For Mom, Love Steve

It was a dark and rainy night. At the stroke of midnight it turned into a dark and rainy New Year. And it kept raining and it’s still raining. Hue for New Years was pretty quiet as tourism is very low and the Vietnamese really celebrate their New Years in a few more weeks when the Tet holidays kick in. Hue is another town rich in tourist sites, but with a constant drizzle the entire day it is just too uncomfortable to leave my fantastic hotel room which has every amenity you can think of. I waited patiently for six days before I utilized another excellent internet tool, the Weather Channel. Ten day forecast, rain every single day. Just not good.

On a more positive note, my camera started working. Five days after getting a dousing, the motor started engaging in the middle of the night and the lens was activating. The next day it started working like nothing happened. So I am back in photo taking business. Unfortunately I think the old girl is not very weather resistant. I think I will still try to get something once I get to Hanoi.

Tomorrow I leave my little haven as ten more days of laying in bed watching tv and surfing the web would be a bit much. The plan is to head back to the central highlands stopping in the village town of Aloui which is where Hamburger Hill is located. Another movie spot (Hamburger Hill- a verrrry long Vietnam war movie). From there to Khe Sahn a very historical last stand military base/battle. And then head up the parallel highway running side by side with the NH1. I am hoping that the weather changes a bit up towards Hanoi even though the last part of Vietnam will include doing the Sapa route which is the highlands and freezing cold foggy weather, Yea!!!

After the camera started working I took it out for some local shots. It was raining of course and being that this camera is moisture absorbent as a tampon with super maxi wings it lasted for about three shots before flooding and dying, again. I guess now its recommended usage will only be good for summertime in Sudan.

I adopted a little mama’s place for my nutritional needs and ended up going there 18 times during my stay. My asianness is definitely blooming as I am eating rice like McDoanalds french fries. It does get addicting after a while. The reason why I keep going to the same place is that you don’t get that mama’s quality until you go a few times and they adopt you. At first your some unusual freak wandering in and they are hesitent to help you. You get the minimal selection and portion as they really don’t want to deal with you. You come back a second time and it’s more of a funny coincidence that you came back. Third time and you are welcomed with smiles and hellos. Mama starts taking a shine to you and the quantity and quality of food increases as “you are too skinny”. Around your fifth visit, daughters are offered up to be married, and you are introduced to the other usuals. By visit ten you have to serve your self and you now blend.

House special: Plate of rice with pork. Extras- string beans with slices of squid, egg quiche, fried tofu, spinach with tomatoes and potatoes, greens soup, and a fanta. 20,000Dong or about $1.10US.

It was a dark and rainy night. And then it was a rainy morning followed by a rainy afternoon and then it kept raining and its still raining. That was Christmas in Hoi An followed by Da Nang, and now in Hue. Rain made Christmas kind of poopy.

Christmas wasn’t a huge event, a few of the retail stores and tourist places started to put up some Christmas decorations about two weeks before the actual day versus I guess Halloween in the US. The city put up a few streets worth of lights and Heineken sponsored all these cool two story high Christmas trees made up of lit up beer bottles. Some kids went the extra mile and donned Santa suits which looked pretty cute as they were transported around on mopeds. Beyond that a pretty low holiday season.

Hoi An was a bit of R&R as it is probably one of the more tourist heavy locations in Vietnam. Usually what that means is you have very western facilities and a good range of cheap good accommodations. Riding in on the Minsk is pretty high profile as they are noisy and generate a nice trail of smoke. Anything with a suspension is out of the ordinary and when the moto taxi guys see it they all come over to check it out. After talking to a few and them getting the idea that I wasn’t looking for any hotel with a star attached to it they sent me down one of the off streets where I booked into a nice small guest house/hotel. A nice clean room, hot shower, only a couple of English channels (bummer) and free wifi all for $8US. As soon as I got settled I scouted around and found my three places to eat where I would continually go to throughout my visit. Heading down to the docks you really get the sense of how touristy the place is. Hoi An on its own was a very important shipping port and culture thrived here. The buildings are of still classic style and with the money from tourism, it is probably the most maintained. It is basically a glam heritage site full of cafes, shops, and restaurants. The waterfront is really very beautiful and relaxing as the canals are all done up for strolling. Other than that, it was really quiet as tourism must have dropped like a stone after the economic downturn. I would guess that they have had to have lost more than 50% as it is extremely quiet and this is supposed to be the high season. Not good for the locals, but I imagine it is now good for anyone.

I was originally going to spend just a few days but the day after X-mas, the rain was still coming down strong and even though it was only 35 kms to Danang, I just hate riding in the rain. It was three days later when I just sucked it up and rode off in the pouring rain.
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Danang is not a tourist town but is Vietnams fourth largest city and the Centrals economic powerhouse. I was just going to spend a night or two there as it was known as the Saigon of the North during its day and a popular American R&R place during the war. To get to Danang I took the beach access road along the South China Sea and drove along China Beach. China Beach was the location that the tv show “China Beach” with Dana Delaney was filmed. Nothing to extraordinary as the same style beach runs the whole north to south of Vietnam. I liked that tv show so it made a check off. The other notable stop was the Marble mountains which were a couple of all marble uprisings along the coastline. Not really too much of interest to me and absolutely no appeal during the rain so it was just a quick drive by. Danang turned out to be a nice place as the hotel I stayed was right on the river with a pleasant boardwalk. Again, the rain ruined all that so it was just a place to drop the bags. I did have a really strong cup of coffee while lounging the rain away. Talk about strong. I am off of caffeine again and man that cup made my eyeballs dance.

The Christmas light shot at the top was the last for my trusty camera as the soaking of the rain that night just killed it (again). This time I am not going to bother trying to get it fixed as I have been thinking that a smaller pocket camera might be better as at the moment I am not taking any pictures because I am packing the camera into my small pack and unlike my other ride I have to bungee strap this one to the top of my other pack and it is just a hassle getting it out when I am on the road. In Hue I will see if I can pick up a new camera and I have a feeling the blog will pick up again as I will have more to show and have to write less.
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From Danang it was six hours of rain surfing to Hue where I was going to drop anchor for possibly the New Years as I had to work on getting a visa extension and would also mark my re-entry back into the highlands as I try to avoid the NH1 for the rest of the ride to the north. There isn’t much resorty places in the hills, so I was going to soak up as much relax time as possible before going for a long and I am assuming a wet ride. And that gets me up to date. The rain is a big downer and it doesn’t look like its going to stop so just going to have to suck it up as I only have thirty days to get up to the north, do a circuit, and get to Laos.

Interesting stuff:
Discovery Channel. I am actually learning useful stuff by watching tv, who would have thought.

Google Earth. Something useful on the net not porn related. Pretty cool technology. I can see my parents house and my dads Forerunner in the drive way. There is even a photo shot taken on the street right in front of the house where I lived in Key West. Great fun as I can use it to figure out routes as I am traveling. Hell, I could have just stayed home and traveled the world just by using this site. Highly recommended. Just plug in your address and you can get a satellite photo of your house.

It was not the right time to leave the comforts of my beach resort town, Nha Trang, but I had already gotten up late, taken a look around the sky for any sense of a cloud formation and decided that it would be much too dangerous with those almost puffy white clouds looking to sprinkle on me. Plus, waking up at ten isn’t the best starting time. So it was my third day past my leave date when I finally got the gumption to get moving. Bad choice. The whole six hours of driving in the rain I kept replaying the tv shows that I could be watching instead of taking a rolling shower. The only saving grace was that the evening prior to leaving I found the local market while searching for new and untapped food stalls. I noticed a really nice rain poncho and figured that since I was heading up to the Great White North I would eventually be running into bad weather, so I bought it. What great timing as it turned a miserable drive into a slightly less damp miserable drive.

Vietnam is a long and narrow north to south formed country. Because of the narrowness (in one part 50kms) there is only one major thoroughfare (NH1A) that extends the almost whole 1600kms. What that means is you have the majority of traffic on one road. In other words, it is one big scary drive. Trying to keep sane for 8-10 hours with huge trucks not acknowledging your existence, F1 race cars camouflaged as buses, passenger cars playing chicken, other motor bikes like swarms of bees, and freakin school kids riding their bikes four across talking about what just happened on 90210 without a care in the world as the world around them verges on total destruction. Fortunately, due to the Vietnam War, there exists sections known as the Ho Chi Minh trail that were nothing more than pathways through the jungle where North Vietnamese hand carried, pedaled, and four-wheel drived supplies south toward victory. In these areas there are parallel north to south highways that are used less extensively and therefore make very pleasant alternative routes.

My route was to traverse through the Central Highlands using the Ho Chi Minh Trail and therefore bypassing the death route. Immediately upon leaving the NH1, the whole atmosphere changes and my stress level dropped to below urination in the pants. The scenes become more ruralized with farms end to end. This region is known as a coffee belt and at this moment every available flat piece of ground is being used to dry coffee beans. It also is hilly curvy and bunches of fun.

First stop was Buon Ma Thuot, the pretty much end of the war battle was fought here which signified victory for the VC and Northern Vietnamese. My life changing experience was the initiation of spring rolls. Next to the hotel is a row of spring roll houses. I was out looking for my usual meal of pork and rice but couldn’t find any. On the way back I figured that I would stop by the non-descript restaurant and see what they had to offer. I wasn’t sure what they served but as soon as I sat down it was quickly apparent as four young guys working there started bringing over plates of stuff. Soon, I had a tabletop full of plates stacked high with foreign substances. Fortunately for me the mamasan came over as I kind of sat there looking at the array of food laid before me without a clue of what I was supposed to do with them. She showed me that you take the half circle wax paper like rice paper, place a leaf of standard lettuce, a twig of some nasty medicine tasting leaves, slices of two types of cucumber, a slice of seedy peppers, finely sliced green onions, a piece of pork, a crispy rice paper chunk, a few pickled onions, slices of garlic, and a dollup of pepper paste. Roll the concoction and then dip it into the bean paste sauce. Pretty damn good texture and flavors. A bit complex for a newbie as the thing I rolled kept falling apart, and my rolls were more lumpish than a roll. Overall though, the stuff has to be as healthy as can be as it was mostly all straight from the ground veggies. Good stuff and all for about $1.50..

The next section of the ride was on the actual HCMT although it is now a nicely tarred highway. It was more hilly windy roads with farmlands and wild lands making up the scenery. Small and medium size towns lined the way so you are rarely out of civilization. The effects of Agent Orange were still prevalent as you can see whole hill sides picked clean with only dead grass covering the scarring. In hind sight, I do understand the philosophy especially after seeing how small the tunnel openings could be. Just finding an opening where you could take a pee was difficult in the jungely areas. One impression that I did get was that it was actually similar to Nepal.

My next stop was the small town of Kon Tum. I targeted this town as it was a relaxed little town next to a river. Locally there were a few old villages with a variety of ethnic Montagnard groups, rong houses, and other sites strewn around the hill town. I was wanting to spend a few days somewhere to get out of the hustle and bustle of the resort towns where I had been staying. I found a new guest house with really nice accommodations and spent the next couple of days riding the dirt trails around the town, searching out little food stalls, and watching the sunset along the river. A nice relaxing stopover.

Phuoc Son was a midway point between the central highlands and back to the beach. I could have done the whole drive in a day, but I was in no rush and this last leg was right in the middle of the most picturesque parts of the route. The road took me above a few high passes that rose as high as the clouds. It was also freezing and I decided that it was not going to be a comfortable ride through North Vietnam. Once I reached Phuoc Son, I was very surprised to see Minsks all over the place. It was like being a foreigner and then finding a remote village with a bunch of relatives. No longer was I a freak riding a smoke bellowing, noisey, dirty, farm equipment, but I was now one of the boys. What I learned is that my Minsk is actually one of the new high tech sport Minsks with a special suspension and new tech motor. The local Minsk guys were checking out the ride just like the Beemer back home. It was nice to finally be around like minded persons. There were three Minsk repair shops all on the road next to my guest house. I ended up picking up some spare cables and levers. It was cool just hanging out at a café and seeing all these different Minsks running by. I liked it and it made me look forward to getting to the north where the Minsk is even more common. One cool thing I saw was that many of the guys had mud chains on their Minsks which made them look hardcore. Hopefully I get to a point where I might need those things.

And after a quick ride back to the NHIA, I was again on the psycho roads but quickly off again as I was heading for the tourist beach town of Hoi An.

1. Snarky - Glad to hear you survived yet another scrape. Be glad you’re not in America right now, everyone acts as though the apocalypse is here. Obama is expected to be the saviour, snap his fingers and make American live long, prosper, and rule the world again.

Steve: Yea- it sounds pretty rough. Over here things seem to be pretty quiet as I don’t think the tourist level persons understand what is going on around the world and how it is going to affect them. Now is the beginning of high season but I don’t think the effects will be understood until the beginning of the New Year when people have not shown up like they expected. At the moment it is very light on the tourist trail (or at least I feel it is as I don’t know what it was like.) It may suck for the world, but for me it is fortunately good timing, the dollar is flying high so I got about a 25% raise in the last three months, there is plenty of competition for my business so bargaining is easy and I am getting upgrades for nothing. Costs are definitely low with me doing minimal tourist stuff, eating at my fav food carts, and having my own transportation. In regards to Obama, good luck. He was definitely the best candidate and his election has bumped the status of Americans again, but as usual he will start off strong but with peoples expectations and low attention span/understanding, they will turn on him as things won’t be golden within three months of his taking office. People would rather bitch and whine rather than affect change. I really don’t involve myself in politics as I don’t care who is in office as I am going to do what I need to do to get what I want. If you rely that much on other people to affect your livelihood then it is your fault for allowing others to rule/control your life.

2. Marisa - Certainly did sound like a story of Bad Luck, Good Luck, Bad Luck, Good Luck.
I truly think folks that travel have a type of Luck that bounces around like a rubber ball and they have to be flexible to catch it.

Steve: Yea- flexibility is a must although my conceded self would say skill rather than luck. One of the things that makes me successful in this traveling game is problem solving skills. That and luck.

3. Dan - Yikes! Bad luck, good luck. Glad it all evened out for you. Just a note, though: you have duplicated the text. Make one more proof-reading pass. Hope you have a good holiday season, whatever that is where ever you might be at the end of the year.

Thanks Dan, good catch, although proper grammar on this site is a bit rough. My excuse is that I am “keeping it real” as traveling is not as refined (day 17 without washing the boxers).

4. Mel - Dear Steve, you have a wonderful site, great pictures and stories.
But this is to inform you that you identity has been stolen (probably from this very website, including the copy of your Cuban passport) and used by some con artists for an internet fraud. They use an e-mail address — nksteven@hotmail.com that I suppose is not yours. If you are interested what they were planning to do under your name please let me know and I can resend their mails to you.
Best regards,
Mel

Steve: Very interesting. I got your e-mails, cheeky bastards. Buying a house using a fake identity with a stolen fake identity. Thanks for the pass along and hope you sell your house (to someone that gives you real money).

5. Marisa - Cambodia sounds wonderful to me. Thanks for the food photos.

I really look forward to getting back to Cambodia as Thailand and Vietnam are pretty mainstream. Cambodia still has that bit of edge to it that I like. Food is fabulous and is the main thing keeping me moving.

6. Charlie Brazilian - Hey steve, how’s it going? So you’re arond thailand with a ‘new’ bike? it sounds cool, fucking cool.
Man, i was looking for your email address here but i couldn’t find it. I’m going on a trip through south america for 2,5 months. I have about half of it already worked out. Flying from sao paulo to lima, peru and going through ecuador to colombia to attend a wedding. Then comes the complicated bit for which i thought of asking you for some tips. I’ll get into venezuela from colombia and i’m thinking of going across through guyana, suriname and french guyana and back to brazil where the amazon river meets the sea. Question is, did you go across the borders or you flew into guyanas and suriname? Google maps doesn’t show any roads in those countries. I’m not flying cos i haven’t got much money, all gonna be done by bus. Do you reckon i’ll be able to go across by bus? Any tips? I have ordered the south america on a shoestring but it hasn’t arrived yet. Have just started going through the thorn tree forums. Gimme a hand please?!
Some more six months until you get home or gonna postpone it a bit?
Crack on mate.
Charlie

Steve: Charlie, thanks for the compliment on the bike (the first and only). I love South America. Would love to be there now. In regards to your plan, when I was there the border was being disputed between Ven and Guyana and therefore no crossing was allowed. What I had to do was go from Ven to Northern Brazil and then cross into Guyana. It was all very easy by public transport. I did it all by shared taxis. The other trouble area was getting from the west of Guyana to the east coast where the main road heading south is. There was a one a day bus but when I was there it had a broken axle. I ended up flying across instead. The bus was like a rough 14 hours but gets you right through the jungle. The rest is fairly basic as there is one main highway that heads through Suriname and French Guyana down to Brazil. French Guyana is very expensive so be prepared (more costly than visiting the French islands and uses Euros). The border of French Guyana to the first port town where you can catch a boat down to Belem was 14 hours of brutal hell in a four wheel drive truck. I would pray there is a new road. From there it was all river boat transport (fun/boring). The LP shoestring was pretty good but if you can pick up an old version of country specific guidebooks (doesn’t matter what company) they help because they include a lot more of the smaller towns as well as maps Also, the sights and majority of info doesn’t change even after 5+ years. I still do it that way now. The new one is important as it gives more up to date visa and cost info. Let me know if there is anything else you need. I really enjoyed all my SA adventures. Oh yea, you are going to spend a lot of time in hammocks so if you are into traveling light you might bring a compact high tech one from home, if not they sell woven local styles all over but they are a bit bulky and heavy (pretty though).

7. michael - steve we miss you a loooooooooooooooooooooot
we are back in israel traying to make a living after a long piriot of traveling (well compere to you it is not so long)
it is very very nice and butifull what you r doing here. i like it very much.
send us your e mail ( is it - snw2srf2stt@yahoo.com).
miss you very muche michael & edith.
p.s. if you have more pictures of us please send us.

Steve: Hey Michael and Edith. I sent you an e-mail but if you are not getting them that is my correct e-mail you listed. The pictures unfortunately are gone (frick). My hard drive crashed and I lost them all including my ride back to Manali. I am keeping the hard drive so when I get back home I can try and pull the pics off of it. Keep in touch and hope things are well in Israel.

8. Mulualem - I want to live in sudan I have BSc degree in computer science from Arbaminch University which is in Southern part of Ethiopia.I have no maney to get visa or any thing that I can travel though. so what shall I do pleace tell me.I Want to live in sudan.Give me suggestion.

Steve: Sorry, I don’t have much that I can help you with. My only suggestion would be to stick with Khartoum as the rest of the towns in Sudan would not have as much opportunity. If it were me I would head south to Kenya, South Africa. Other than that my knowledge of living in Africa is pretty much nil. Good luck.

9. JoeBoo
Hey, dingleberry, easy on the old white guys… Old white guys gotta get some luvin’ too, so why not from anorexic Asian chicks from the sticks of Thailand?

Steve: Dingleberry? I prefer to go by my porn name of Shuttlecock. No worries, I am all for prostitution. If a hot Russian babe wants to pay me lots of money to have sex with her, hell yea. Sold. For your info, the prostitution thing is pretty crap in Vietnam as all I get is propositions by moto taxi guys “Massage? Boom Boom?” I keep telling them that I am not interested in having sex with moto taxi guys.

My target for the whole first part of this journey has been Saigon primarily to get my motorcycle fixed. It was a constant drag on the trip as I was constantly worrying about breaking down and not being able to get it fixed. Of course the wreck both hurt and helped as it got me to Saigon in a hurry and probably cut off a few days travel time. And now, Sasha is up and running at about 80% (give or take as I don’t know what a good running Minsk is supposed to feel like.)

After such a stressful 24 hours, I felt like a need to spoil myself so I splurged a bit and got a $10 room which had air-conditioning, real hot water, refrigerator, satellite tv, and wi-fi. It was the most accessorized place that I have had in a looooong time. But hey, I paid my dues and with the cost savings I received for the transport and the repairs I easily broke even for the week that I stayed.

The first couple of days I really didn’t do much as I was hurting pretty good and I was needing to find out what was going to happen with Sasha. I spent the day hanging out at the hotel using all my accessories with the occassional jont to the outside of the tourist area for some street food. One new food that has cropped up is in thanks to the French who were here, was the baguette. Somehow it got adopted by the Vietnamese and has become a staple snack food. It is another one of the cart foods which brings them front and center on my menu. My dinner consisted of two with laughing cow cheese, one Vietnamese special which was a mixture of pate’s and veggies, and one Schwarma like baguette I got from a special cart I found in the tourist sector. That and a bottle of Coke of course.

Once I got the happy news about Sasha I figured that I should get back to my duties as a tourist and see a few things. For those without the know, Vietnam was the setting of a big civil war which the United States participated in. North Vietnam and the Communism side won that war but at a pretty high price for both sides. Saigon was the pretty much symbolistic end of the war and therefore has a few of the more noteworthy tourist destinations.

Since I was a bit rusty doing the tourist thing, I figured I would do a couple of smaller things first then follow up with a full on tour package. Outside of the usual temples and markets, Saigon has two major must sees. First is the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes but for the sake of tourism money we will call it the War Remnants Museum. Basically it is an often one-sided view point of the Vietnam War but with the neutrality being that war is hell and unfortunately it is the local people or innocent bystander which get caught up and victimized the most. I was really targeting seeing this Museum as on my world tour I have missed two significant Museums, the Apartheid Museum in South Africa and the Genocide Museum in Rwanda. The following day I hit the other significant spot which was the Reunification Palace. For me it was like a really big outdated Holiday Inn with pretty much same 1970’s style motiff. What it is really known for was the formal surrender of the South Vietnamese Government on the morning of 30 April 1975 when Communist tanks rammed the gates and entered the complex. It was a dramatic scene recorded by photojournalists and shown around the world.

North Vietnamese Officer who entered the room where the Head of State was waiting with his improvised cabinet: “What’s up?”

General Minh: “What’s up?”

The most interesting parts that I found were the underground tunnels which housed the war room and communication centers and the roof where they had laid out two big bullseyes where in 1962 the President was so hated that his own air force bombed the place trying to kill him. Pretty hilarious.

Intermixed with all this information gathering I spent some time in the Ben Thanh Market as this was my breakfast and lunch spot. It was also a good place to girl watch as it was blatantly marketed with pretty girls working in all the stalls. The food layouts were pretty close to Thailand so it was a good place to plump up a bit. I also spent a few hours a day just relaxing in one of the many tree lined parks just people watching.

For my ultimate tourist experience I decided to take a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels. It is actually in a suburb of Saigon but with Saigon being massive, it is roughly 70 kms on the other side of town. Even though Sasha was up and running again, I wasn’t, so I shelled out the $5US for the tour. One thing about travel in Vietnam, it is actually way cheaper bussing it then any other transport. With this package, it included transfer and a guide. Entrance was another $5US, so in all it wasn’t too bad for a half day experience.

The Cu Chi tunnels are a vast 250km interwoven catacomb of tunnels used by the VC to reek havoc on US and South Vietnames forces around Saigon. Reading about them is one thing, but to actual see and use them (although the tours involve visiting enlarged tunnels to fit the massive Western tourist), brings a whole new sense of understanding. A basic description is a shoe box sized opening which were entry points and also easily camoflauged. The tunnels were dug at levels roughly 3-6-9 meters deep with different rooms dug out for a 24/7 lifestyle under ground. The reasons they were so effective was the old brains before brawn. For every style of attack the Americans mounted, the VC countered it with some sort of ingenious counter measure.

Troops- camoflauged entrances as well as escape tunnels that allowed them to escape any incursions.
Overhead bombing- build chambers in a pyramid fashion which creates self supporting pockets.
Tunnel rats- Booby traps
Dogs- wash with American soap and wear leave American worn clothes around entrances.
Agent Orange- The following fires to eliminate the dead cover mixed with the humidity created rain which put out the fires.
Carpet bombing the whole area- that worked but it was too late and the war was over.

The area of Cu Chi and the people became a highly celebrated win for the New Government of Vietnam.

Our tour started now with tunnels, but with the usual “detour” to a “government” sponsored “handicap and victims of agent Orange” workshop. There we are given a half an hour to watch how them make artwork and are able to purchase souvenirs from a huge showroom. Fun. After that detour we were taken to the tunnels where our bus full with guide in tow were shown examples of the tunnel network. It was really funny when we were all standing around a big bamboo spiked trap with a fence around it (to keep the tourists from falling into it). A lady actually asked if it was an actual trap and how could the soldiers fall into it when there was a fence around it. Oh that shook me to my core. We were then taken to the firing range for some artillery action. No there is no bazookaing a buffalo or shooting an old man. It is basically a souvenier shop with an attached shooting range. I opted for a M60 as you gotta do stuff that you aren’t able to do anywhere else. I hear there are other places in Cambodia, but at least this will get it out of the way. One of the better experiences were when we were allowed to do a 50M stretch of tunnel. Pretty damn cramped and this was the westernized version. The ones who did it were in their for probably three minutes and when we got out it was a huge sense of accomplishment. Pretty damn amazing how the people persevered (they must have been pretty pissed off). With that we were done and taken back to the tourist zone. It was a decent experience and a must see to at least get a tiny grasp of what it was really like.

And Saigon was done.

Ben Thanh Market with the food stalls where I ate brekkie and lunch.

Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes.

Seafood stalls.

The Reunification Palace.

I’m in the beach resort town of Nha Trang….eating, sleeping, watching satellite tv, surfing the web with free wifi and occasionally dragging my ass down to teh beach. It was all good for a while until I learned that it gets cold in North Vietnam. And when I mean cold, I mean in the mountainous region there could be snow. Yea, I know, snow. What the hell. I don’t want to buy a jacket. Crap.

Well, there’s not much else I can do so I adjusted the old plan a bit. I was sort of moving a bit fast as I was thinking that I might get done with Vietnam in a month so as not to have to leave and then come back (visa issues). But now after surfing the net I have learned that it isn’t difficult to extend the visa so now time is not an issue. The weather on the other hand is something that I am not going to be able to alter. It is going to be cold until April. I figure that I will just man up one more time and be slightly uncomfortable doing the Northern Vietnam route. Now if its rainy thats a whole different story.

For now, I am going to start heading inland to jump on the Ho Chi Minh trail through the central highlands. I am targeting to be at the DMZ around Christmas and new year which will make it right at one month, extend my Visa and then have one more month to finish Northern Vietnam. From there I can cruise all the way back down Laos back to Cambodia and then back up through Thailand to the north and then back down to the beaches and islands. Piece of cake. So thats the plan well at least thats todays plan.

Oh look at how green everything is. Wow, the Mekong Delta is pretty much rice paddies and canals. This is pretty nice with smooth roads and minimal traffic. Damn, Sasha is making some noises that can’t be good. Thank god there are lots of road signs, the writing is in Vietnamese and English text, and the map is fairly accurate. Great, that sign shows that I take the left hand split to my next destination, cruisinnnnn. Hmmm, that dude just pulled out of the other lane and is now coming directly at me. (Internal warning light starts flashing at 30%). Hmmmm, were going head on and what the hell, he’s on his cell phone. (Internal warning light starts flashing at 40%). Damn, we are both running pretty fast, and were getting pretty close, better refer to the “Surviving Vietnam Roadways Rule Book.) Let’s see Chapter one: There are no rules. Chapter two: Take the bus. Chapter three: Travel Insurance, a great idea. Chapter four: Don’t forget Chapter one…. Chapter nine: Sub-section four: Sub-heading nine: Paragraph six: Rule 288, “When two motorcycles end up in a head on situation, the person who initiated the collision is the direction that both drivers should follow through on.” Okay, no sweat, I’ll just hang in my current direction as since he initiated this mess, he must have a plan. Hmmmm, were still going head on and really fast. 60…90%. Shiiiiiit. Ouch. Stupid Road Rule Book.

So there I sat, a bit stunned but the sun was still bright (I didn’t see stars), I could see my hands although my right hand was aching (arms and hands, very important), I’m still calculating stuff (heads still working), no pool of blood (liquids staying in the body are important, plus it meant I didn’t pee on myself), and if I could get Sasha off my leg I could tell if I could still walk without a crutch. People were coming out to look but nobody was coming over to help. Bastards. Finally an older lady came out of her house and saw that I was stuck and helped to lift the bike off my leg. I looked over at the other guy and saw he was up (with the cell phone still stuck to his ear) but he had a trickle of blood running down his face. Even he didn’t come over to help. He just picked up his moped, pushed it over to the side of the road and took off on another guys bike. A few people finally came over and started checking out the accident. I expected there would be throngs of people, but I guess it is such a re-occuring circumstance that it doesn’t even rank as an interest. One of the people who stopped was a moto taxi guy and he seemed to take control and helped me to pick up pieces of the bike. We took a look and Sasha was done. The right hand side of the bike had taken the brunt of the hit and all the components were gone. Front brake lever and bracket were sheered off, throttle cable dangling, header pulled out of the motor, metal generator cover ripped off, both foot pegs gone, brake pedal twisted, both signal lights gone, and clutch lever and bracket snapped off. The guy pointed to a couple of shops around the corner and we rolled the bike over. I knew already what was going to happen. They were going to look at it, not have a clue, and give me a wave off. I was shooting for my own plan which was to plead my case and by using hand signals and drawings if I had to, was to get them to let me leave the bike their for a day or two so that I could figure out how to either get the bike the 200kms up to a shop that may or may not exist, or for me to go up 200kms to Saigon to a shop that may or may not exist, pick up parts that the possible shop may or may not have, and then come back, fix up the bike so that it is runable and hopefully drive it back up to the shop that may or may not exist. The part that really sucked was the may or may not exist shop. Well, all of it sucked, but it would just really suck if I put in all this work just to get to some place that didn’t exist. The other option I dabbled with was just walking away. I could just walk away and get on the next bus that came by and be back to sitting on my ass from point A to B. The first shop pretty much started waving before we got there. The next shop was a little bit more hospitable and the owner even spoke a little bit of English. The moto guy told him what happened and the guy took a look at the bike and told me he couldn’t fix it. He said that I had to ship it to Saigon. That was fine for me. I asked if I could leave the bike there and he had no problem with it. He tried to explain to me where to go to get transport, but I was already on my stage two which was to get back into town (I was about 7 kms out of town), and to find a room as I needed to take a shower and lie down. Finally, we came up with a plan that I understood. I would leave the bike there, head into town and find a hotel, and then make arrangements to have the bike picked up and taken to Saigon. He flagged down a moto taxi guy, his wife came out and told the driver which hotel to take me to, and the guy explained to the guy what to do and wrote me a letter in Vietnamese that would explain what I needed so that I could show it to the transport guys. With that, I grabbed my bags and headed off.

The moto guy took me into town and right to a nice little guest house. He arranged a room and explained to the people what was going on. At that point I think I went into shock a bit as just standing there at the reception desk I started to feel woozy, I started to sweat, and I felt like puking. I had to walk outside and lay down on the steps for a few minutes before my head cleared. The moto guy hand gestured for me to stay there and took off coming back in about twenty minutes. I thanked him heartily and he took off. I went to my room, took a cold shower and just laid in bed, letting the stress and shock of the day roll off. I even gave a celebratory fist shake in the air.

After a bit of emotional recovery, I started planning out what I was going to do. Being a calculating freak, I started sketching out in my mind the things that I had to do as well as my options. My initial plan was to hide out in my room for a week, but the tv only had local channels so I wasn’t going to hang around. I was starting to delve with leaving the bike and just heading to Saigon by bus and bringing back the parts, but that would be very risky as I didn’t know how much internal damage was done and Sasha was already a step away from dying even before the crash. I hadn’t eaten that day so I figured I would take a walk around and see if I could at least find a truckers area or somebody who had a truck. The town center wasn’t very large so I found a little eating area. While sitting there I started thinking about what I needed to get the bike shipped. Since I didn’t have the address of the place in Saigon, it would be hard to explain to a shipper what I wanted to do. I had to find a internet café. A few weeks earlier I had posted a question on a Minsk Club web page and a guy had sent me the address of the one place in Saigon but it was a year prior that he had gone and wasn’t sure if it was still open. The second shop that is listed on the website was no longer there. I found a café, got the address and went off looking for a shipping place.

I figured since time was an issue I would grab a moto guy and have him help me. I flagged down a guy and he knew where to go. We headed off and he took me to the local bus station. I thought it was a good idea until the bus companies waved me off saying they wouldn’t do it. He then made a call and took me to another place which was a private taxi. The guy agreed to take me for a price of 500,000D. I just had to be there that night at 7pm and we would pick up the bike on the way. Problem solved. The only worry was that we would arrive in Saigon at 2am to some point which I had no clue. I figured that I might as well get this out of the way asap and get on with life. Off to the hotel I went to take a rest and to think things through.

I ended up paying and having a ten minute mime conversation with the family trying to get them to understand that there was a possibility that I might be coming back. After that I headed over to the taxi office. Once I got there I knew it was turning a bit shady as the owner was giving me the shit eye. It’s the same eye I have seen hundreds of times when people look you up and down trying to figure out how much they could rip you off. Now that they saw that I was serious, they started to inquire about the bike. Again, the Russian Minsk is not easily described so they got it into their heads it was a big import bike and the price went up to 700,000D. I quickly declined and suggested that I would check out some places the next day and if I couldn’t then I would go with them. They then suggested that I just go to Saigon with them, get settled, find the shop, and then they would bring the bike up later dropping it off at the shop. That sounded perfect. We made arrangements for me to show up the next morning at 7am and they would take me into Saigon. Bam, I had a pretty sound plan. At worst, it was a scam and they didn’t follow through. I could come back on my own to sort things out or I could just walk away. With that I went back to the hotel and got re-settled.

The next morning about 5:30am I was woken by a knock on the door. It was the moto driver that first brought me into town. Being so early I was thoroughly confused. He kept telling me to get dressed and that we had to leave. I finally realized who he was and thought back to when the shop owner was explaining to him what needed to be done. I guess he was told to make all the arrangements for me. I was still hesitant but when I showed him the business card with a picture of the taxi van he kept motioning that he had a big truck. Finally I understood that he had made arrangements for me the prior day. Well, I figured after the “how much can I rip off this guy” look I got from the taxi shop maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to go with this guy especially since the shop owner was the only one that seemed trustworthy. I decided that I had time to check it out so I packed up and we headed off. Sort of disappointed he took me back to the bus station. I didn’t feel like trying to explain that I had already tried so I just followed him around. He went up to one of the big beat up locals buses and had a talk with the ticket sellers standing out front. They just nodded approval and the moto guy took me to the ticket counter. I was still questionable and went back and handed over the letter the shop owner gave me and they again nodded approvingly and even pushed me to the ticket counter. I showed the lady at the ticket counter the letter and she also nodded approvingly which basically sealed the deal. I bought the ticket, tipped the moto guy and got on the bus. After a short wait for the bus to fill we were off. I was actually feeling pretty good with so many people acknowledging no problem. I gave the address to the drivers helper and they again nodded knowingly where the place was. I mimicked that it was at a split in the road and again they nodded knowingly. I was happy at how things were going but I was still hesitant to celebrate until the bike was on the bus. Half an hour later, much longer than what it should have been we pulled over to a pick up point. The girl asked me for the paper and she ended up calling the shop keeper. Apparently we had passed the place. Crap. The girl gave me the paper back and signed me not to worry. I saw one of the helpers jump on a moto taxi and take off, but I was resigned to the fact that possibly the bike would arrive some time later on a different bus somewhere in Saigon. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. We headed off. About a half an hour later we pulled into another pick up point where we stopped for a while as they were loading up about a hundred chickens. While I was staring out the window I noticed what looked like a Minsk, identical to mine, go zooming down the road. I thought that was pretty cool. Then I heard the guy screaming and yelling with his feet sliding on the ground as he tried to stop. All the guys were laughing like crazy as they ran after him. They had towed Sasha all that way with no brakes. Fucking crazy, hilarious, and awe inspiring. Within minutes they had hoisted the bike on the roof and we were off. It was then when I sat back, smiled, and just shook my head at how things were working out.

Even though things were working out, a huge part of the puzzle still had to be worked out and would probably be the hardest. Getting transport for the broken down bike from a place I don’t know to a place that I didn’t know existed or not. It further got more complicated when the bus pulled off the side of the road at the outskirts of Saigon and they told me that I should get off here. Ah shit. I couldn’t argue as they had done me right so far and here or there I still wasn’t going to know where I was at. I spotted some moto taxi guys waiting at a stand so I figured at the worst I leave Sasha and get a ride into town to the hotel area where I could at least drop off the bags, find the moto place, and then make arrangements. I ended up paying 300,000D for the bike transport so I ended paying around half the amount the other guy wanted. I quickly flagged over one of the moto guys and he turned out to be a blessing. We initially tried to flag down a moto cart guy but none of them were willing to take the bike. The guy helped me to move the bike and my stuff to their umbrella waiting area and then he started making some calls. One hopeful part was that when I showed him the address of the shop he at least knew where the street was, that was a good sign. Since it was early afternoon, I figured I would try and go directly to the shop and just hope the place was there. After a hour wait, his friend with a moto cart came by and we hoisted the bike into his wood cart. Off we went looking for this needle in a haystack. The traffic was pretty crazy, but after about a half an hour of driving we found the place. It was open and the guy was a true Minsk mechanic. He told me to leave the bike and to come back the next afternoon. I thought he understood that I just wanted him to come up with a price estimate as if it was prohibitively expensive I would have just given it to him, but the next day when I went back everything was done. He had fixed everything. He handed me the bill and it was about $50US. Hell, I couldn’t have been happier. Since he had done such good work I even left the bike another day and had him do some other not so critical repairs.

To celebrate my twenty-four hour crash to repair, I ended up getting a nice air-conditioned, satellite tv room, and then stopped by the store to get a 1.5L bottle of Coke and a bag of cookies. I had done it. Life was back to being good again. Two days later the pain kicked in and now I have these new bone clicks in my chest and hand, but slowly the pain is going away. And through all that, I’m still ready to ride.

I think I am going to patent that saying, I’m sure nobody else has. Well, after a smashing relaxing time in Cambodia, I had to get the bike worked on as it was starting to sound a bit scary. I lucked out and got through another border crossing with nary a hitch and again found another fairly pleasing border town. I think I am going to alter my travel habits if this is going to be a continuing thing. Spend a day or two at the border town to get acclimatized to the new country before heading farther in. Stuff like understanding the new money and local costs for items, getting a sampling on local food differences between countries and if possible language and customs issues. That way, when I get into the bigger towns I am comfortable and running smooth. The border town by the way was named Ha Tien. Another non-border feeling town which was on a river inlet next to the Gulf of Thailand and from where I would start heading inland.

Even though the Asian countries were fairly close to each other (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) they really are very distinct countries. Immediately things became more modernized (compared to Cambodia) but still not close to Thailand. Even the food jumped back up in variety and style, again though not to the standard of Thailand. One good thing is that I have not picked up any of the languages so I pretty much broke even on that part.

I did run into a unique quality that distinguished itself from my other travels. As soon as I crossed over the border I ran into a couple of girls wearing those shiny white ao dai (pronounced ow-zai in the north and ow-yai in the south) It is the national dress of Vietnamese women and consists of a close fitting tunic with long panels at the front and back, which is worn over loose trousers. If you have watched the movie Good Morning Vietnam, the girl that Robin Williams chases after wears one of the outfits. They come in different colors much like what you mind find in India or the Middle East and their Sarees, but the white is extremely beautiful. To see the girls wearing the Ao Dai and riding their old school bikes sitting in straight back yoga posture is just plain mesmerizing.

From there I headed inland on my way to Ho Chi Minh city or Saigon (old school name) where hopefully the lone Minsk mechanic is still in business as the next possible city with a Minsk mechanic is almost 500 kms away.

And then I got in a wreck.

It was a pretty quick couple of week run along the Cambodia coast line to Vietnam. I was pretty pressed not for time but because of the health of Sasha. Things were getting bad as the gear box started to click, clunk, and then knock.

The crossing from Thailand to Cambodia was actually one of the nicer stops along the way. I was a bit worried at the border crossing (like usual) as I was now in possession of a Vietnamese bike registered to a Vietnamese local, which was brought into the country and registered with customs by a Spaniard, and now I needed to get it out of the country and into another country which still wasn’t the originating country. In thirty minutes I had passed through the gates with only a few window to window shuffles. Cambodia was even easier as they didn’t even bother with the bike. I even went back to the customs office twice just to be sure and they just kept waving me through.

On the other side of the Stung Koh Poi river is the border town of Krong Koh Kong. Usually border towns are pretty dirty and crap, but this was a pretty cool little town with a nice laid back vibe. I hit it just right with a Festival going on down along the riverside walk way. During the day I hooked up with a great little all meat food stall at the market so I spent breakfast lunch and dinner picking different types of meat dishes all with rice of course. It was nice to get some road time in a small town and to be able to just bounce around on Sasha checking out the local villages.

The next leg was going to be my most adventurous as it was about six to eight hours of driving with four major river crossings. From what I had read it meant the use of local boats to transport across the rivers. It was also a large stretch which was lined sporadically with small local villages. This worried me a bit as Sasha breaking down in the middle of nowhere seemed the only logical conclusion. Well, the ride turned out to be rather pleasant. The road was all nice and smooth, the rivers all had brand new bridges, and even though there were only small villages along the way, Sasha never hiccupped once.

Sihanoukville is a tourist resort beach town with a good mix of modernization, touristy, and laid back. I ended up staying there for a week as I wanted to do some beach time, use up some of the visa time I paid for, and I caught a cold. Probably the most interesting part of my time there was also attributed to having my own transportation and the ability to move my residence around. After a long drive I stopped in the first backpacker zone which was called Station hill. I guess back in the day it was the first location where the backpackers had set up shop. It was on top of the hill overlooking the ocean and the beaches. Now the new backpacker zone had moved down beachside to the area called Serendipity Beach and Station hill had turned into the area where local girls come to look for Old white guy love. Serendipity was your typical beach tourist zone where I spent most of the day at the local shacks lining the beaches eating, drinking, and being merry. I ended up meeting a girl who’s family ran a hut place at a secluded beach area called Occheuteal. There it was very secluded with only a few places and hardly anybody around. There I pretty much lounged around until I was healthy again.

Oh yea, Cambodia is known for its excellent off roading so I did take some time to do some dirt action. Have you ever watched on ESPN where those guys are doing those massive jumps like Supermans with a no hand tail grab or a hands free double back flip, and those racers that fire around a berm gunning it at the apex and kicking up dirt a hundred feet high. Well, I can’t do any of that. I can however maneuver down a dirt road pretty damn well. Still pretty fun though.

The next place was another relax spot, Kampot. Kampot is a French colonial influenced town which was built along side the Prek Kampong Bay River. Here again the thing to do is chill out. I spent a lot of time driving around the dirt roads which led to small fishing villages all along the river. Here I found another small local restaurant where I ate my meals, a sugar cane juice stand along the river where I quenched my thirst during the day, and a juice stall at night where I got a locals smoothie. Here also Sasha started to fall further into disrepair as bumping along the dirt roads caused the front shock seals to go and oil started to leak from the cylinders.

My last stop was the even sleepier town of Kep. Kep is where you go to hover around comatose without actually needing medical care. Sleepy it is not, comatose it is. It did however have seafood. Cheap and plentiful seafood. Wonderful, sea tasting seafood. One of the specialties of Kep is the crab. For about five bucks you get a medium size plate of boiled, fried, or baked crabs, rice, tea, and fruit. Good times.

And that my friends is Cambodia along its bottom side. Kind of boring if your reading it and not living it, but I guess who really likes watching other peoples vacation pictures (photos). Cambodia has some really cool stuff, hell they even have one of the Eight wonders of the world (The Temples of Angkor). They also have a big stretch of the Mekong, and some pretty cool jungly stuff. This is still just a get to a repair center for Sasha so I will be making another run through Cambodia so just keep an eye out in the upcoming months as I will be heading back through for a little more quality time.

Cambodia stuff off the cuff:
Cambodia is a bit more ruralish compared to Thailand. Off the main path things get pretty stickish really quickly.
The food reflects above. Definitely more scaled down versions but still very acceptable to me because it is very meat and potatoes (rice). The color and range of flavors drops but the fun at the stalls is the same.
This applies to both Cambodia and Thailand, the language is not a romantic tongue. Wow, does it give me the chalk board shivers when females are talking. I guess that there is a lot of inflections that have to be made as the same word can be spelled the same but the tone changes the meaning. I don’t know what it is but I get the same feeling as if I am nagged by a woman, it just makes me constrict.
Cambodia has no road rules.
They have their own money (Riel), but the dollar is widely used with the Riel given as change. Even the ATM’s give out dollars.
So far it has been a very budget oriented travel spot.

I wouldn’t say that “escape” would be the right word. I guess it was more “forced” to leave as I needed to get Sasha fixed up before she broke down permanently. My route was to cruise along the southern coastline to the Cambodian border. There are beaches along this route, but I was actually going to avoid them as the beaches and islands down South are much better. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do some beach time, there would definitely be some Cambodian and Vietnamese surf time, but I was just going to hold off on the Thailand stuff.

Getting out of Bangkok was tough. Out of all of it, the biggest thing I gained was that Sasha was going to be okay. My standards weren’t exactly high after Schwinn II, but after a full day of driving non-stop, I have learned to trust her. Things were going to be okay.

My first stop was the direct entry point to hell, Pattaya. So you haven’t been getting any lately (sex), tired of sleeping alone (sex), worried that your parts are going to rust (because of no sex), and you need some sex (sex). Well, Pattaya is the place to go. This is the ground zero for having sex with old white guys. I mean this place is like the Nirvana for the old white guy hots. There are fat old white guys, skinny old white guys, tall old white guys, short old white guys, hairy old white guys, bald old white guys, there are paraplegic old white guys, and quadriplegic old guys, hell, there are old white guys that I am fairly certain are clinically dead but because of the machines hooked up to them they are somehow still able to function. So if you are dripping at the loins thinking about an old white guy, go on down to Pattaya and get some of that old white guy stuff.

Next was Trat a quiet little town which is described as a “quiet little town”. The place was a gold mine for food. They had a great little market area with a food square which was top notch. I don’t know what it is about Thai food, but I’m hooked. They had a sit down area with a bunch of food carts to choose from. Along its border were two rows of food to go places. This was also my first foray into Thai sweets. One guy was selling a container of mixed sweets. They looked so good I had to give them a try. God I love this country. I have pretty much enjoyed all of the staple foods from every country that I have been. The major difference about Thailand is that there is such a huge variety. I don’t even mean a couple, I mean hundreds. The closest thing I can compare it to is an expensive sushi bar. Stuff is beautifully colored, flavors are mixed creating these vibrant explosive tastes, and it is all prepared hygienically. What’s my favorite? Pork fat. Oh man, where has this stuff been all my life. My staple meal is roast pork with rice. Usually what they give you is slices of marinated pork and along side it, some chunks of soft, melt in your mouth, luxurious pork fat. They pre-soak it in vitamins and minerals so its healthy too. Satellite tv and excellent food, Thailand is hard to beat. Oh yea, old fat white guys too if your into that.

Even with all that, I had to keep moving, so Cambodia, here I come.