HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!

Mike's birthday present was an uncrated Minsk in one piece. After one day on our new bikes the only casualty has been my horn. It just stopped working. Hopefully something more critical (not to diminish the importance of the handy vietnamese horn) won't do the same.

Last night we played pool with a Portugee (is that correct?), a Ugandan, a Chilean, a Brit, a Vietnamese man, and a couple of Aussies. The Portugee (is that correct?) was the coach of the Hue football team. Football means soccer and soccer means football if you want to sound like an idiot. The Chilean and the Ugandan were ringers imported from overseas to make the Hue team number one. Apparently it's working - they are seven and one. The Chilean's name was Paco and there wasn't a wall in the bar that wasn't graffiti'd "I LOVE PACO XXXXX" - somebody there really loved Paco. After hanging out for a bit I started to suspect it was Paco who wrote it all, but then I met the Vietnamese waitress who loved him. She was spurned however, and while she probably didn't like the reminders of a more fabulous time, and while she openly scorned him, I think, based on her faraway fixed glances, that she still loved Paco.

We waited at Ga Hue, that's "the Hue train station" to those of you who haven't been keeping your Vietnamese current, for about a half hour waiting for the train with our bikes to arrive. And it finally did arrive. And our bikes were on it! And our little piece of paper worked! Two dudes quickly uncrated our bikes, carefully saving the wood from any breakage the homemade rebar crowbar might deliver. We paid our fee, walked 100 Vietnamese meters (which equals 300 actual meters) that the cafe guy told us about to the closest petrol station, and filled up our bike with gas and oil. Mike and I then spent about 5 minutes attempting to kickstart our bikes, delighting the crowd when at last we finally pulled our keys out of our pockets and inserted them into the ignition. We were used to our rental bikes which did not require a key.

We had a beautiful ride to Da Nang (sound familiar? If you've seen any Vietnam War movie then all the names here either sound familiar like that or they sound like swear words). We left the overcast city of Hue and travelled along some rural areas for a bit. Here I saw a man, sitting on his water buffalo, guiding it while it ate a path around his rice field. We call that mowing the lawn. I saw a huge family of ducks walking through the rice paddies. I saw an abandoned rice field that had been taken over by thousands of lotus plants in full bloom. I saw a company of men building a bridge, with rocks, by hand. After these burbs, we began climbing a forested mountain covered by tall, thin, delicate trees. The top of the mountain sat in a thin veiled fog which would occasionally disappear to reveal breathtaking views of the ocean and farmland below. Tourist bus drivers actually do own the road apparently and think nothing of running a motorcycle off the road when passing. The whole notion of lanes here is very abstract and we've gotten used to this new "system", and I think we've even embraced it. So when I see a bus coming at me in my lane, I don't get mad. I don't own that lane. I just happen to be in A lane, and that lane is everyone's lane. If the bus happens to occupy that lane, then I move over. Sometimes I have to move out of the lane, off of the road. That's OK, because it's better than being dead.

Besides a huge white Bhudda, nestled between tire recyclers and wholesale plastic door sellesr, Da Nang is not very delightful. True to our style we immediately became lost upon entering the city. They're just not that big on signage. We didn't care. We found a market, went inside, sat down at a food stall and ate SO GOOD! We were joined in prehiphery by several food stall ladies and customers who decided to check us out. I just can't get over how funny the locals think we are. Whenever we sit down everyone just stares at us and points and laughs. They all crack each other up with jokes. All we can do is enjoy our bomb-ass food. It's rad.

Leaving Da Nang, or attempting to leave, Mike forgot that there is no such thing as right-of-way here, nor any other road rule as far as we can discern, and almost got punched by a huge dump truck. Being the ruthless operator that he is, he applied various levers and skidded out sideways, stuntman style, and avoided death. I think both our hearts were pumping after that, but his was going twice as quickly - I could actually see it through his jacket. We did the ask-for-directions thing and got the various finger pointing and offers for navigators, and eventually picked a direction. We've been getting really lucky with that because with a couple of additional third-party verifications, we found the right road to Hoi An.

Did I mention our "style?" It's developing quite nicely. When we rolled into Hoi An, we cluelessly began taking turns, navigating by dead reckoning, until we arrived at a small market at the edge of town. We didn't read the guide book so we weren't sure what to expect. I don't think the guide book would have told us: A lady emerged from inside the covered food market carrying a very large beetle - over two inches long. She somehow tied it to a string, instantly turning it into a super-fun toy, and handed it to her toddler nephew. He jostled it vigorously until it freed itself. I called out to the grandmother that the bug was liberated and she pleasantly reached down, picked it up, and handed it to me. Oh my god, I have never held a bug that big. It was a casual, slightly spiky, slightly gooey bug. She wanted me to hold it while she retied the knot, but lacking the expertise of her younger relative, was unable to do so. The aunt came over and tied it up quick. She then began to spin the bug at the end of the string. I don't think the bug was stoked, but the ladies were. They were very stoked and their enormous grins revealed what seemed to be several rows of blackish, reddish, unrecoverable teeth. Spinning the bug makes it open it's wings in an attempt to fly. I guess this is the oldest trick in the book and the means to endless hours of fun.