Men on Minsks

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

By yesterday we had evaluated several motorcycles with strong intentions to buy. One belonged to a friend of our new friend Hung. One belonged to Olaf, whom we met on Ha Long Bay. Neither were to our liking and in the end we bought both our bikes from Cuong, the man we rented our last pair of bikes from. One bike was already set to go - it is cherry red, almost too fancy to be a Minsk. The other was a bike whose best days appeared to be behind it. Cuong said that he would replace everything besides the engine, the carbs and the handlebars. We told him we were leaving that afternoon. He characteristically smiled serenely and replied, "no problem... no problem." We drove by on a whim a couple of hours later and saw the yellow bike completely disassembled around two mechanics who were joking and smoking through its resurrection.

We returned slightly before the appointed time and found both bikes ready to go. He had added new shocks, new tires, a new clutch, new brakes, a new seat, a set of tools, a host of spare parts, and a homemade operators manual to the bikes. After slapping our huge duong on the table, we briefly took possession of our one yellow and one red Minsk. We then followed Cuong to the train station and stood by in awe as the local sportjacketed crew crated the bikes in minutes, by hand, from various scraps of wood and second-hand nails laying about. An eclectic posse of men aged sixteen to sixty feverishly, but with no shortage of jokes and smokes, built chicken coop-like structures around our brand new (old) bikes. We looked on nervously as they then tipped the bikes vertically in their crates so that they rested on their forks and dollied them up the ramp to the cargo warehouse. After relinquishing our passports and bike registration to a guy that looked like a cross between a Columbian coke-lord and a Phillipino ex-president, documents were photocopied, papers were stamped, crates were scribbled upon with sharpie, and we were handed one small piece of paper. This was our only claim to the bikes and we are to use it tomorrow afternoon to retrieve them from the Hue train station.

Not much hilarity ensued on the overnight train ride from Hanoi to Hue. We travelled in the fancy "soft-sleeper" with a German couple. What's up with all these Germans? Shouldn't they be working at a Volkswagon plant or a Weinershnitzel or somthing? I tried to read Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" but all the funny names made my head fizzy and train's gentle rocking was working its magic to lull me to sleep.

We trotted around Hue this morning, sparring with the local cyclo drivers, trying with only eight available shared words to emphatically but politely express our disinterest in their services. One guy showed me his army picture. One guy said, "maybe later?" and we said sure. He pedaled away. Five minutes later it was "later" and he was back. We learned our lesson.

The lure of fresh ingredients brought us back to the huge market for lunch. We sat at an old woman's stall and she served us some sort of soup. She had a little counter topped by a small display case. In the case was a pile of pork pieces, a pile of skewered and barbequed pork bits, a plate of small beef strips, a bowl piled high with fresh herbs and vegetables, a bowl of scallions, and some fresh spring rolls. Next to her was a large pot of simmering volcano-red broth. For each of us she dropped a pork part into the cauldron, then put some beef into a ladle and sort of quick-boiled it by dipping the ladle in the broth and stirring the beef with her chopsticks. She then put some fresh rice noodles in a bowl, topped this with some herbs, added the pork part, then the beef, sprinkled the top with scallions, and then poured broth over the whole mess. In front of us was a small bowl of chopped red chile peppers in a viscous medium. I scooped several spoonfuls into my bowl and for five minutes this was the BEST! Then, the chile took over my head and I came short of fainting. I couldn't really stop eating, so it turned into a little battle of will between myself and my own mouth. Mike heroically ate his pork part and half of mine, hairs and all.

Tomorrow I'll post some photos from our travels. Sorry for the delay but even though everyone seems to have a computer, the process of transferring my photos from our cameras to this site remains elusive.