off the sidewalk will go straight through the intersection as people who stopped in the street go right.  The people who moved all the way over into the left lanes when the light turned red, now are going straight into oncoming traffic until they can merge to the right to go with the flow of traffic.  That is just the way they interact at traffic lights.  You would not believe the roundabouts.  Double WOW!

Being immersed in this chaos mounted on a scooter is truly an experience.  Let’s say you are on a side street with no lights and you want to turn left across a never ending stream of scooters.  In the United States we would sit there for a few minutes hoping for an opening and if one did not materialize we would turn right and drive until we could make a u-turn or another maneuver that would enable us to get the direction we wanted to go.  Not here.  An endless stream of traffic?  No problem.  Just drive right into the middle and make your turn.  It is unbelievable.  I am left nonplus by how so many people can fit on a road elbow to elbow and very rarely make any contact.   Let’s say you wanted to go left at a light but you are in the right lane.  This is also not a problem.  Just do it.  You drive past your turn.  Just drive on the sidewalk and go back.  There seem to be very little rules and it seems to work.  How it works?  I don’t know.  In the United States people would be yelling at each other, flipping people off, getting into fights or at least wagging their finger at you, not here.  People just keep their eyes pointed straight ahead, their feet on the brakes and their demeanor at an even keel. 

Today Keith and Scott took me you the war remnants museum.  They had been there before so I went in and walked around while they went off exploring for an hour.  While they had been there before they had a lot of trouble finding the place.  We drove around in circles stopping to ask for direction multiple times until we finally found the correct street.  On the way there I got a little bored and decided to get Keith back for a trick he played on me earlier in the week.  Early on in our trip we would joke with each other by riding along side of the other person and hitting their kill switch which is mounted right next to the throttle.  Keith, one day while I was doing forty miles an hour, leaned over, turned off my bike and pulled the key out of the ignition and drove off with my key.  With my engine turned off I pulled in my clutch lever and coasted until I caught up with Keith who slowed down to let me catch up.  I took the key from him and put it back in the bike without stopping.  Payback is a bitch.  While Keith was driving through traffic I turned off his scooter and removed the key.  Instead of being nice and returning his key in the manner he had done earlier in the week.  I turned back to see him slowing coming to a halt and I threw his key up in the air as I sped away.  Leaving him to park his bike in the middle of traffic and then retrieve his key.  Maybe you just had to be there, but we all laugh our ass off.  Score one for the newbie. 

One other cool thing we did on scooters today.  We drove right through a narrow market place today. Right past the fruits and vegetables. Right past the lady with the un-refrigerated meat of a table. We only stopped when a headless skinned frog landed at Scott's feet after it jumped away from the live flopping fish that were also on the table from which it took its leap. The funny thing is that no one even looked at us funny for driving through a narrow crowded market place. 

The fun you can have with scooters and they are only costing us $7.50 a day.

 

Posted by Robert.  The one swimming is the sea of insanity and loving it. 

Safely into Ho Chi Minh City. By Robert

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.  

Blown seal, flat tire, check engine light on and a lake in the middle of the road. by Robert

For the last few days we have been relying less and less on Ngoc for directions and relying more and more on Keith’s Gps on his phone that he has mounted to his handle bars.  We often come to an intersection where Scott and I cry, “Which way Keith?” through our headsets.  This is not like the Gps in my car that tells me prior to my turns which direction I will have to go and then yells at me “recalculating” each time I make a wrong turn.  This is a small little map on a very small screen that shows us where we are.  We often have to drive down a road and then recheck the map to make sure we are on the right trail and then turn around if we are wrong.  Keith does all this through heavy traffic, sometimes with no hands. 

Today we passed through an intersection and our map told us we were on the right road.  I, as I rarely do, took the lead.  First, let me tell you why I ride in the back so often.  Riding in the back gives me the added plus of watching how the other two guys navigate the obstacles ahead.  The person in the front will call out obstacles and road conditions to the guys that are following.  “Bumpy road.” “Cow!” “BUS!” “Kids.” etc. When riding twisty roads, or passing large vehicles, the person in front will let us know if it is safe, “Clear.”  I am also riding in the back often because I am the slowest, but I have to stay close enough or the headsets will stop working because of lack of range.   So, this time I took the lead.  The corners were clean and fast.  I am starting to get into a zone linking corners and having a great time.  I do my usual on these tight corners, brake into the corner, down shift, lay it into the corner and accelerate out hard.  I am accelerating hard out of the corner and “WOOOOOOOH!”  hard on the brakes.  Someone put a lake in the middle of our road.  Keith and Scott almost piled into me as I came to a complete stop before the large body of water.  We checked the map and it said we were on the right road.  The paved road went directly into the water.  The power lines, that were following the road, were submerged all but the last few feet leaving the cable dry.  A dirt road to the left looked a good alternative.  It appeared to go up and follow along the road that was submerged.  So up we went following with the lake on our right until the “road” came to an end.  We were forced to turned around and went back to the paved road.  We checked the map and Keith said, “This is the right road.”  So we tried the dirt road on the other side of the lake hoping for a reconnection to our paved road.  First I had to put down a board so we, Scott and I (Keith pushed his bike through without), could get over some deep water.  I put the board down and Scott rode around so that he could get a straight shot on the board while Keith stood on the other side waiting to get a photo.  Bam! Scott is down, again.  As he was lining up for the board he hit some slick mud and went down as Keith captured it all with the camera.  While Scott picked up his bike, I rode over the very flimsy board and almost went down on the crossing.  (All captured by Keith)  Once all of us were across we followed the dirt road through trees and mud only to discover another dead end.  Back to the paved road we went and then on to the last intersection we passed.   We consulted the map to find another road, one without a lake in the middle, that would get us to where we needed to go. 

We rode for a while and found the bridge that crossed over our road consuming lake.  We stopped to watch some kids jumping off the bridge and briefly entertained the thought of stripping down and joining them.  The brown water persuaded us to instead stick with taking pictures.  There were floating houses that were only accessible by boat with children playing inside that made for some good photo opportunities. 

We stopped for lunch and discovered that Keith’s bike was losing all the oil out of his front right fork.  While we were inspecting the oil that was draining past the seal and all over Keith’s front rim and tire, I chimed in with what I thought would be the joke of the day.  “We are now going to call Keith the gay walrus.” I stated.  My travel mates looked at me confused until I followed up with, “Ya, he just blew a seal.”  We all laughed and continued calling Keith the walrus for the next few miles.  My joke would have been considered the funniest of the day if not for Scott yelling out a few miles later, “Stop! I have a yellow check engine light on.”  Both Keith and I are thinking, “these bikes don’t have check engine lights.”  Scott immediately followed sheepishly, “Oh, that is just my indicator light.”  We were laughing so hard we had to stop to wipe the tears from our eyes and, of course, have a beer to continue to revel in Scott’s humor.   For the rest of the day, “We have to stop! I have a blue light on.” I would say.  “Oh, it is only my high beam light.”  Laughter! 

Another nail in Keith’s tire, his third, resulted in an unexpected beer stop while people down the road fixed his flat tire.  This lady saw us coming.  Beer which is usually 20,000 dong each, was being charged to us at a rate of 33,000 dong each.  This did not deter us from our consumption.  Once the tire was fixed we set off again.

A few miles before we got to Da Lat Scott and Keith were doing their usual racing through the corners while Scott filmed Keith with his GoPro.  I, being behind again, watched and listened.  I lost site of them and only listened as Keith and Scott cheered.  I came around the corner to discover Keith down on the side of the road.  I later watched the video of Scott and Keith racing through the corners which showed Keith sliding out on a corner only to be narrowly missed by a tour bus coming from the other direction.  Keith, Scott and I watched the video over and over again in our hotel room cheering every time, toasting to the fact that we all made it through the day safely. 

Posted by Robert.  The man with the second best joke of the day and still the last man standing.  

Recounting the day

So here we are.....actually I don't know where here actually is, but here had beer.

Today robot had his turn at a cow.....really, really close. I almost hit a guy with a kid on his shoulder.

He walked right out into traffic with out even looking. Scott goes down again (he calls it a tip over) and we found new obstacles to try and avoid. We found trees, water and mud. The video should be good. The route we followed ended at water with all 3 of us racing for the lead. The road curved around a blind corner an dove straight under the water with two dirt trails leading off both directions around the huge body of water. We tried really hard to find our way around but never succeeded. Great video though.

Currently we are sitting on a gravel side road with another flat tire....all of our tools are with Ngoc our fearless guide. He is about 20 miles away, waiting at our hotel. The good news is we found cold beer. Probability our most expensive stop in Vietnam. The total bill was $20 usd only 1.50 was for the flat tire, the rest was beer. You probably need a perspective for this $20....our total food,hotel and beer bill for the last 8 days has been $350...half of that was just beer. The guys were picking on me for the second nail in my bald tire...only because of the bar bill.

We figured we were not far from our hotel ....what can go wrong from here.....I guess we forgot to post the condition of our bikes..Scotts back tire has been bald for several days...I blew a seal (front fork)....thus the new nick name the gay walrus...and both tires are shot on my bike. I have been trying to trade bikes with Roger (robots new nick name)....but he refuses. By the way he almost went down..even if the picture doesnt get posted...we know.

Shortly down the road...Chubby's yells through headset I have a yellow light flashing....we were all thinking .....not now. Robot and I are looking at our dashes, because nothing has worked the entire time we have had these bikes. Check engine light...these bike are old and there is no such thing. What is he babbling on about....then the it hits us...his turn signal was on.....oh my we all most fell over riding our bikes we were laughing so hard.....I have not seen that light the entire trip so it scared me said Scott....Robert and I were in tears...we have to pull over and rest a second....let's help him turn off his flasher.

So we hit he road..not a great path, but not far to go...thinking the gods are with us.... chubby films the descent in to Da Lat....not all goes well...you will have to watch the video to find out what happens...I will know who watches...

The score....Scott and I down twice...Robert still standing

Posted by Keith the gay walrus..

Animals....my worst fear.

<p>I have come across many cattle and deer while riding in the United States. Vietnam is very different in that the animals are very calm....unless a truck hits one of them and sends the rest of the herd running across the road.</p>
<p>Today I hit a cow (calf) or it hit me....the 200lb calf darted across the narrow street just after an oncoming semi truck went off the road just missing the mother cow. The calf started running and jumping toward me as I was moving further to the right trying to avoid the impossible. The calf t-boned me and my knee sent the calf spinning behind me while robot and chubby were laughing in my ears. They were hysterical, telling me the calf was spinning so fast it ran off all confused in the wrong direction. We may have a video, if it is not foggy from the humidity. If we find it we will try and post it.</p>
<p>We did find some good videos that were not foggy, but they are not for the weak hearted...lol</p>
<p>I pass a lot on the right side in the mud and dirt on the side of the road. One time I passed a bus full of locals, really moving along. I go flying by and stop at the door just as a guy decides to step to the open door to have a smoke break while in transit....his face was priceless when he turned and saw me inches from him. Then he looked down at my path I had to take to finish my pass. It was a narrowing mud strip to a parked moped....videos to come.

Posted by keith....traffic police

Robert down. Cow still standing. by Robert

This is not what I thought a communist country was going to be like.  Vietnam is a strange mix.  The complexities of Vietnam can’t be ascertained by one trip passing through the country as we are doing now.  Multiple trips would probably not give you the ability to ascertain even a small portion of what Vietnam is all about.  The best you can do is open your eyes, and your heart, enjoy the experience and glean little snippets of information here and there.  

I see is much capitalism going on all over the country.  There are two things that people are making a fortune on here.

First: Scooters. There are millions of scooters everywhere.  Cars are very expensive here and a very small percentage of the traffic.  People use their scooters for everything.  It is not uncommon to see a family of four, today we saw a family of five, riding down the street.  The next time one of your friends tells you that they need to get a minivan because their car is too small for their family, remember our pictures and laugh.  Today I saw a guy carrying five 60-80 lb sacks of rice, a scooter pulling a trailer with a 500lb pig, a scooter so loaded with bamboo that I have no idea how he ever stopped or turned a corner.  You see girls riding sidesaddle without holding on while they continue to text.  People are on their phones while driving through traffic with buses whizzing by, people driving the wrong direction, cows running across the road, bad roads and the list goes on.  It will blow your mind. 

Second: Small plastic chairs.  I understand scooters, I understand motorcycles even more, but why these people love to sit on these little plastic chairs, I don’t get it.  Whoever is making these things is making a fortune.  We are passing through these small towns at speeds that are probably double the posted limit, if there are any posted limits, and there are tons of these chairs at every shop we pass.  The reason I say I don’t get them is because, when you are 6’ 1” 178lbs sitting in a chair where the average person is probably 5’ 4” 130, they don’t work very well.  Today was a good case in point.  We stopped for lunch and beer.  We sat down on these small chairs.  As I went to drink a sip of my second beer I leaned back to poor it into my mouth and the chair buckled underneath me sending me to the ground.  “Man down!” my travel mates cheered.  “Robert finally went down!”  I am not a fan of these chairs, but I applaud the capitalism.

The sale of great food throughout the country side is also one capitalistic venture I whole heartedly applaud.  The one aspect that seems to have eluded the Vietnamese people though is the concept of proper sanitation and food handling.  If you are someone who is at all worried about germs, Vietnam is not the place for you.  I have seen people selling raw meat that has been sitting on a wood table in the warm sun all day.  Now think about it for a second.  If you pulled out a cutting board to cut up a steak would you not immediately wash it liberally before you used it again?  I guarantee you that they have been putting meat on that wood table day after day and the thought of cleaning it might never cross their minds.  Today we ate at a fine establishment in the country side that had some pretty amazing food.  The Thit Heo Quay, or roasted pig, was sitting in a display case in the sun, for God knows how long, before it was brought to our table.  They also pulled hardboiled eggs, fish and some other meat that we were not sure what it actually was, from the same case.  All of this was cooked in pots that sat next to us and looked like they were cleaned once a week maybe.  That was topped off with plenty of warm beer in a glass with ice.  The food was awesome.

Enough about capitalism in a communist country, there will be more time for that later, let’s talk about the riding and other fun stuff.  Today was not really a day of twisty roads, but one of congested streets with us weaving in, out, around and barely missing everything on the road.  Some of us missed everything.  With Keith in the lead, Scott following and me taking my usually position in the back, we saw a few cows in the road.  Going about 40 mph, and in heavy traffic, a truck coming the other direction swerved off the road into the grass to avoid the cows.  This spooked the little cow sending him into Keith who was hard on the brake but still going at least 20mph.  As Keith swerved to the right he hit the cow with his left knee and the left side of his bike.   He hit the cow right in front of its front legs as it was jumping in the air and it spun the cow around almost a full 360 degrees in the air before it landed and ran off the road apparently unhurt.   Keith was able to keep control of the bike while we yelled through the headsets.  We were amazed at what just happened.  When I say little cow I just mean that it was not a full size cow, but it was still pretty big.  Wow!

We managed to make it to our hotel without any further incidents and without anyone going down on their bikes.  (Just me on those darn little chairs.)  

Then Ngoc took us to one of the biggest waterfalls I have ever seen.  We walked down right next to the falls and got sprayed by its power before walking across a small suspension bridge to the other side of the river.  This bridge gave us great views of the falls in their totality.  Once on the other side I followed a fisherman down a trail to the base of one of the small falls that was an off chute of the larger.  I walked across slick rocks as the water was rushing past.  It got pretty sketchy.  At one point I even had to put down my beer to continue following him.  I gave up the chase as I witnessed him get into the water at the base of the falls and continue in until only his neck was showing.  I watched in awe from my slick rock as he slung his weighed net into the rushing water below the falls.  After pulling a few fish from his net he continued on closer and closer toward the falls repeating his feat.  After taking many photos I scaled back over the slick rocks on the river’s edge and joined my buddies on top of the hill.  They apparently witnessed this whole thing, beer in hand, from above and were hoping that I would fall in so they could capture the whole thing with their camera.  Sorry to disappoint. 

   

Posted by Robert the one who can’t sit in a little red chair.

Man down! posted by Robert

Man down! Another man down!

Today was probably the mellowest day yet.  Other than riding down some amazing roads at some pretty amazing speeds, not much happened today.  Well there was at least ONE interesting thing that happened.  My travel mates told me blog about this but, since there was not much else to talk about, here it goes.  We stopped at our first beer break right in front our newly discovered toy, a roundabout.  After our break we jumped on our bikes.  I could see what was coming so, as Scott and Keith started up their bikes, I reached for my camera.  Before I could get out the camera, Bam, Scott was down sliding across the pavement.  Before I could react, or get out my camera, Bam, Keith was sliding across the pavement.  Two down at the roundabout in less than five seconds.  Getting up with their pride hurt and their clutch levers broken they sped away and I quickly followed.  Off and riding I was soon listening to them bitch about going down before the newbie and blaming the whole thing on the slick painted arrows on the road.  Down the road we stopped to repair the clutch levers and console Ngoc and assure him that his bikes were alright.  Scott rolled up his sleeve to show me the injury to his elbow which appeared to be the only injury sustained.

Posted by Robert the last man standing.

Oh, I forgot to mention.  At our lunch stop Scott found a nice woman to help comfort him after his crash.  She was a sweet woman.  We guessed she was about 90.  We later found out she was 74.  Check out the pictures. 

Roundabouts day 6 by Robert the wedding crasher

Roundabouts can be fun when used properly.

Knowing that we only had a short ride ahead of us we took our time getting on the road from Hue to Hoi An.  Before we got on our bikes we jumped in the truck with Ngoc and toured the city.  Keith let me sit in front so I could better witness how Ngoc navigated the streets in his big four wheel drive truck.  I am glad we are on motorcycles.  I could never drive a car through this mess. How people do this every day without going crazy, killing themselves, or killing others, is beyond me. 

Ngoc is a great guide.  He conveys tons of information on the history of the towns we are passing through.  I wish my ability to retain the information equaled his ability to dish it out.  In the first town we home stayed in Ngoc told us about the mating rituals of that town.  He said that if you like a girl you follow her home to find out where she lives.  Then, because the whole family sleeps in one large room in a stilted home, you have to find out what part of the room she sleeps in.  Once this information is obtained you then must take a stick and knock three times under her, being very careful not to get it wrong and knock under her father.  If you get it correct she will come out and meet you.  If she likes what she sees she will talk to you, if not she will send you away.  (And I thought dating was hard in the states.) 

Today, in Hue, we went to a large temple on the Perfume River that used to house the ruler who used the Perfume River to travel up and down to oversee his minions.   

After lots of pictures were taken we headed back, had a beer, and mounted our bikes for the short 90 mile ride to Hoi An.  The ride out of town was fun.  Weaving in and out of traffic and using our big bikes to their full advantage over the small scooters that fill the streets.  Before crossing the mountain pass we had to fill up with beer and food.  As we stopped and dismounted our bikes I was overwhelmed by the loud music coming from the building next to our stop.  I went to investigate and discovered that a large wedding was going on and people were doing Karaoke and drinking very heavily.  I, before I was able to protest, was swept in by the people and asked to sit down at their table.  I was immediately given glass after glass of beer with many toasts that I could in no way understand.  I could understand that they were having a great time and were more than willing to be generous with anyone who wanted to help them celebrate.  Keith, wondering what happened to me, came to investigate and found me sitting at a table full of food and beer being stared at by the other twenty people at the table.  He sat down, found a cute young translator, and then proceeded to entertain the group.  The guy is a ham.   

When we finally went back to our restaurant next door some trickle over from the wedding followed us. A guy who was sporting two lovely women by his side came walking in.  Keith started to strike a deal with the guy to have one of the girls join him.  He did this by trying to barter us to the guy, who told him he preferred boys, in exchange for the girl.  He told the guy that this would not be a problem since both Scott and I also preferred guys.  I hope Keith knows that payback is coming. 

Once over the mountain, which featured some great riding with ocean views, we came down to China Beach where we found a new toy, roundabouts.  Since we were so far of Ngoc we decided to continue to ride around the roundabout until he caught up.  This immediately turned into a race where we were riding counter clockwise as fast as we can.  With our left feet out and our bike leaned over as far as they could go we went round and round as fast as we could.  Scooters entering into the roundabout only added to the fun.  If only we could do this at home. 

Hoi An is, according to Ngoc, the oldest city in Vietnam.  Built in the 15^th century.  It is a photographer’s wet dream.  This place is beautiful.  After taking a dip in our hotel pool we walking around the city before we stopped to have dinner and more beer on the river.  A woman selling toys tried to sell us a few things.  She had this toy that you lit up and flung into the air with a rubber band and then watched as it flouted back to earth.  The bargaining started at 60,000 dong for three.  We offered 30,000 and she countered with 50,000.  I offered her a deal.  I told her if she could launch the toy higher than Keith I would give her 50,000.  If Keith’s was higher 30,000 was the price.  They both loaded up at the same time and on my command launched into the air.  We all cheered in amazement as the woman, who was half Keith’s size, launched her toy twice as high as Keith.  I am now 50,000 poorer. 

Did I mention that I love Vietnam?  I also love roundabouts.

Posted by Robert the wedding crasher

Some roads are better than others

We left on what we thought was going to be an easy day....250 miles.... no problem. What we did not figure into the time was how windy the roads could be.....It looked like rain  we geared up and hit the road. We were soon climbing through the jungle roads with thick vegetation climbing to the clouds. A few sprinkles and then soon the monsoon rains were upon us. We had big smiles as we burned up the soaking wet concrete bike path, thank god there was no traffic. Scott and I rode side by side trying to find the edge of traction. We had the video camera rolling which caused us to push even harder. Soon I had a flat tire and nearly slid off twice before I figured out why. It had finally stopped raining and we pushed on. After a great lunch in the village we continued on. We were all commenting on just turning around the next day and repeat it all over again. We rolled into town way after dark and had the best day of our trip....as of this post we can not find any of the videos of this road...they may be gone...there are some photos of the dry section in day 5.

The next day we got the video to work and will post some of another pass we tore up. Later in the day we found some huge round abouts and went around so many time weaving in and out of the locals we ended up with a small audience. I guess we were bored and needed some obstecales to entertain us. The video of this is a little foggy due to the humidity over here. It might have been due to the beers we had too, who knows.

Fun times for all roads. Even robot and chubby are getting the hands free riding down.

Posted by Keith (the calm and reserved member)

Hold your line! by Robert

Hold your line!

Today was all about the riding. Sure the coffee was great, as always, the scenery unbelievable, the people gracious and always smiling, the beer warm, the food ok (today was the first day food was not the best ever), but today we rode.  After four coffee su’ num’s we put on our rain gear and headed out of Phong Nha (Phong= wind, Nha= teeth), where we stayed the night before, for our longest day of riding yet.  The moist streets and the looming clouds convinced us that rain gear was a necessity, not an option.  Scott in his full yellow rain suit that puffed up like the Michelin Man when he opened the zipper to let in the wind, Keith with his zip in rain pants liners and me with my red Patagonia rain jacket that I bought second hand for $5 and some pull over rain pants from REI.  We were prepared, at least some of us.  Keith decided to not put on his rain coat to start, but quickly decided that it was probably needed.  So he decided to put it on, in typical Keith fashion, without stopping the motorcycle!  He engaged his cruise control.  Turned around and pulled his jacket from his rear pack.  And then he proceeded to put his arms through the arms while Scott and I laughed at him through our headsets. 

Now that we were all prepared we were ready to ride.  We entered into a national park with Keith trying to duck underneath the large tube barrier, at 20 mph, that was left unattended.  He hit the barrier with his shoulder that pushed it up so that our passing was much easier.  Once we got through the barrier we found the about 100+ miles of the most outrageously fun twisty road I have ever been on experienced.  I have often watched Top Gear were they searchfor, and sometimes find, some of the sweetest roads in the world for super cars.  If they were into motorcycles, this would be the road.  What appeared to be slick concrete roads actually was a really pretty grippy surface.  In no time Scott and Keith were railing in the corners side by side yelling at each other “Hold your line!”, with me struggling to keep up.  My riding, being in the back, was made so much easier by Keith calling out any obstacles that maybe in the road.  Since this was a twisty curvy road that went up and down steep grades there was very little traffic.  No big trucks, no animals in the road.  Just the occasional scooter.  With little traffic we were able to push the bikes to the limit and really lay them into the corners.  We were going so fast that Ngoc took forever to catch up to us when we stopped to pee or refill on beer.  Once he did catch up, “You guys are crazy!” he would say in his heavy Vietnamese accent.  The roads continued to dry since the only rain we actually saw after dawning all our gear was early in the morning.  With dryer roads our speeds continued to increase with each corner seeming to be better than the last.  I often heard loud screams emanating from my earpiece.  Thinking I was going to come around the next corner to see Keith laying on the ground, only to discover that these were whoops of joy for telling the greatness of the corner to come. 

Our first stop for beer, one of many, took place in typical Vietnam fashion.  We get off our bikes and strip off all our gear as many locals gawk at the tall white people and covet our bikes.  At this stop the warm beer was quenched our thirst while the smile of a very short local woman warmed our hearts.  Keith kneeled down next to her to take a picture and he still towered over her.  Her infectious smile was reminiscent of so many we have seen along the road. 

Back on the road we continued to be amazed at the slice of paved heaven that kept coming.  We stopped again for beer, riding makes us thirsty, and some lunch.  We stripped everything off except our t-shirts and riding shorts that looked like underwear to the locals.  A woman, who we later discovered was 23 and married (Darn), was mesmerizing.  The many beers did not help us overt our continuous gaze in her direction.  Just when we thought we had enough beer, at least until the next stop, a guy comes up to us with what looked like an old oily anti freeze bottle.  Out of it he came some clear rice alcohol.  We all took a sip and almost exploded from the strength.  The guy who brought it sat next to me and started to light a cigarette.  I quickly stopped him thinking, “I wouldn’t light a match within a 100 yards of that moonshine.”  After the last beer was finished Keith and I put on our riding gear minus our rain gear.  Scott, wanting to keep cool and look sexy, road for a while in just his underwear.  Maybe Scott had too big a sip of that rice alcohol?

After the first hundred miles or more of perfect roads we continued on back down the normal Vietnam roads through construction, around trucks, splitting cows, passing sleeping dogs in the middle of the road and the crazy guy who I almost hit who seemed to think it would be cool to run in between two racing bikes.  Then of course, after a few more miles of riding, we had to make another beer stop.  On this one we saw many young children coming home from school.  Ngoc told us that this was a very poor part of the country.  He opened his truck and started handing out back packs.  We quickly followed suit with the pencils and tootsie rolls that we brought with us for just such an occasion.  Smiles all around. 

The sun started to go down.  I guess we had one too many beer stops.  The road got worse.  The smooth predictable roads and curves were now a thing of the past.  Bumpy, sometimes paved roads were now ahead of us.  Construction on steep mountain roads at night were made even more challenging by the fact that Keith and I had tinted visors that made things really dark and Scott who’s headlight failed to work.  Ngoc pulled in front of us and led us the last 60km to Hue (Hue=Harmony).  Once we arrived in Hue we breathed a big sigh of relief and, of course had another beer followed by dinner and massages. 

How have I lived before this?  Total miles 257.

Posted by Robert a.k.a Robot

Wet day in the mountains

So far Scott and I have both gone down twice....yep. Nothing hurt but our pride. The newbie has won the first round. We had a great day of riding. We pushed the limits of wet pavement and found no problems. Riding side by side through the twisty corners we only touched once. We had a lot of mud and off road paths today. The mud was thick and very rutty. Lots of passing through the ruff stuff.

So how did we go down.....well we were told we ride too fast and burn up our gas faster than the normal groups. So coming over the wet mountain pass we ran out of fuel only 5 km before the nearest gas station, it was with out power so it was of no good. I ran out first and really did not want to wait around so I grabbed Scotts bike as he went by. That worked until he ran out too..lol

The next move was to dismount and lay the bikes over to grab any fuel that might have remained on the far side of the tank....it worked....we were both running again. The next time the bike was all the way on the ground and lifted the wheels a little. We made it to the gas station with out power to pump any fuel...nice. We were pointed another 2 km down the road that would have enough to get us to town. So even after reserve we had a reserve, but had to go down to find it.

Only complaints so far....some bad food here would restore faith in our own food system at home, dieting will be a must when we get home. So far the meals have been unforgettable. A firmer bed would be better for our backs. Robot thought he had found the stiffest bed in the world until he sat on my bed this morning. Not enough cold beer in the mountains, someone should have told them we were coming. Turn on some power and chill our beer.

Posted by bone dry...Keith

Rain! Day 4 by Robert

Don’t mistake the brevity of this blog to mean that very little exciting happened today.   To the contrary, another fun filled day. 

Although it rained most of the day, the riding and the views were incredible.  Today we started the Ho Chi Minh trail.  We went up and down the mountains with views of the most dense jungle I have ever seen.  

At lunch Scott defended the honor of the United States by winning an arm wrestling match with a guy who, once he lost the match, wanted to pay Scott with dong to see how big his dong was.  (Why do we continue to run into weird guys at lunch?) 

We ran out of gas on the way down the hill and Keith and Scott had to lay their bikes over to get the last little bits of gas in the tank over to the petcock.  We barely made it to a small little shop that sold us a liter of gas out of an old pump style gas pump. 

We just got to our hotel and are sitting in the lobby enjoying beer and hoping that our clothes dry before we have to put them back on tomorrow. 

Check out all the pictures and maybe they will help explain our day in more detail than my little blurb did here. 

Posted by Robert (very wet Robert)

Why do we keep coming back here

We are sitting around comparing thoughts on why chubby and I keep coming back. At the same time we are making plans for yet another return trip, this time to the north east area. Closed to all foreigners until this year.

So why do we keep coming back.....the food is amazing....beyond words. The kids are so cute and the villagers are so friendly. Most have not seen foreigners especially dressed in full gear riding into town on big bikes. We have adults walking up to us and asking what we eat to grow so tall. Our guide Ngoc would translate and laugh as we get our photos taken with the short locals. The food taste so good...we think because it has not been purified to the point of killing all the bacteria to make it safe for our consumption. That bacteria is great for flavor and for building immunities to common illnesses. Majority of the locals are healthy and fit, with many years of lines engraved in their face from the hours of work in the farm field.

We love the views, the roads and especially the obstacles in our way. So far we all have been law abiding citizens over here.  No laws have been broken...yet.

So this North East area we have not been yet promises to be another unforgettable area, where we will need permission from the government to travel to. Like the first time we went to the north west area. Each place we stayed we had to fill out papers to take to the local officials. The locals were all staring at us with those eyes of wonder. We just have to go explore this new corner. The draw has our attention. We may go help Ngoc build a school or just a simple bathroom for future tourists. Simple amenities so he can bring others to help improve the economy in a poor village.

Oh...I was told I needed to explain why we call Robert "Robot".....the locals can not say Robert....it comes out as robot...lol

Posted by crazy Keith

Crazy Keith! Day 3 by Robert

We were awakened this morning before dawn in Mai Chau by the many boisterous roosters below our window.   We waited until the morning light come up over the misty rice fields outside our window.  Wanting to explore I set out with Keith down the road and took a left as Ngoc had suggested yesterday.  After walking through a few alleys we were suddenly astonished by all the street vendors, cafes and restaurants that filled four or five square blocks.  Keith was amazed that all this was steps away from where we were staying.  Keith, who had been to this town twice before and had stayed less than a hundred yards from this, said, “I had no idea this was here.”  Our first attempt to get coffee in Hanoi was difficult and this, after all our experience, was just as difficult.  But our efforts were again rewarded with some great coffee.  Vietnam has some of the best coffee I have ever had, if you can figure out how to order it.  I am definitely going to buy some to take home.  Keith ran back to our house to get Scott to show him what they had missed on their first two trips to this village while the coffee we finally ordered started to brew.  We had three cups of coffee and then headed to breakfast were we, now that we were experts, ordered more coffee. 

Like Willie Nelson said, we were on the road again.  Keith today seemed to have an allergic reaction to his handle bars.  He tried to touch them as little as possible.  Through town, through traffic, through Water Buffalo dung and only when the road got really twisty did he put his hands on the bars.  I mean really twisty, because even in a lot of turns he continued hands free.  We road on some amazing roads along a large brown river for many kilometers.  It was cool watching Keith and Scott fight through the corners while I attempted to keep up.  We passed through lots of cool little villages where the kids continued to be entertained by Keith’s riding.  Actually it is really amazing how kids all along the road wave at all of us as we go by.  I have never seen so many great smiles in a day. 

I have lived in Bend for eight years and every time I see deer I still think it is cool.  Times the cool factor by five with Water Buffaloes.  They are everywhere and I am awe struck by them all.  The baby ones are sooo cute.  They are amazing, and tasty, animals.

After another great lunch, where people stared at us and our bikes the whole time, a guy came up to us and shook our hands.  This does not seem to be unusually in Vietnam, but this guy was unusual.  He didn’t look unusual, but his actions freaked Keith and me out.  I got on my bike and I had my side zippers on my pants open for ventilation and my bare legs were exposed.  This guy came over and put his hands inside my pants and started tickling my legs.  I thought it was too much rice wine and just kind a brushed him off, but then he went over to Keith and stuck his rear end at Keith like he wanted Keith to take him in a loving way.  We got out of that town quick.   

From lunch the road was pretty straight which made Keith so bored  he was no longer satisfied with riding hands free.  Trucks, people, animals, rice and hay on the road and Keith starts to ride with no hands standing up.  This still is not good enough so Keith takes one foot of his pegs.  Crazy Keith. 

We made it to our hotel safely and headed out to dinner.  A huge spider, and I mean huge, was on the wall above the toilet prevented me from closing the door in case I needed to make an exit mid stream.  During another great meal, that included many strange things including meat that had been fermented for ten days, I looked up at the ceiling and there were Gekos walking above us. 

Tomorrow we start the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Posted by Robert the one who keeps his hands on the handle bars.

OMG! Day 2 by Robert

I do not usually fall prey to being rendered speechless and fall back on the abbreviated butchering of the English language like omg.  But, OMG!  Today may qualify as one of the most amazing  days of my life.  Throughout the day, while communicating via our headsets, Scott kept saying to me, “You just can’t explain this to people back home.”  He is so right.  The greatness which I experienced cannot be expressed properly by any other way than to experience it firsthand.  I will attempt to give you the short version here, but realize that my simple explanation will never live up to the actual experience. 

We started the day in Hanoi waking up in our hotel to the barking of dogs and crowing of roosters.  This was quickly followed by communist announcements over the loud speakers in the streets below, which was then followed by what appeared to be traditional Vietnamese music.  All this before seven am.  After waking we made our way to the roof of our hotel where we attempted, and finally succeeded, to explain a deaf woman, who spoke no English, that we needed coffee desperately.  Keith attempted several times to explain to her exactly what we wanted.  He ordered hot coffee with a heavy cream that sat at the bottom of the cup and, when stirred, made the coffee into an unforgettable drink.  After our first attempt succeeded we ordered another round only to get the same delicious drink over ice.  Not what we were trying to order but great all the same.  Another cup was ordered by pointing to the first glass, that was hot, and doing the universal “no” sign over the cup with ice.  A light drizzle was all that chased us away from the roof with views of the lake to the west and the surrounding city. 

We then drove across town to grab our motorcycles that had been reserved for us for the remainder of the trip.  The Yamaha 250cc bikes are much larger and faster than all the scooters that fill the streets of Hanoi.  After check our helmet radios, I took a deep breath and headed out in to the mayhem.  Years of cut lanes in heavy traffic in southern California only slightly prepared me for the experience of the Hanoi streets.  With the voices and laughter of Keith and Scott in my headset we, with only a few close calls, made it out of the city.  In a light drizzle we continued on past the city attempting to keep our eyes on the road as we passed rice fields, water buffaloes and sights that would hypnotize anyone who stared at them too long.  We were driving on this road for many kilometers all the time wondering if the road we were on was a one lane or two lane road.  People on scooters continued to come at us from the other direction, and in normal countries this would be a clue that this was a two lane road, not in Vietnam. 

We continued dodging trucks and one way drivers until we made it to our first beer stop at about our 70km mark.  During this stop I told a joke to our guide that had him literally in tears.  The punch line of this joke, which I told to Keith and Scott while in the airport, appears to be the rally cry of the trip so far and continues to provoke laughter.  (It is only day two, we will see how funny it is after day ten?) 

After one beer we continued on down smaller narrow roads that we sometimes paved and sometimes not.  While driving down these narrow roads we came across school children coming the other way on bicycles who were so amazed by Keith driving down the road with no hands and taking pictures of them, that when they looked back at him, after he pasted, they swerved into the road in front of me.  I could not figure out which kid was the craziest, the one on the motorcycle in front of me or the ones on the bicycles. 

At 130km we stopped for lunch.  I wish I had the ability to portray the scenery of this restaurant.  I will not try, the pictures may help a little, but I will attempt to tell you about the most delicious lunch I have ever had.  Wild boar and water buffalo rice, soup (Pho) and wild vegetables.  Banana flower, green papaya leafs and white eggplant peas were only part of these dishes.  I chased this down with green tea.  All this for $72,000 dong. (That is about $3.50) Side note:  Ngoc, our guide, told us that rice, green tea, rice wine and tobacco smoked in a big wooden pipe are free all over Vietnam.

After lunch we continued to ride into the country side.  No more dodging big trucks. Water buffaloes, chickens and dogs were now our new hazards.  We came across puppies who were taking naps in the middle of the street.  We stopped to give kids candy and Keith continued to entertain them with his no hands riding.  We came to a river that had an alternative crossing that was a toll road that would help us remain dry.  We decided to save our money, and have more fun, by riding right through knee deep water.  The road continued up into the hills and peaked at a giant lake before we began our descent.  This ride is the most amazing I have ever been on. 

For brevities sake I will stop there about the ride, but there is so much more to talk about, because I have to talk about our home stay and the greatest dinner ever.  We are staying in a house that overlooks the rice paddies.  We started our stay by parking our bikes right under our stilted room.  Ngoc brought us a table, which he carried on his shoulders while riding on a scooter, on which we placed the beer and cribbage board that immediately followed.  After 14 beers, and a few games of cribbage, we walked down the block into the darkness that was only illuminated by the lights of our neighbors that were enjoying a time when the government turned the power on.  The power is turned on and off during the day and night according to what the government deems is needed.  While walking to dinner Scott said about the tranquility of the night, “You know it would be perfect if there were just some fire flies flying around.”  Just then we had just that.  Wow!  Ok, now dinner.  We just sat down and food started to arrive.  A huge plate, which I took a picture of, was filled with more water buffalo, chicken, banana flower, spring rolls and grasshoppers.  Yes, grasshoppers, which our host called flying shrimp.  They were awesome.  All this accompanied by lots of rice and sauces.  I am not exaggerating when I say that this was the greatest meal I have ever had.  Hopefully more like that are in our future. 

After dinner my companions went back to our large room with three bed rolls on the floor with netting for the bugs and went to bed.  I went back to the restaurant and enjoyed a show with traditional music and dancers.  I danced with the local woman and a few Swedish tourists and then walked through the darkness back to our home stay. 

Day 2 is over.   

So our trip begins Day 2 .... we pick up our bikes

<p>I can tell this is going to be fun ride, we brought along a newbie. Woke up early this morning and had coffee on the top floor. Like always we spent several minutes trying to learn how to order the correct coffee all over again, "cafe su num" coffee hot with sweet creme. Then we ordered fresh orange juice...it was so good until we got our bill and found out we could have had two beers each for of us and spent less money.

The morning was a little overcast and drizzly but warm enough to be excited about being on our XR250 bikes. We explained the game plan to Robert about how we were going to leave Hanoi and the sea of scooters behind. Don't look back, don't look to the side....just drive through the traffic like it was not there. Call out the close calls, laugh and try not to piss your pants. We actually had the best escape ever...a few close calls, a few bad words, but no damage and lots of laughing. We did warn "Robot", Roberts new nickname, Saigon will be much worse, but he will have more experience by then. It hard to fathom the mass of people and scooters in Saigon, the horns are always in your ears to warn you not to move sideways. The horns are very important and with out them you life expectancy is shortened by a lot.

The roads opened up and we were screaming up the mountain roads, way to fast, but fun. The views were incredible even though the drizzle continued. We came across lots of kids on bicycles, just a small problem for Robot and Chubby "Scott" who were behind me. The reason was I brought a cruise control for my bike....in other words I did not need any hands on my handle bars to ride and all the kids noticed and started running out in front of them pointing at me. To make things even better I was turning around and snapping photos with their smiles. Came close to running off into a rice a few time while taking the backwards photos.....check them out once we get them posted.

We rode around a very large beautiful lake on a small narrow paved sidewalk. Like always here in Vietnam there are many obstacles, and we found all of them here on this narrow path. Everyone of us had close calls with dogs, chickens, people, and yes the famous water buffalos. The mopeds carrying the logs sideways on the back are always fun to find on the blind corners too. Then Robot lost his horn....oops....we tell him "you don't need that" lol

So we ended our first day of riding at a familiar home stay, just got here by some very different roads. We are sitting here drinking beer with yet another beautiful view, waiting for the power to come on. How can you not enjoy a day in the life of the Vietnamese farmers.

We grab another beer and go for a walk. Heading off on a dark trail, weaving around the rice paddies and the houses selling nice weaving and polished stones, thinking we know where we need to go to show Robot what the village has to offer. We did not make it far in the dark night before we had to turn around and find out how to get back to our resting place for the night. For dinner we walked up to another families hut. The meal was very good, we left nothing on the huge banana leaf plate. We ate flying shrimp (fried grass hoppers), banana flower salad, wild boar, lots of vegetables, braised pork in a Thai caramel sauce and a ton of fried spring rolls. We ate and enjoyed all of it.

Side joke, really funny, but you have to ask.....Yum Low ....Yum Low

Posted by Sidetrack (Keith).

Who wants to be a millionaire? by Robert

Ding-Dong:  The Vietnamese has chosen to name their currency after the latter part of a door bell ring.  Do you want to be a millionaire?  Come to Vietnam, because just by walking into a bank and exchanging a small amount of money we instantly became millionaires.  The 20,850 Dong to 1 US dollar meant that we walked out of the bank will over two million Dong.  Now you won't be able to go out and buy a Ferrari, but you will be able to buy a lot of beer, which we immediately did.  The beers only cost 20,000 Dong, or less than a dollar.

Last night while we were sitting on a balcony drinking our last two beers of the day, watching Scott skillfully launch our bottle caps at the unsuspecting masses below, I asked my fellow travels a question related to money and laws of the country.  "If I went down on the street pulled out my wallet and started fiddling with my money, would I get arrested?"  My travel companions looked at me a little bewildered and like I was a huge idiot.  "No, of course not." They replied.  "You mean that it is not illegal to go out into the middle of the street and fiddle with your Dong?"  Strange country.

Posted by Robert the millionaire

Day 1 in Hanoi: Culture Shock by Robert

Culture shock:

Back in the early 1990's I went to Cabo and Mazitlan with a buddy.  Before we left he said to me, "You are probably going to experience some "culture shock".  Once I got there I laughed because, growing up next to the Mexican border, there was nothing there that shocked me.  Hanoi is a major culture shock.

We got off the plane and met our guide, Ngoc, and jumped into a sweet Isuzu truck that would be following us throughout our trip.  Ngoc took us on a quick ride, first to see our motorcycles and then to our hotel.  We immediately dropped off our bags and headed out into the city.  This is were the shock started to kick in.  This city is insane.  There are people driving in every direction with no apparent structure.  Stop lights, which there appear to be few of, are kind of a suggestion rather than the rule.  Crossing the street takes some getting us to also.  The trick is to keep walking as scooters, and there are thousands of them, whiz right by you. Don't stop, unless a bus decides that he is not going to stop. Keith is apparently very comfortable with the traffic and seems to have no problem just standing in the middle of the street deciding which direction we are going to have to go to find another beer while people circle around him on their scooters.

In the United States we have laws that kids under 18 must wear a helmet on their bicycle and that small children, sometime past the age of five, must be in a car seat and strapped in whenever the car is moving.  In most states it is against the law to drive while using your cell phone.  In Hanoi, a family of four, with an infant strapped in the middle, will be on a scooter dodging through traffic at thirty miles an hour, with no helmets, while the driver is on the cell phone texting away.  If they do wear helmets, and only the parents wear them rarely do the kids, the helmets they wear are inferior in protection from what I would wear on my mountain bike.  The girls have helmets with pony tail holes cut out of the back.  Protection, No.  Style, Yes.

Today we sat at a few bars above the street and gawked in amazement at the things people do while navigating through the streets on a scooter.  Keith got a haircut while Scott and I drank more and more beer.  After Keith's haircut we walked the streets of old town Hanoi. We walked down narrow streets and watched people cooking food on the sidewalks and hawking their goods to tourists.  We tried the food and left the trinkets for the other tourists.

We are waking up early, having breakfast, and then jumping on our motorcycles and braving the traffic of Hanoi.  Pray  for me, please.  I will need it.

Posted by Robert after a long day of travel.

Day 14 back to Munich

It feels like we just started. We turned the bikes back in today with 3000+ miles on them. Very fun trip with lots of new experiences. We traveled through 10 countries, some we were not supposed to go through. Lol...hope the rental office does not find out. I guess his insurance did not cover us. Oh well that kept me from hitting those pedestrians in Prague.

Well the next trip is coming up...Vietnam in October....the Ho Chi Man trail

Day 13. Unlucky us in Nuremburg

We had a brisk morning ride over to Germany. The time flew by until we hit the downtown central area. The navigation program had us on a direct route to our hotel and right into a road block. No problem we will just reroute, another road block. Ok we will just go further around and come back to central from the north....another road block. An hour later after trying all roads leading to the center we stopped and ask a guy in a orange vest if he spoke english. He explained that the city center is closed for the entire day. Once a year they have a big bike race around the city center and you have to pedal or walk, or wait until evening when all the streets open again. Nice! This is like our 3rd bike race we have been in the middle of. With this many bikers in Europe how is it that Americans ever finish in the top 10. We have literally seen thousands of bikers, going up mountains and back down, 4 wide taking up the entire road.

We finally talked him into letting us join the race and cross track, but we first had to push our bikes up a sidewalk path with pedestrians, 100 feet or so. It was easy with the bike running and using the clutch the bike basically pulled up up hill. The next security guard very happily opened the barricade, although Lisa had to run over and help him. More racers were coming and we are in the middle of the track. Finally on the other side we hit more blockades and one way streets, but no traffic so we made our own rules and drove up to a very surprised hotel reception.....How did you get here they asked?

Now we are ready to tour the town. First off a beer and then probably an old church or castle, seems to be the norm.

Well how about 2 old churches and then a beer. There are a lot of people mulling around within the city center. The racers are routed through the mid section and then back out to the ring around the city center...some are cheering and some dragging their suitcases wondering how to find a taxi or other means outside the closed off roads. I tnought Venice had the sad tourist dragging luggage...we were not the only ones surprised by the yearly closure.

Off to the castle and more beer.

The race is finally over and it is 6:30 pm, boy that would have been a long wait for getting to our hotel. Instead we explored the town, watched a bike race, enjoyed a nice lunch downtown and a dinner in front of an old church and drank more beer. Oh and Paul found his Jäger Schnitzel and Ronda a bottle of her new favorite "Prosecco", they are both happy.

Tomorrow we head back to Munich where we started. :-(

Day 12 Prague one more day

We had a pretty good day in Prague, a few sprinkles and lots of sites. We booked a 6 hour walking tour with an english speaking guide. We had a short bus ride up to the castle and a 40 minute tour on a boat under the famous King Charles bridge built in 1347-1400.

The tour was a brief stop at all the important points in Prague. They have an astronomical clock and tower that was built in 1410 and still functions today. It is the third oldest such clock and the only one still functioning. There is an hourly show with live trumpet player as the clock mechanically parades the 12 apostles through various windows.  Prague was not bombed during the second world war, so much of its history is still preserved today. It is full of small one way streets that angle in every direction. Driving in them is a challenge and you get turned around very easily. Even walking from point to point you will get lost and need to turn on the GPS to find which way to turn. Paul and I found ourselves walking in the opposite direction and way off course before turning to the phone to get us back.

We ate lunch in a medieval dungeon that was preserved to this day and then finished the tour up on the hill where Prague castle is located. Of course around the corner is yet another gothic monstrosity of a church. This one was started in 900s only the foundation and a pillar. The majority of it was done 1300's and finished in the early 1800's. The hill also houses the main government buildings including the royal castle. The view was pretty incredible looking down at the city.

Off to Nuremberg, Germany in the morning.

Day 11 Off to Prague

We spent most of the day in the drizzle and cold rain. We headed up north and entered the Czech Republic riding through the small farm lands of Austria and Czech. We finally spotted some deer off in the grass fields. Pretty small animals compared to our deer. We enter the city of Prague, and found nothing but chaos..all the streets were short, one way and packed with cars. The pedestrians just step out and expect you to stop. Very hard to do on the old cobblestone streets. As bikes we are trying to go slow and steady and look for the next turn.... Im going to start hitting them soon. You need to force your way into traffic and rev the motor so they choose to step out after you go by. We did not see many bikes or mopeds so maybe they don't know how dangerous it is. These large cobblestone roads are not flat and feel more like an off road adventure with a well oiled track. This is definitely a bustling city.

We have now spent more than 3 hours checking in and trying to park the bikes. The lady at the front counter was in no hurry. Did I mention not only did we wait but we paid 30 euros per day to find this parking spot and park. It was only 3 blocks away but 1 km and 10 minutes of one way angled messed up streets.

Welcome to Prague, im sure it ill be worth it....more later.

Day 9 and 10 up to Budapest and over to Vienna, Austria

We landed in Budapest, Hungary by 12.30pm today. Wow a very large busy city. Sitting on a tour bus currently seeing all the highlights. This is another diverse city, full of castles and churches. Very historic with lots of famous composers and scholars being educated here. They are very proud of their heritage. Sorry I did not write much about Budapest, we did like it much better than Vienna, it has a notion of coming back and exploring a little more.</p>
<p>On our way to vienna we went through Slovakia with, many open farm lands. They are growing lots of corn, probably for the ethanol everyone loves so much. We have been seeing deer signs for almost the entire trip, but we have not seen a single animal yet. We arrived in Vienna (Wien) about noon and stopped and enjoyed lunch. Vienna looked pretty modern when we first entered, shopping everywhere. We wandered around and found lots more shopping. We regrouped and headed into the central plaza. Now we found the old Vienna. We stumbled on the Hufburg Palace and the Lipizzan riding school, which looked like a very huge courtyard of cobblestone with huge impressive buildings surrounding it. The girls got some good photos of it and the two arched entry and exit points. Impressive until you got to the church, oh but the old church was just a bit further and it was very old and large. Built in 1136 it was very well kept up. Massive pillars and arches inside. Again plenty of photos, of Vienna.</p>
</div>

Day 7 and 8 a extra day in Venice and then off on a fasttrack european exploration

We spent a couple of days in Venice and took off for Croatia yesterday.

Venice was very nice. Lots of walking and great hidden streets and corners. We have had a great time here in the past and will come back again. We went out to a restaurant we found in Mestre on our last visit. The food was really good just like last time, check out Osteria La Pergola, via fiume, 42, 30171 Venice, Italy ....you can take a train into Mestre and then walk to the restaurant. It is located in a very residential are. Im drooling thinking of the food.</p>
<p>We headed to a town called Porec, a little seaside tourist spot. Here we met Leanna a couch surfer who stayed with us last August. She gave us a tour of the old town and Basilica. Very interesting buildings and friendly people. They had a coffee shop and bar in an old watch tower from the original fortified walls. On the water front there were water taxis out to the various islands and lots of vendors selling thing from useless trinkets to glass bottom boat rides.&#160; The islands sounded like they would be fun, one is a nudist beach. A friend said we could rent a 50' sail boat and travel through all the islands for 1000 euro a week. Seems pretty reasonable, sign me up. Who is going to navigate????

On the way north we rode through some small villages, in one called Motovun we found a medieval town. I posted some photos of us trying to ride through. This was the oldest town I have every rode through...usually we are instructed to walk. I don't think the locals appreciated us and I know the other tourists did not at all. We were just planning on doing a zig zag loop until we came across a parked car that a local left right before we were to exit. We ended up stuck on a down hill cobblestone road not much wider than the bikes. We had to push the bikes backwards uphill until we could turn around. Then we rode all the way back through town once again to exit where we came in. Now I'm positive nobody appreciated us, since they all had to walk and were jumping out of our way. The cobblestones were large and it made the bike weave alot, so I think they thought we were trying to hit them.

<p>We next headed up to Ljubljana to vist another couch surfer who stayed with us a little more than a year ago. At the border i got a little lecture for not having an international drivers license. He was upset because he was forced to get one on his last visit to the USA. I have had on in the past. It is only a piece of paper that has our drivers license explained in 10 different languages and none were in his language. We argued for a little bit and then we left we with our entry stamp.

Saso the couch surfer, gave us a tour of the small city center, absolutely beautiful. There was a nice river running through the middle and live music everywhere.....it was a Tuesday evening and people everywhere eating drinking and having fun...a place to come back to. Wish we had time to stay and explore longer...only 2 hours from Venice. Everyone forgot their cameras so we don't have a photo of the town square. You might want to look it up on the web it was very pretty.
</p>

</div>

Day 6 short to Venice

Pretty uneventful, so I'm just going to whine about stuff I forgot to mention before.

Fuel prices and my quart of oil.... Fuel prices have been about as high as I have seen before, close to $10 per gallon...some places more. But what really shocked me was the price for a quart of oil for my old reliable BMW. I asked for the least expensive quart of oil....when he showed a 1 and a 4 with his fingers, I am thinking 1.4 euros, not bad. When I finished paying him 14 Euros, I was starting to feel ripped off. He went ahead and told me the prices of all the other oils on the shelf, they were much higher...that is almost $20 for 1 quart of cheap 10-30 wt oil. Something besides water has passed up our fuel prices. I could not imagine changing the oil in my truck at 16 qts or better yet the motor home at 24 qts and not the cheap stuff.</p>
<p>Today we also did the tourist thing and headed into Venice and walked around. We toured the basilica and the Dodge's Palace, built in the 9th century and rebuilt a few times after that. Same tourists still dragging luggage around looking for their hotel amongst the many hidden alleys. It is funny to see how much people pack and will drag up and over all the bridges. Then it started storming....lol...it got better watching them try to run and negotiate the slippery marble walk ways. We got back to the bus and watched a new batch arrive from the airport....I don't think they wanted to get off. There is no cover and no where to run. You have to cross two pretty big bridges that are all steps before you can even start to look for your hotel. The closest one is 1/8 of a mile and on a normal day you are sweating pretty good after the first bridge....we know we did it last year with our own luggage. The hotels are spread out from there up 4 miles of hidden trails and waterways, and you will get lost. Everyone was soaked, we kinda enjoyed it, at least I did. I noticed that the clothes were kinda risque ...you should have seen them all wet.

Day 5 the last of the Alps and over to Verona, Italy

Day 4 was a little delayed do to internet connection issues. I uploaded all of the remaining photos while we were riding this morning. Technology is so good. I can do so much on my bike while riding.

So Day 5 started out at 7am beautiful morning cool and again very light traffic and no large log trucks.....we wind our way up the next pass having a great time. Racing corner to corner, half an hour into the ride and... We come across a couple of motorcycle cops telling us to slow down because 600 bikes are coming up the hill....nice we get to see a (what we thought was a motorcycle race first hand)....wrong a pedal bike race with lots of sweaty people taking up the whole road. I guess they thought we should pull over and watch. Nope we pushed on and took photos. There were some interesting corners were we did not give...we held our lane and they bunched up fast. Really a race early in the morning when we want peace and quiet. We passed a few cars on the way down, what are they supposed to do, park and watch until the last slow guy finally gets by? Pictures posted

We then headed through another wonderfull French village and back up yet another pass. We get to the top and a guy was setting up his homemade bread and cured meat stand. It was about 9am and we purchased some very dirty dried meat and 1 kilo of bread. I wish he had smaller samples we could have tried more. As it was we purchased 40 euros worth and sat there and had breakfast and with cappochinos. Great view and dirty food. Pictures posted. In the little cafe where we got the coffee there were walls of photos. We were about to ride the world famous Monte Carlo Rally circuit. They had old photos of cars and celebrity's. Looks like they run this route summer and winter.

On the way down we came upon 3 lamborghinis and a ferrari racing up the hill. Remember how I said the roads have been very narrow. My face was shocked. I love the sound of the bikes and that what I thought I heard. I don't think I want to ever hit one of these knife cars headon. Thank god their front bumpers are very low. We cleared the rear bags by a small margin ...and would have hit if it would have been a normal car...but then it would have been narrower and slower...oh well it was a fun close call.....lol

Also I think we finally got some of the elusive pictures of the twisty roads. There are so may trees covering the roads you can never get the photo you want. We thought maybe we should just take a photo of the GPS. Pictures posted

Now we hit the naked beaches of France. Every time I saw any water on the trip I would call out on the headset...naked people..waiting for Paul wreck...I know but it is funny. When we hit the beaches there was so much traffic and and pedestrians we really had to dodge and weave. I started following the other bikes that did not stop with traffic. It got pretty entertaining when a green van decided to push me to the right into another car. Paul was now laughing at me....I got him back...I stood up and karate kicked him in the front fender and left him in the dust. Too bad he is so wide and slow. Ha ha ha

We decided to end the day in Verona, Italy. I guess some famous love story was based here. Something about a block wall...I think it was when Harry met Sally. We are now walking to the old town...I could have sworn I had lunch where Harry met Sally in New York...Kat's Delli. Oh well history is beyond me. I want to go back to the alps and run the curves...tomorrow off to Venice on the bikes...hope they float.