Ridin' Easy with the Easy Riders

WARNING: Heavy on the graphics, not good for slow connections

Hello!!! I'm back from spending 4 days in the Vietnamese countryside on the back of a motorbike with Duong Nguyen (nickname Uncle Nine), one of the Easy Riders motorbike gang (sounds badass, right?). These guys are famous all through Vietnam for taking people on motorbike tours, mostly through the central highlands but they will go anywhere in the country that you want. I found Duong - well actually, he found me - at the Da Nang train station. He gave me a lift to Hoi An, 35km away, and when we got there we chatted about trip options, he showed me his logbook of testimonials and photos from other tourists, and I decided to go for it! It was an amazing 4 days and I loved every second of it.

There are a lot of copycat "Easy Riders" out there, but I was lucky enough to hook up with one of the genuine ones. On the road we met other Easy Riders and stopped for chats here & there,and stayed at hotels they always use. The standard of accommodation was good - always clean, comfortable even if it was a bit rustic at times. Duong was an awesome guide - a wicked sense of humour and he was cracking jokes the whole time. On the first night, he joked we'd be staying in a 1000-star hotel, meaning sleeping under the stars :P He knew a lot of the locals, was super friendly and had a good rapport with everyone we met. He speaks one of the local minority languages too, so we were able to visit a village and talk to some of the people who don't speak Vietnamese.

Everywhere, people are asking me if I'm Vietnamese. They can see I'm not a local but I look Asian enough and they figure I must be Viet Kieu - foreign-born Vietnamese. Sometimes I say I am, and they totally believe me. The next question that follows in inevitably "are you married?" after which they ask "why not?" Endearing at first, now it's just annoying. But shows you how important family is to the culture.

On the first day we headed out of Hoi An to Marble Mountain, one of 5 mountains in the area that have special significance (named fire mountain, water mountain etc.). Lots of Chinese pagodas dotted all over it. I'm constantly surprised by how Chinese Vietnam looks - not an orange-robed monk in sight, only Quan An (Kwan Yin) shrines.



After Marble mountain we headed inland. The drive went through rice paddies, villages and lots of beautiful local scenery. Duong pulled over so we could try sugar cane juice and rice crackers, and we saw lots of high school kids coming home for lunch on their bicycles. The girls wear the ubiquitous white ao dao - a well-known scene that is seen in a lot of paintings and postcards. There are a lot of 'war memorials' dotted all over the place, it's true there are a lot of war scars to be seen everywhere (bomb craters, land mines) and it seems every place that has a leftover bombshell is turned into a memorial. Tough for me, not knowing much background on the Vietnam war except it was north vs. south, the Americans helped the South but the north won and now they're all communists. Here's one such memorial.

We headed into the hills and the scenery started to change. The weather became noticeably cooler & dryer (ahhhhhhhhh!) and we passed more minority villages, waterfalls & mountain passes.




Duong took us to little local eateries for lunch & dinner every day, where we ate local specialties and real Vietnamese food like this:

Looks a bit like Cao Lau they have in Hoi An, but a slightly different taste. Still delicious!
on the second day we climbed higher into the mountains and got a fair bit of rain. And who would have guessed, but the humble ponga tree grows in abundance up there!! Look at this photo, if you didn't know I was in Vietnam you'd think I was back in NZ :)




Ho Chi Minh road - the Vietnam end of the Ho Chi Minh trail that extends into Laos. It was used as a guerrilla supply route during the Vietnam war (or the 'American war', to the Vietnamese) and in Laos is still a very rough trail that's popular with hard-out hikers. On this side, it has been paved and developed and is used as a major highway that runs parallel to HW1 on the coast. The scenery is just breathtaking.


Watch out for animals - they own the road and will not move for you. I know who'd win a buffalo vs. motorbike prang.

Damn, those things are heavy!
Straight on to Vietnam, left for Laos
Rice, rice and more rice
Local people collecting cassava roots & loading them on the truck

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because otherwise he'd get run over by the Easy Riders :P


Lots of war memorial stuff in the DMZ.
Finally caught some lightning on film!
A reminder to be a good Communist.
Rubber trees
Coffee plantation

We came close to the Laos border quite a few times. The ethnic minorities living in the hills here are spread across the border and have their own language, they speak neither Lao or Vietnamese. They're mostly farmers, cassava and rice. Their dress looks a lot more Lao, the embroidered/woven wraparound skirt is everywhere and not an ao dai to be seen. Not even a Chinese pagoda.

But first, we stopped off at the Dong Ha market before breakfast to pick up some groceries...



if you don't have a basket, just put your chickens in a plastic bag!

Getting closer to Hue you see the Chinese influence coming back though. Hue was the Imperial Capital during the Nguyen Dynasty (mid to late 1800's thru to the war in the 1940's), relatively recent. There are lots of mausoleums for important guys, pagodas on hilltops and Buddhist monasteries (Chinese Zen Buddhist, not Theravada orange robed guys). IN the middle of the city there is a huge stone wall that goes around the original Imperial City, which contains the actual royal citadel. The entrance looks remarkably similar to Forbidden City in Beijing, with the giant portrait and Chinese architecture...

BEIJING: (pic from Google)

HUE: (my photo)

Mausoleum

Some more pics of Chinese-influenced architecture in the Imperial City

and to finish off a tiring and adventurous 4-day motorbike trip, what better than an ice-cold local beer? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :)
Until next time!
Love,
ML

Hoi An & the best lunch ever

In my experience, getting off the beaten track will 9 times out of 10 be a very rewarding experience. Today I had one such experience.

A bit fed up of all the tailor shops, motorbike touts and European tourists in hiking boots in Hoi An old town, I decided to go to the beach for a day. It's a pleasant 5km bike ride from old town to the coast, an endless stretch of white sand, palm trees and hardly any tourists. Bonus! I parked up under a tree, went for a good long swim, finished my book and had a nap.

It was about time for lunch, so I went to collect my bike from the parking lot, snuck past the guy with a whistle who was adamant I couldn't take my any bike further onto the beach road - despite there being LOTS of other people with bikes there - and rode a bit further along the coast. After about 500m the beach-side shacks and drink stands turn into resorts; 5-star monstrosities with what looks like very little patronage (probably the time of year). I turned off down a side street into a suburban alley/street full of local houses. I noticed a fresh seafood restaurant sign and decided to take a look...

I found a cute little family restaurant, right on the river, that has their own fishing boat and serves seafodd straight from the sea onto your plate. I had the BEST tiger prawns of my life, as well as a healthy plate of morning glory in garlic & oyster sauce - funny how you start to crave greens after too many pizzas & bowls of noodles.

Tiger prawns, Tiger beer... do you see what I did there? :P

Here are some pictures of Hoi An. It's a UNESCO world heritage site; it feels a bit like a min (micro) Kyoto at times because they've kept all the old traditional shop fronts, and you can actually go inside some of the houses to take a look. They all have Chinese furniture, paintings (4 seasons!) and traditional blessings around the doors. Most houses and shops have a central courtyard with rooms around it:

It was hosing down on my first day, we got hit by a typhoon. By hosing down, I mean torrential rain for over 12 hours, the streets were like rivers. It was actually quite fun to walk around in; with my shiny new raincoat from Saigon (a souped-up version of the plastic bag raincoat they all wear, designed to be worn on a motorbike and is big enough to cover you, a few sacks of rice plus your wife and 3 children) I was indestructible!

Riverfront restaurant lit up at night
Assembly Hall (I forget which one)
The ubiquitous cone hat

Silk in every colour imaginable

Cao lau, a local specialty. Thic rice noodles topped with fresh salad, slices of pork and rice crackers

A guy playing guitar under the light of a lantern, very atmospheric! I sat and listened to him play for a while.

Me with a billion coloured lanterns :)

I am so in love with these lanterns, I have spent the better part of most days photographing them. Of course I bought one, it's in the package going to Holland along with my tailor made suit, 2 dresses, 2 pairs of shoes and a winter coat.

Off to explore the countryside with the Easy Riders tomorrow!

Bye for now

ML

A random spew of emotions

So I'm now in Hoi An. I've ordered 2 pairs of shoes, one winter coat, 2 dresses and a pair of silk pyjamas (I'm most looking forward to the pyjamas :) they're navy blue with red shine Vietnamese silk with chinese patterns embroidered into the fabric). I'm rather behind on my budget but have stopped caring and figure I can't do too much damage in this part of the world. I have a persistent cold that alternates between a sinusy mind-bender and irritating phlegmy chesty cough. I have given up on my challenge to eat only Vietnamese food - not that it's bad, on the contrary, it's bloody fantastic, second only to Thai (nobody does red curry like the Thais). Today it rained continuously - torrential rain - from 11am to 8pm when it slowed to regular rain, then it got heavy again 15 mins later. It's still raining now (10:39pm), and the full moon festival was a no-show because of the weather. I haven't written in my journal since I started at Green Gecko.

I'm feeling a bit jaded. A bit over it. I miss my Cambodian kids, I miss my previous travel buddies, especially the longer-term ones. I miss my sister a lot. I miss cheese. I miss wholegrain bread. I miss kiwi music and English movies. I'd like to have one proper, good night's sleep that doesn't involve being too hot and sweating myself awake, or waking up at 6am when the motorbikes and local market set up shop outside my window. I'd like to not have to worry about finding a place to sleep, a place to eat, how much money to get from the ATM and how long it's gonna last me, or when was the last time I called my mother. I'd like to not have to be hyper vigilant about my valuables and personal belongings. I actually used a bike lock to chain my pack to the train bed while I slept.

I'd like to ask a question and get a straight answer. Actually, sometimes I just get a blank look so I've stopped trying to explain myself and just walk away instead. I'd like to see a price tag and take it at face value. I'd like not to have to bargain for everything; in my mind it's become a fight to pay the fair price for something, and you have to be a tough-ass ex-con streetwise fighter in Vietnam or you'll pay 7 times too much for everything. I'd like to go 1 day without being hassled "hello lady, where you go? You want suit? Look in my shop! Please sit down! Cheap cheap for you! Massage, spa, manicure? You want to eat?" The answer is NO thank you. (I always try to stay polite).

The latest one I'm getting here in Vietnam is "hello lady, where you from? You look like Vietnamese!" - except that I'm a head taller than all of you - which was fun the first time but I'm over having to explain that my mum's Chinese and my dad's Dutch and I live in NZ.

I'd like it to bloody well stop raining so I can take some photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hoi An is the most beautiful historical town I've seen in a long time. It's very Chinese (they have 1000 years of occupation to thank for that), lots of Chinese style temples and pagodas complete with courtyards & dragons on the roof. The people here are very superstitious with a Chinese flavour as well; tonight at dusk I saw lots of people burning papers in buckets outside their houses, lighting big wads of incense sticks and praying to their ancestors with offerings of rice and fruit, and lots of locals visiting the temples today. I wonder if it has anything to do with the lunar calendar (full moon tonight), i.e. burning old month's remnants to make room for good luck in the new month. They're very superstitious about the first customer of the day being lucky, just like in HK it's the best time of the day to nab a deal. It's a strange, comforting sense of familiarity to see all the Chinese influence everywhere. The town has Chinese letters all over it. But don't tell the Viets it looks Chinese - its a bit like saying that to a Taiwanese person. At dinner today the menu had a section for Hoi An specialties, where I found white rose, cao lau and "Huanh Thanh" which becomes "won ton" when you change it to pinyin. Also, "Trung Quoc" seems another meaningless word until you learn it's pronounced Chung Guo - meaning China (that's the mandarin pronunciation). So you can draw a lot of parallels. A lot of the time, if you didn't know you were in Vietnam you'd swear you were in China (well, the China of everyone's stereotypes anyway, I haven't been there yet but can let you know in a few weeks).

Another gripe - you'd think that having a roman alphabet, Vietnamese would be semi pronounceable, as opposed to Thai/Lao/Khmer where they have a collection of scribbles. OH NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO. Not only do they have 5 tones represented by accents - I can deal with that after all this time in Asia (by 'deal' I mean recognise and make absolutely no attempt to pronounce because I can't), but they have a whole SECONDARY set of accents that change how the vowel is pronounced. An "o" can be o, errr, oooo, aa, and the list goes on. So any letter can have 2 accents on it, and vowels can be combined into dipthongs of 2 or more vowels, and you've got a meltdown on your hands. Also, whoever mapped over the consonants must have been either a) dyslexic, b) retarded or c) playing a huge practical joke on the world and laughed all the way to his grave because d is pronounced as y, x as s, g as z, tr as ch... etc etc. So "Ao dai", the traditional Vietnamese dress with pants, is actually said "Ao yai". Go figure.

I'm really looking forward to Ewen's tour where everything will be pre-arranged, it's really keeping me going! "Just turn up and go with the flow". Sweeter words have never been spoken. Now I just have to make sure I get a visa for China before the tour starts (insert another long rant involving travel agents and embassies - I am not getting into that this time). Jason and Ewen have been really good with answering all my stupid questions - thanks guys!!

On the positive side, the food here is amazing. A bowl of pho bo ('faa baa' - see earlier rant about pronunciation - rice noodle soup with beef and herbs) or com ga ('gurm zoh' - chicken on rice) seem to be the staple breakfast, which isn't a bad thing at all. You can get fresh crunchy baguettes stuffed with cream cheese, pate, roast pork, veges and herbs for about NZD$1 on any street corner. The spring rolls come in a million varieties - all very good. There are local drink vendors who have a collection of tubs containing white beans, red beans, mung beans, grass jelly, coconut milk, soy milk and a number of strangely coloured unidentified things, its like pick'n'mix; you point to a few things, they go in the glass with a measure of sugar syrup and coconut or soy milk, topped with crushed ice. FABULOUS and a third the price of a can of coke.

Also, the coffee here is to die for. The iced variety cafe sua da comes super strong with a healthy dose of condensed milk - they make it hot and pour it over ice. It's the best I've had in a long time... arguably better than Lao coffee. (But Laos did hot coffee better)

Well I've tired myself out with that big rant. It's nice & cool right now because it rained all day - I actually felt cold and went back to the room to get a scarf today - so hopefully no midnight sweats, but it'll still be a 6am wakeup scooter so I'd better get some shuteye.

Thanks for listening and I promise the next one will be better. Pictures are on facebook if you wanna see.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=201811&id=669967675&l=8cd7c0ea3e

ML