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.
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