Don't Hate the Playa, Hate the Game

Finally made an uneasy and tearful exit from the island and after a quick boat ride to the mainland I was reintroduced to the dichotomy of adventure and beauracracy that is Vietnam.

The Plan

Of all activities in Vietnam, planning is certainly the most frivolous. So here's the plan.

Brits, Swedes, Germans - I'm a Euroslut

Honestly it's been very relaxing and generally slow for me lately, but a ride on a Minsk will always generate a story worth mentioning.

The Life

Yesterday I layed on the beach all day reading. Several swims were taken. One dish of delicious spicy deep fried little squids was eaten. This is the life.

I Heart Mechanics

The repair of the Minsk after fouling the tank with generator fuel was nothing compared with explaining the problem to a crew of keystone mechanics.

Baby Chicken 5k D/L

At Mr. Jaycox's request, this entry is not in the first person. Names have been invented to protect the innocent.

Saw Sea

Getting to my hotel turned out to require perserverence (and bug spray), but the next morning when I dived into the warm ocean in front of my little hut, I realized that it was well worth the effort.

Where's the Zoloft When You Need It?

A combination of homesickness, lonliness and a hangover gave me some serious anxiety on the way out of Saigon. Thankfully the boys at Phuong Honda cured my bike rack and me with a welder and a socket set.

Just Push Harder

This entry is dedicated to Bert Moulton. I was up early today to meet a mechanic at my hotel at our not-so-mutually agreed upon time of 7am. Three mechanics, two travel agents and one staid immigration officer later I find myself stuck in Saigon one last day, my evening perspiration a clear indicator that it's half an hour past Miller time.

Random Story

My camera broke making every picture taken in bright light result in a completely white image. I started looking for a new camera when I found a guy who said he could repair mine. I took it in, he looked at it, and four hours later I picked it up in full working order. He wouldn't tell me what he did to fix it, but there was a new warranty sticker affixed to the bottom (you know the one that says 'removal of this sticker will void the warranty'). I think he just changed some setting that accidently got set as the camera got knocked about in my bag. Price: 50 dollars. That's 450 less than a new camera, so whatever he did, I'm stoked.

Also: there is a seventy year old Vietnamese man sitting next to me at this internet cafe casually browsing hard-core white girl porn. Every once in a while he'll go, "ahhh" and smile and chuckle quietly under his breath in an approving way.

Communist Bureaucracy Rules

I think the DMV has been in collusion with the Vietnamese government refining just how much red tape they can squeeze into any particular transaction. I apologize in advance for this boring entry.

We Are Alive!

Sorry for leaving any of you who actually read this thing hanging, but we've been out where the internet don't shine. We made it to Saigon (officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the guy publicly embalmed in the Ho Chi Minh Masoleum). I will post date my entries to try to correspond to when they would have been entered if the internet was shining in Pleiku or Kam Duc or Dak To or any of the other tiny villiages that nobody except the people who live there have ever heard of. If you're reading this, then go back to March 6 and start from there. Oh and sorry about the lack of pictures. It's crazy hard to get pictures from our cameras (mine died, sniff sniff) to the damn computer.

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.

When Wild Buses Attack!

Drive drive drive drive. Our next destination was Mui Ne, whose low-key vibe and goat-ball rice muffins made it worth all the bus dodging required to get there.

Easy Rider for Buddhists

Riding motorbikes across Vietnam ain't no picnic. But it's also the coolest fucking thing ever.

Pity the Vietnamese Postman

We left Hoi An for the hills. If potholes were to somehow replace petroleum as the world's energy source, Vietnam would be wealthy indeed.

Reality Bites

Hoi An turned out to be the first tourist town that we encountered - this has its pluses and minuses. Pluses: A sunny beach, amazing old-school Chinese architecture and seafood that hit our plates still kicking. Minuses: Other sunburned tourists like us, scorchingly high prices (one dollar for a beer!?!?!) and an extraordinarily high percentange of Italian restaurants. We were about to go where pizza was about as foreign as a sit down toilet.

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.

Men on Minsks

We are now the proud owners of two lovely late-model Minsks. Possession of said bikes remains in question.

50 Cent

Just a quick one to make you jealous.

Are you Hung?

As it turns out, the best thing about Ha Long Bay wasn't the amazing landscape, it was our amazing tour guide.

A Few Good Minsks

To be atop a Minsk, where every button takes an extra wiggle, every corner brings a new adventure and getting lost is a way of life, this is living.