Central Highlands

Random:

That leashed monkey just attacked that little boy who was playing with it. Gotta stay on your toes when playing with monkeys on leashes.

Saying my farewells to Natasha and Amy as they road the local bus home to Ho Chi Minh City from the beach town of Mui Ne, I loaded my pack, donned my helmet and mounted my steed. Heading north I rode the gorgeous and little-trafficked mountain roads up to the hill station of Dalat.

Built by the French Dalat is a beautiful, if touristy, city full of gardens, colonial architecture, and motorcycle tours. I met up with Brad as he had arrived the day before and met some other couchsurfers and travelers in a backpacker cafe. One of them, a young Canadian, Adrian, had just bought himself a Honda Daelum 125 cc motorcycle and he and Brad were leaving the next morning to ride through the highlands.

I expected to like Dalat, hoping it would be the vietnamese equivalent to the mountainous paradise of Darjeelng, my most favorite city in India. However I decided to just stay one day as the mountains were significantly smaller and less impressive than in the Himalaya (no surprise) and in an effort to catch back up with Brad and Adrian at some point.

With my one full day in Dalat I decided to skip all the normal tourist highlights and rode out to the nearby peak, Lang Bian, standing at 2200 meters. There is a road driven by tourist jeeps all the way to the summit, and plenty of Vietnamese tourists still on their Tet holiday to hire them, but there is also a trail.

Road up to Lang Bian from the nearby villages.

Taking off quickly I realized that riding a moto through the mountains of Vietnam is not the same as hiking them. I was short of breath after the first 45 minutes and had to sit on a rock, feigning good health so as not to embarrass myself in front of the two Dutch women were I had passed earlier. I mean they are Dutch, they don't have any mountains, I should be able to climb faster than they can!

Taking a break on my hike to the summit of Lang Bian. I realized I was not in the trekking shape.

In an attempt at saving face, I chatted with them as we walked slowly together the other hour up to the summit. Atop was a cafe, local ethnic minority villagers selling handicrafts and dozens of Vietnamese tourists. What was lacking was foreign tourists, and the two Dutch women and I became an attraction in and of ourselves.

On the summit of Lang Bian.

As I was chatting with one Vietnamese man I felt an arm across my shoulders and turned to see a beautiful young Vietnamese woman looking straight ahead, away from my face. Following her smile's trajectory I realized she was posing for a picture, and I was to be the other subject. I quickly capitulated, threw on my borrowed smile and allowed my picture taken. It was a very unique experience as that doesn't really happen in India as much. At least not with women doing the posing.

That night I had dinner with the Dutch women really had a great time. The conversation flowed smoothly alongside the Saigon beer until it was 1 oclock, and we had closed down the last open cafe in sight. Promising to see each other in Hoi An a few days later, we went to bed.

The next days ride was again gorgeous. Twisting through more mountains, skirting along acres of rice paddies, and fighting a side wind that threatened to push me off the road, or worse, into the sparse oncoming traffic, I made the 6 hour journey up to Buon Ma Thuot.

A roadside view from the ride from Dalat to Buon Ma Thuot

Another roadside view. This small girl found me fascinating as she watched me eat lunch from a foot away. No matter how hard I tried, however, I could not maker her smile.

A large and city, I found BMT not especially appealing and so after the customary time wasting of eating alone and using the internet I retreated to my cell of a room with one unusual comfort- satellite TV. I had planned to read my book until I fell asleep early, but alas, my weakness for western movies got the better of me. So ashamed as I am for the movie that I did watch, I can't even tell you here.

(Not quite as) early (as I had hoped) the next morning I set off for Kon Tum, again seeing similar scenery along the way and enjoying the ride more than the ultimate destination. (Perhaps that is because Evan's Journey IS the destination?)

A not-so-great shot of the ever present fields of rice paddies.

But that is not to say that Kon Tum is not a worthy place to stop. In fact, Adrian had stayed an extra day in the town, allowing Brad to get a day ahead of him, and allowing me to catch up. Arriving in the afternoon, I got a call from the Canuck and we drove out to a neighboring ethnic village before heading back into town for dinner.

A view out along the countryside from my hotel balcony in Kon Tum.

While we stopped and chatted along the one road village, local children began massing on the steps of a nearby building. Eyes fixed on the strange tall newcomers, the children whispered amongst themselves and a few became braver and braver until they were calling out to us, "Hello! What your name!?" apparently exhausting the group's English vocabulary.

Funny enough, a few even mocked us playfully by opening their eyes wide with their fingers demonstrating a foreigners large eyes. Adrian and I thought this a little shocking, yet innocent and hilarious so we called back playfully that they were horrible racists.

After some time the curiousity of the village rose to a point that a few adults came out to see what the buzz was about. And soon were being invited into a nearby house to share a cup of tea with an older woman who was the mother of the two girls who had tried to take pictures of us with their camera phones.

The older woman's sister spoke English and so she translated for us all night. After one small cup of tea we were asked to stay for dinner and politely accepted. While the one sister cooked, we were escorted to the English speakers house, met her grandson who lived with her and, oddly enough, watched the first half hour of the 1956 film The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, completely and loudly dubbed over by one Vietnamese man doing all the voices. A very strange and surreal experience.

After we ate a dinner of rice and, well, I'm not sure what the other stuff was, while sitting on the ground in the first house, we chatted some more. Adrian and I gracefully steered around comments about us marrying the 17 year old daughter, and asked about their families.

The sisters were two of 5 girls and 3 boys in the family. All the brothers have died, as have both of the womens' husbands. We were struck by how matter of factly people in Vietnam discuss the death of loved ones. I think it is just one more cultural difference that we were not expecting.

The English speaking woman told us of her daugther whose husband ran off with another woman and how she remarried a man from Dalat, moved there, and left her son to live with his grandmother. At some point during the night, the 17 year old pulled out her phone, dialed and handed the phone to the child. A huge smile materialized on his little dirty face and his eyes lit up with the life of love. His grandmother confirmed our suspiscion when she whispered to us that he was speaking to his mother. For the rest of the night, the brightness of that full and innocent smile never faded.

Eventually the night had worn on too long, and although Adrian and I were appreciative of the family's hospitality and warmth, we were ready to escape the long awkward pauses in conversation due to the language barrier. We thanked our hosts and promised to return if we ever came back to Kon Tum.

The next day Adrian drove north and east back to the coast and I stayed an extra day to rest in Kon Tum. I read for hours, slept for hours, spent hours on the internet, and only minutes driving through other adjacent villages. Truthfully I didn't return to the village from the night before because I didn't want to brave the inevitable awkwardness of the encounter alone.

Getting up at dawn the next morning, I made the long drive out to Hoi An on Vietnam's coast. This day's ride was the longest and most incredible of my journey. First the road wound us through a number of villages each with a large steep-roofed town hall staring down at me as I cruised by.

Typical village town hall. This one is near Kon Tum.

Then I ascended up into the clouds of a high mountain pass. For half an hour visibility fell to a dozen feet and I weaved slowly around the switchbacks honking my horn to warn nearby motorists and pedestrians of my presence. After the slow descent out of the cold fog, and long after I had donned both my pairs of pants, a hat, my new gloves and many layers of shirts and jackets, I turned east onto a small road that would take me to the coast. The scenery only became more spectacular.

The foggy haze gave way to vistas of high mountains encased in a thick shell of lush green jungle. Grey rivers flowed swiftly nearby, racing me towards the lowlands of the coast. As I descended lower, the narrow road itself eventually became enveloped in the jungle. For kilometers on end I cruised through the cool shade and moist but quickly warming climate of the surrounding greenery.

View from the Ho Chi Minh Road north of Kon Tum after I had descended from the cloudy mountains seen at the top of the picture.

Penelope posing on the side of a bridge on my way to Hoi An.

Another landscape from the same day's ride.

The town where I ate lunch. "Com" means rice and all I have to do to eat is stop at a small place with this sign outside.

Varied and sustained views ruled the day and won me over. A smile firmly rooted on my bearded face, I cruised the Ho Chi Minh Road and its tributaries, in search of exactly nothing else. This ride was to be the climax of my motorbike trip through Vietnam.

Random:

A fat dog in Hoi An. Don't worry. It was still alive at the time of the picture.

Tet Pictures!

So I've found out that Blogspot addresses are not available in Vietnam. Stupid communist countries. But apparently sometimes they work and so sometimes I can post.

So since I am BACK in Saigon again after a two week trip through the central highlands and to the coast with my moto, Penelope, I figured I would upload some more photos for your viewing pleasure. To follow in the next few days will be a synopsis of my time in Vietnam since Saigon.

Enjoy these pictures of my adventure with a snake on Tet:

A couple of charmers. Snake charmers. Or maybe snake harmers? See below.

What a great holiday! The woman is Natasha's sister, she was great and wanted us to come back. Eduard is the Spanish couchsufer next to me.

And there it is folks. That is a newly decapitated snake's blood being drained into a glass.


As you can see, I kept my cool and wasn't freaked out by the show at all.

I just like this picture of the guy holding the snake.

Mmmmm. A frothy, warm, snake blood wine cooler. My favorite on a sweltering SE Asian holiday!

Just to prove I'm not all talk.

And then there was some gutting and harvesting of organs.

Not everyone was into it as much as we were. Here is Amy, with her mom, our host, Natasha.

Yes. That is the cobra's still beating heart. At least my mom knows I'm eating healthy!

Snake meat. Tastes like chewy chicken! It is quite nice.

I guess you can say I liked it.

After lunch the family, some friends, and we went on a boat ride.

And... bumper cars? Yes bumper cars. I don't know why either.

Saigon

Sorry for the lull in posts, for the past few days I have been completely unable to get onto my blog.



When I last left you, I had bought my moto, Penelope, and ridden it to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam.



An early morning greeted Brad and I as we headed out to catch a few photos of the floating markets in the surrounding villages around Can Tho. After snapping some, we hopped back on our rides and headed north to Saigon. The road was packed and insanely chaotic but we arrived to the outskirts in one piece. After we found a map and figured out where our couchsurfing host lived we slowly made our way through the metropolis overrun by millions of motos.

Exhausted and dehydrated we were greeted with sudden hospitality by Natasha, our Aussie expat host and also by cold beer. Neglecting to drink water to hydrate, we continued drinking the local brews and then went out on the town. After meeting some more couchsurfers visiting the city, downing a lot more beer and eating dinner we made our way to a dance club that wasn't much more than a pub playing loud music. We made it back early in the morning and needless to say, weren't feeling so great the next morning.


The next day, Natasha and her daughter, Amy, joined me on the back of my moto for a tour of the city. I first drove us to a furniture store where Natasha bought a new couch and then an hour out to the other side of town where a beautiful park was purported to be. Of course since Tet- the lunar New Year, and for most the only holiday of the year equivalent to Christmas and New Year in one- was the following night, it was closed.


No matter, some more driving the three of us on my moto, and a quick stop to pick up a 2 kg bag of potatoes and we were home. Nothing has made me feel more like a local than driving a moto with 5 pounds of potatoes between my legs and three people squished into the space for two. It was a great day.


That night we had dinner downtown with some of Natasha's friends. This is the point when Brad began feeling sick. After a couple days and his fever hadn't broke, we took Brad to the hospital, got blood work and fortunately found out it was only the flu.


For Tet eve, Natasha, Brad, two other couchsurfers and I went out to a local restaurant. After a quick glance at the menu I knew I had my first chance to really experiment with some weird foods. So after some deliberation we decided on 5 dishes: Scorpians, cobra, crocodile, ostrich, and bull penis. Scorpians taste like horrible goo with an unchewable exoskeletal shell. Crocodile is good, ostrich is great (I already knew that), bull penis tastes like bad beef, and this cobra was too fishy in flavor and texture for me.


After our eclectic dinner we watched some fireworks and headed home although the streets were so packed full of motos that it was impossible to get a taxi to even take us for nearly 2 hours after the fireworks were over. It was really that unmovingly congested.


The next day Brad, Eduard- a Spanish CSer that was with us the night before- Amy, Natasha and I all piled into a taxi to go out to Natasha's vietnamese family's home outside of Saigon. (Its complicated, she was adopted and found her real vietnamese family after moving there 8 years ago.)


The previous night we had made a special request for lunch: fresh snake. Upon our arrival we were not disappointed. A 5 foot long live snake in a mesh sack. After our lunch of fried chicken and beer the real fun started. As cousins and obscure relations watched, Natasha's nephew-in-law cut off the head of the snake with scissors and held it vertically, draining the blood into a glass which already contained some red wine which Eduard had brought. After it was a 50-50 mixture, the glass of warm frothy goodness was handed first to me.


Fresh snake blood is warm and creamy and really not bad tasting. I had a couple sips and didn't cringe once, but despite the unexpected good taste, I got a bit queasy when thinking about what I was tasting on my lips.


Then the snake was gutted and its organs harvested for our gastronomical enjoyment. Apparently a snake has two hearts, one red and one blue. Because I have a big mouth, the still beating, larger, red heart was reserved for me and I gobbled it up with a beer chaser. I was told that eating snake blood and heart is good for strength of both a physical and intimate nature. I guess I wasted it.

The rest of the snake meat was cooked and truthfully was delicious, if tedious to tear away from the bones. It tasted like slightly chewier chicken. After we had had our fill we joined the family for a few hours in a nearby park/amusement area including a boat tour on a gorgeous lake and a quick ride on some bumper cars!

When we returned exhausted that night and Brad and I looked into our big day ahead as we were going to ride about 8 hours up to the mountainous town of Dalat, we made new plans. Choosing to include Natasha and Amy we decided to head east to the beach and spend a few days before heading up to Dalat.

The traffic the next morning was insane. Cars and buses hardly inched forward while a plethora of motos- including my own, again with 3 passengers- weaved through the traffic with more than a few close calls. After losing Brad more than once and finally reaching the beach resort town of Mui Ne, we couldn't even find accomodation due to the influx of domestic tourism during the Tet holiday which can last 2 weeks! Eventually we found an overpriced hotel and collapsed exhausted.

Over the next few days we enjoyed ourselves lounging and living the good life, sipping wine and eating western foods. We visited sand dunes and watched kite surfers. It was very relaxing. Finally on Monday morning, Natasha and Amy caught a bus back to Saigon and I headed north to meet Brad in Dalat.

My experience with Natasha and Amy was quite incredible. I'm sure without their friendship and hospitality we would not have had such an incredible time in Saigon and would have moved on much sooner.

I'm sorry I'm falling behind in my posts! Hopefully I will catch up tomorrow!

PP--> Vietnam!

Three days ago I spent my last day in Phnom Penh, and my last full day in Cambodia. After hours of uploading photos- see below- Brad and I walked around the city, wasted time in the market, went back, walked again and just lounged.

The next morning we caught our boat to Vietnam. It was a 6 hour journey from Phnom Penh south on the muddy Mekong river to the border and on to Chau Doc. Upon entering Vietnam, for the last 1.5 hours, the river narrowed to a small tributary and we passed old stilted houses and children playing in the water. Men washed their water buffalo, women washed the men's clothes, and children washed their frowns off their faces, offering us huge smiles and wildy waving arms. The sun was hot, but so was the scenery. It was fantastic.

We arrived in Chau Doc too late to catch the last bus to Can Tho, so we found a guest house. As we were dodging motos and checking out the street food- all of it DELICIOUS and CHEAP- we happend upon a Honda dealership and as we were scoping out some shiny silver scooters, a man and his cycle rickshaw stopped us.

"What you want?"
"Oh, nothing, just looking at the motos."
"You want moto?"
"Yeah, but cheaper. Second hand. You know where we can find some?"
"Second hand. Yes. My brother-in-law sells his. Come."

So we followed him across the small square to look at the moto that his brother-in-law was indeed eager to sell us, apparently because the new year is an expensive time and he has too many motos and not enough cash. We looked at the bikes not being too serious because he wanted $400 and there was only one. Just as we were making excuses to leave he says, I can find you one more tomorrow. A great salesman, Rick (because of the rickshaw and his complicated multisyllabic real name) convinced us to return the next morning promising he will find another bike.

The next morning we found him and he had three more bikes for us to look at. The original one was by far the nicest, as it was basically new. The same brother-in-law, I think he said he has 10, was selling the other nice one and after viewing all four we decided we liked those two. After some hard bargaining we agreed on a price, paid the men, and received a bill of sell in Vietnamese.

When we went across the street to have the receipt translated for us just to be sure, the man at the English book store told us the name was different on the deed card for the bike and the man that signed the receipt which makes it useless. But this was long after we paid them and they left. Shit.

So now we have bikes that we still think were sold legally to us. The deed cards match the motos' license plates, but the name is different from the bro-in-law who sold them to us. We think they were his own brother's or friend's bikes and he didn't know better than to sell the motos for them and sign the paperwork himself. So we might be screwed if we get pulled over by the police- BESIDES the fact we don't have drivers licenses and technically we are supposed to- and they ask to see our cards.

In practice not everyone has a drivers license so I'm not too worried about that, as for the other paperwork I figure I will let corruption, a good attitude, and my white skin get me out of any police encounters. The biggest threats are to my plans to take my moto into Laos and to sell it back sometime. Brad figures he will just sell it to someone on the black market in Hanoi for less money than we thought or we could forge a new reciept or something. SO stay tuned for that part of the trip!

Today, we rode our new motos the 116km to Can Tho, the closest city to a few of the nations biggest and best morning floating markets. The ride was excellent, good roads, easy steering and shifting and great brakes. I think we did well with our moto choosing. Lunch of a couple bowls of Pho on the way cost a total of $0.66 combined. Plus I got to sing in my helmet the whole way! AND, I've come up with a few names for my red 110CC moto:

First I dubbed her 'Penelope' because thats the name of Odysseus' wife in the Odyssey and she stayed faithful to him while we was on his adventures. So I can be Odysseus and my moto will be Penelope. But then I said but in the epic, his wife is at home not with him on his journey. So I said ok, shes my Intrepid Penelope, or getting slightly more clever, Intrepenelope. Say that 10 times fast. But she has some nicknames. An obvious choice for me that some of my friends will understand is "Afternoon Delight." From Penelope I could add a Cruise (which both sounds like Penelope Cruz the gorgeous actress AND like she cruises because, in fact, she does!). I also like, My Key to Free. Ill take other suggestions and run them by Penelope later if any readers would like to make them! Just leave a comment!


Tomorrow after visiting the markets early in the morning, Brad and I will make our trip to Saigon, 170km away. Braving the chaotic and crowded streets of the metropolis on our motos is a point of excitement and more than a little worry for us, but hopefully we will make it to our couchsurfing host's place unscathed and with a healthier appreciation for the graceful chaos of an Asian cities heavy traffic.