Ho!

Leaving the beach behind us, we went to find sand dunes, but instead found ourselves in the middle of a highway construction site. Saigon was only 200km away, and shining like Camelot as our final destination riding together.

Our hotel was constantly playing this video that looked like some calm inducing new age feel-good tape featuring the Sahara desert. In fact it was touting the local sand dunes, which according to others in the hotel, were fascinating and awesome and were not to be missed. They gave us directions in the morning and we put our shorts on and took our helmets off for the 30 minute ride north. We found the dunes easily, but the fun of riding freestyle seduced us to drive on. We took the road to its conclusion at a sandy dead end where both of us got squirrely and Mike dropped his bike, laughing as he lifted it out of its powdery trap. Leading up from the dead end was a dirt road ramp which we decided to explore. There we found ourselves in the middle of a huge construction project. A large highway was being built along the coast. This would undoubtedly spawn a whole new generation of resorts along this amazing beachfront crescent.

Women and men (they do work!) were constructing a large rock and mortar retaining wall to hold the sand dunes at bay. Dump trucks were depositing large granite boulders and the workers were splitting these into rocks roughly a foot on each side. They were apparently breaking them up and shaping them using hand tools. There did not appear to be any electricty involved in this whole operation. Mike and I just sat there stupified watching them. The construction of the wall stretched for about two kilometers and it varied in height from 10 to 20 feet tall.

About fifty kilometers outside of Ho Chi Minh City we had effectively reached Ho Chi Minh City. From here to our hotel it would be traffic, smog, and an endless strip of city which did not dissolve or thin in any fashion all the way to the heart of the city. In Saigon proper we became lost and stayed that way for about forty-five minutes. Have I mentioned our "style?" We spent a lot of time circling District 5 while thinking we were in District 1. Eventually we located a landmark and quickly found the hotel recommended to us by Lance, an American we met in Mui Ne. I was wearing a white t-shirt, which along with my wincing face and severely sunburned arms was coated in a light brown film of smog and soot. You know those showers when you're so dirty you can see the grime spiralling into the drain? We would experience that satisfaction that night.

Saigon is busy, bustling and active. Driving in the traffic here is not as difficult as it would seem. It requires a special sense of trust in your fellow operators - a trust which we have seen violated on several occasions. One guy, with a passenger, zipped bravely left across opposing traffic and collided with an unsuspecting Honda moving against him. His fairing splintered apart and his passenger was thown off his seat and onto his belly at about 20 miles per hour. Both scooters slid to a stop on thier sides while the passenger scrambled to his feet, looking briefly like a crab running from under a rock. Shouting and finger pointing from both drivers and a host of witnesses ensued as we motored on.

Good driving style (at least on two wheels) seems to involve not looking behind you at all. Also, no sharp turning - only gentle merging. You may travel in the opposite direction of traffic as long as you yield to said traffic. Said traffic may or may not yield to you. Traffic in general appears to do whatever it takes to continue moving forward. If you need to go on the sidewalk so as not to impede traffic in your direction, then do so. Nobody will mind. When merging into or out of a traffic circle do not be indecisive, do not speed up or slow down, and do not look sideways. Just go where you want to go and if you don't turn sharply nobody will smash into you. If someone is crossing the street, don't hit them. Interacting with larger vehicles is a different matter. They do whatever they want to and your job is to avoid crashing into them or being crashed into by them.

We rode out to Saigon Scooter Center today. After getting lost looking for an address (which even when we did find it - H5A K300 - did not make any sense and did not appear to fit neatly into any addressing scheme that we could interpret) we made the requisite set of "where is this street?" requests and were given the requisite set of finger pointing until we arrived so near the spot that the name of the business was enough to garner a finger point to an unmarked door only half a block down the street. The owner of Saigon Scooter Center restores Lambrettas mostly and then ships them all over the world. He owns four ultra-collectible models from the 50s and 70s that he has been in the process of restoring for upwards of seven years. He bought Mike's Minsk and paid in US cash. That was easy!

Across from our hotel is a SWEET looking black Lambretta that is for sale for 900 dollars. We learned that shipping it to the states would cost 350 and require a week of paperwork. Worth it?