Vietnam Rap Up

As I am set to leave this beautiful country, I guess I should update on what I've been up to for the past two weeks. Sorry no pictures today.

After arriving in Hoi An on my moto, Penelope, I spent a couple days in the small city hanging out with Brad, Adrian and a few other friends. Apparently it is a nice place to visit, but for me, after coming from the tourist-free mountains and from the freedom of driving myself, the omnipresent jewellery shops, tailors and hassle was too much and I was itching to leave.

So I rode with Adrian up the coast 130 Km to Hue, another stop on the tourist track. This day started off nice but turned into the most miserable on the trip and sufficient enough to skew my intended plans.

As we left the major city of Danang, the 4th largest in Vietnam and on the coast between Hoi An and Hue, we have to cross a couple of short mountains passes. The first was a beautiful ride, although the clouds of the morning turned to mist, to drizzle, to rain before we reached the white out conditions at the top of the pass. Putting on some more clothes, we descended and continued on our way to Hue.

However as the weather got worse and worse, the adventure of the day turned into misery. After we ate lunch about 30 Km from Hue I decided to just head into town as fast as possible and threw down the throttle.

Just once I stopped to make sure Adrian was behind me as my tiny rearview mirror shows almost nothing. After 20 seconds I saw his big bike coming so I hit the throttle hard again and roared north through the wind and rain.

However when I stopped again at the outskirts of Hue, Adrian wasn't 20 seconds behind me. He wasn't 5 minutes, or 10 either. I found the place where he and I had agreed to meet if we got separated but he wasn't there and still hadn't appeared after an hour. I began getting worried that his bike broke down or worse, he had been in an accident.

Shivering from the cold and my drenched clothes sapping my body's heat, I booked a hotel, emailed Adrian to tell him where I was and to call me, and took a hot shower to warm up. I put both my soaked pairs of pants up to dry but of course it was days later before I was wearing dry pants again.

Finally as I watched news about the declared independence of Kosovo on CNN, my cell phone range. He was fine, but his bike, which he never named, was not. Hours later he had it towed into town (read: two bikes one rope) and came into the room sullen.

All the next day I pushed him around to repair shops and finally on the 4th shop he had been to they agreed that they could fix it for him. The mechanics identified some problem with his engine which would require hours and hours of work disassembling and reassembling the engine and replacement parts. For all this work, Adrian paid the amount of 315,000 Vietnamese dong. That amounts to just under $20. You gotta love the prices here.

So after that stressful day, Adrian and Sjoukje, a Dutch friend who Adrian had traveled with for awhile weeks before and who I had only met briefly, but who saw me in an internet cafe and joined us in our 4 bedroom hotel room, headed off to do some touristy site seeing, which apparently is nice, while I attempted to change my plans.

After looking at the weather forcast for the north of Vietnam (I was still only about halfway up) and finding that we could expect lovely days of cold and rain for the next two weeks, we abandoned our plan to visit the mountainous north before heading to Hanoi. Natasha, my friend in Saigon invited me back to her place and offered to by Penelope, so I was looking for a bus or train to put the bike and myself onto.

Of course this was very frustrating and took all day. However eventually I was aboard and 18 hours later I was in Saigon although it took me two days more to get my bike and then it wouldn't start and even now runs horribly. After spending a few more days with Natasha and Amy I flew up to Hanoi and put my passport in for a visa extension since mine was to expire in a few days.

That was Wednesday night. Thursday morning Adrian, Sjoukje, Will- a young british guy who I met on my way from the airport- and I headed east to visit the famed Halong Bay. Somehow we had decided together to on a tour and spend a night on a junk, the type of boat that is used. Of course the tour was annoying and completely frustrating at times after we had been used to traveling only by moto. Indeed my first bus in Vietnam was from Hanoi to Halong City.

The bay was beautiful although the weather blurred the gray sky with gray water. But a bottle of Red Label consumed our night on board the ship and having 3 good friends with me made the trip tolerable.

That weekend Natasha visited and organized a very successful couchsurfing gathering at a local restaurant where locals, expats and travelers all joined together for a meal and conversation. A very fun event.

Natasha left Sunday night, Adrian left Monday morning, Sjoukje and Will, another friend, left Monday night and I remained, still waiting for my passport to be returned.

Finally yesterday, Tuesday, I got my passport, and today I will get my Myanmar visa returned to me finally. There is a 6am bus up to the border with Laos where Adrian and Sjoukje await my arrival. I will probably cross early Friday morning my time and then spend about two weeks in the country, hopefully most of it trekking, before heading back to Bangkok and meeting Natasha for our weeklong trip to Myanmar (Burma).


I apologize for the rambling sense of this post. Nothing important has happend and although I do have some good pictures, it isn't a good place to upload them here. I have changed my ticket home and will arrive in SFO on May 6th, two weeks later than planned. Hopefully my money will last that long!