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Published: July 21st 2006
Total Badasses
If only I could wear a helmet all the time!The first time I crashed my motorbike I had to check and see if my right foot was still attached to my leg. The second time I crashed my motorbike I had to check and see if I still had all ten fingers. The third time I crashed my motorbike, well I didn’t actually crash it, but that dog still has three good legs…
It’s been an interesting last few days cruising the Ho Chi Minh Trail with my vespa posse. To start, its real hard to not feel like a total badass when you’re roaming the countryside on board a cherry red moped that tops out at around 35 kph. Actually I’m only guessing that’s how fast it went because the speedometer was broken as well as the odometer. Come to think of it, of the five of us that rented the bikes, none had properly working speedometers or odometers so most of the details of this trip are a little fuzzy.
We started out in the flower city of Dalat, capital of Vietnamese Honeymoons, don’t ask me why… In Dalat we met Rocky, our guide-to-be who moonlights as a champion Vietnamese kick boxer. He was willing to
tailor our trip so that we wouldn’t have to go to the mushroom farm and instead would tour some of the waterfalls and lakes in the central highlands. This was a pretty simple decision and twelve hours after meeting him, he had enlisted the services of his brother and his fighting partner to act as our Vietnamese interpreters/guides.
I suppose I should start by saying that the whole idea was for Royal and I to buy bikes in Saigon and cruise up the coast of Vietnam ala Motorcycle Diaries. I met two Cali girls in Phnom Phen (Shout out to Serena & Amy for most of the pictures) and the next thing I knew, the four of us and another American they met in Saigon we were traveling together on an open bus ticket with six stops on our way to Hanoi. This was a great crew to travel with, being that these were the first three Americans I've met along the way that I actually enjoyed hanging out with.
I am fairly sure that Uncle Ho never filled in the bomb craters on his trail after the war because the first day of riding was a little
like a slalom course in and out of traffic and around the atomic sized pot-holes. The traffic in the towns took a little getting used to, due to the complete lack of crosswalks, pedestrians will start walking through traffic no matter how heavy at a snails pace with the expectation that motorists will avoid them. This really isn’t a bad system except for the fact that you can die at any moment crossing the street.
The driving part really isn’t all that complicated, gears, handle bars, brakes are all the same as any other bike I’ve been on its the flow of traffic that gets a little hairy. In the states, we have definable laws dictating driver behavior and consequences that enforce the abiding of these laws. In three days of driving I saw zero police and though there does appear to be a flow of traffic and understood rules, its basically anything goes. Forget about that center line dividing traffic in each direction, that’s simply there to tell you where the center of the road is if you want to bob through oncoming motos. Motorbikes, such as the one I rode stay to the sides of the road,
generally, and cars, trucks and busses ride in between the motos. The problem is that with all the motos, there is only room for one lane of traffic in the center of the road for the largest vehicles on the road so it’s not uncommon for the motos to get pushed off the side of the road instead of getting run over by say, a truck the size of an elephant.
I made it through the entire first day of countryside hills and blind turns without any problems. I dropped my bike when we stopped for lunch and while I don’t count that as a crash, Royal certainly won’t let me forget about it. I even made it through about an hour’s worth of torrential downpours at sundown whipping around switchbacks at speeds faster than I’ve ever reached on a two wheel vehicle before. After successfully making my way through the worst road conditions I’ve ever seen for an entire day, I run into a guard rail twenty minutes into a sunny clear Vietnam morning.
The posse was working its way up a twisting hill towards the King’s old fishing cabin, spectacular views of Dak Lake and the
Moped Possee
Total Badassssss surrounding valley by the way, and I glanced over my left shoulder for no more than a split second. When I looked back I was headed straight into the concrete guard rail fence type thing that was the only thing keeping me from plummeting fifty meters into a shit filled rice paddy below. In my panicked state, I managed to turn on the lights, hit the horn and signal my left blinker all without hitting the brakes. You see, there’s a fundamental flaw with these bikes that I happened to figure out the wrong way. The front wheel brake is controlled by the right hand on the right side of the handlebars. The rear wheel brake is controlled by the right foot on the right side of the body of the bike. What are you supposed to do when your bike is side swiping a guard rail on the right side of the bike?
I lifted my leg and tried to kick at the fence to brace my fall. My bag went flying but the bike never hit the ground. After impact, it sort of bounced back into the road where miraculously I was able to keep it upright
Crash # 1
Not That Bad... while retaining the use of my right foot. If I had looked back over my shoulder a second later I’d have a stump for a foot right now…
The brake pedal was bent 180 degrees in the opposite direction and my foot rest was bent completely backwards, and the fiberglass encasement for the bike cracked in multiple places. No blood, one hour wait to fix the bike, one new brake pedal
My second crash was much more of what you would consider a typical “crash.” We had stopped to check out a water fall after an hour’s ride, a lunch break and another hour’s ride. I forgot to raise the kickstand when I started moving and had just kicked old Bessie into third gear when I tried to turn left. The kick stand and all the gravel on the road had other plans and my bike skidded for about ten yards before I was vaulted sideways from it slamming my leg into the handlebars and planting my hands onto the road.
For some reason there was no one in front of me and the two bikes behind me took a few minutes to get to me
so I stood there in a daze for a bit, picked pebbles out of my bloody hands, and counted my fingers. Yep, still have ten but the left side of my bike took the brunt of the crash with the road. The left foot rest was bent out of place and the gear shifter was bent but I didn’t know it so it was totally faulty the rest of the day. Lots of blood, no new parts, some seriously rattled nerves.
At this point in time I was seriously contemplating letting one of the girls drive my bike and taking a breather but Rocky decided that we should all go swimming in one of the water falls to let everyone unwind. Good call Rocky. My first crash had garnered me the reputation of being the worst driver in the group, which while not untrue was simply unfounded. I had made rookie mistakes and paid the price, I look at it like this, it could have been a whole lot worse! Now with crash #2 under my belt, no one wanted to ride near me and as we made our way towards Rocky’s parent’s house for dinner, everyone took off
and I drove at a much more leisurely pace until I regained my confidence.
I knew I was going to hit the dog as soon as I saw it dodge the truck that was riding ahead of me. Bad things always happen in threes and I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the day without a third crash, I was just hoping to minimize the damage I’d do to myself and the bike. Let me say this, I’m a dog lover, but if the difference between me not flying over the handlebars of my rented motorbike in Central Vietnam and one less stray dog walking the streets, Fido’s got to go.
I slowed down and tried to go behind the dog, assuming he would continue to run across the road. This is when I knew he was a puppy because I could see his oversized paws hesitate and do a little dance before darting directly into my path. Already having shaky nerves after my wonderful day, I closed my eyes, braced my arms so they wouldn’t wobble and betray me, I had to have clipped that puppy going at least 30 mph. I could hear his
Traditional Dinner @ Rocky's Parent's House
So much food and all of it was something I've never eaten before... whimpers as I saw him limp the rest of the way across the road through my rearview mirror. I almost wish I had killed that poor dog because now I know there’s a black lab named Tripod roaming the Vietnamese countryside.
I'll end by saying that though rolling around in Vietnam by motorbike has been the best way to see the country firsthand, its also the hardest way to see the country first hand. Vietnam is an absolutley beautiful country and its easy to find yourself gazing across the rice paddies at the mountains for longer than is safe. The roads are crap and the drivers are quasi-psychotic. The best way would have been to ride on the back of a guide's bike for two reasons, I would have been able to look around much more and take many more of my own pictures and young Tripod would still be able to scratch behind his ears without falling over.
Accidents aside, I was able to concentrate just enough on the road ahead while being absolutley mesmorized by the rolling green hills you can see in some of these pictures. Rocky wasn't exactly the best tour guide in the
sense that I was hoping he'd drop some more knowledge about the War and the country but most of his expertise consisted of taking us to out of the way places where we had plenty of traditional food to eat and copious amounts of traditional Moonshine, I mean Rice Wine...
If time and finances would have allowed me, I would have stayed on that moped for the entire trip up to Hanoi, but as the world turns, so I return to the Open Bus, bouncing from town to town waiting for the day I'm sitting on my own Hog, moving at my own pace with a little encouragement from Che Guevara...
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charl_210
Charlotte
hey!!
hey guys! just wanted to say your blog is wicked! really made me laugh and such a cool way to see the country!! i ve been here for a month now and i love it its such a beautiful country!! have fun!! x