Easy Riders

Day 1 Start in Nha TRang at 8AM. Meet the couple coming with us: Margaret & Rick from Australia. Our tour guides are brothers: Bon (26) and Bob (23). I am riding with Bon, Margaret is with Bob, Julie and Rick are on their own bikes. It takes ten minutes to get out of town. Immediately there is a cool sea breeze pushing us towards the mountains. First stop, a fishing village. There are only a few houses as most people live on their boats. All the boats are blue. Why? Blue is lucky, like the sea and the sky. There are boys paddling in perfectly round boats. Bob informs us that they are very difficult to steer. When he tried he only went in circles. These boys dart through the water with incredible speed before jumping on the dock and shouting at us for taking their picture. Back on the road and the freedom is incredible. Vietnam is such a beautiful place with a variety of greens making up the backdrop. We stop again at a small place and at first are confused why we are here. There are some carvings, some people, a dog. Then Julie says MONKEY! My reaction is embarrassing: I jump up and down like a small child at Disneyland. I am so excited that Bon has to take pictures for me. Next stop is a brick factory. Two men and two women work there making 1500 bricks a day. Each brick takes four days to make. It is hot dirty work for very little money. 1000 bricks sells for about $25US. Lunch and dinner are finally the amazing food I have been waiting for. There are flies everywhere and the bathroom is a hole out back, but I scrape my plate dry and Julie makes fun of me for eating every single grain of rice. (No man left behind. We Were Soldiers.) In the mountains we stop and see where Agent Orange was used. You can still see the effects of a war that the Vietnamese didn't want. I am glad I'm Canadian as there is always a bit of American bashing. The last hour of the the 200km journey it starts to rain. By rain I mean torrential monsoon-like rain. The streets are flooded and we are literally driving through about a foot of rain. The bikes barely make it. Luckily we don't hit any of the hidden potholes. We arrive in BMTsoaked. Stay the night at a cute hotel in BMT (Ban Me Thuot). Our dinner is in a place so out of the way we have to go down a back alley (which is an incredibly steep slant and terrifying from the rain) and a flight of stairs. Worth it. Moths are falling on my head through the meal, but I can't help but shovel mouthful after mouthful of chicken, beef, pork, rice, and noodles in my mouth. Our wander back is enjoyable and Bon and Bob learn that I am in fact 20. The nickname begins: I am further referred to as Baby.

Day 2 First stop: Draysap Waterfalls. Two suspension bridges to get there freaks me out, but in the end it is worth it. The falls are beautiful. And there is a little cove where we are allowed to swim. The water is a beautiful clear color. The rocks on the bottom make wading difficult, but the swimming is amazing. The waterfalls are like a massage as we swim under them. It is incredible. Boys cliff dive from incredibly high peaks above. It is obvious they do this all the time. An old man in a beat up military unifom shows up and pretends to take pictures of us with his mango. He laughs and waves at us. His uniform hangs off him, yet is much too short in the legs. We wonder if he has been wearing that uniform for forty years. There are couples getting wedding pictures at the falls and a little girl is sitting on a bamboo swing. I ask if I can sit with her and she smiles and poses for a picture with me. As I get off we say thank you almost at the same time. Her mother is incredibly pleased. We walk to see the monkey house which is a giant hollowed out tree. It is excellent to take pictures in. We got to see how rice noodles were made, and passed numerous coffee plantations. (Some with little marijuana plants mixed in for extra profit). DaLat coffee is the best in the world, and from that weasel coffee is the best. If you don't know what weasel coffee is, look it up. The home stay is tomight and Margaret and I are terrified. Luckily it is slightly spruced up for wimpy tourists like us and I only see 6 cockroaches. There are two cows living under the house as well as chickens pigs dogs and children in the surrounding ones. It is a noisy night and only the boys get sleep. They are used to this life and noise. Bon doesn't even use his mosy net. While in the village Bon and Julie decided I need to learn to ride the bike. Bon gets me on the semi-automatic and off we go. I am an excellent driver, as long as we are going straight. I can't turn or stop, so after I crash into a small scratchy shrubbery Bon takes over. Everyone is polite and says it was good for my first try. The locals are DYING laughing at me. For the boys and Jules it is another drinking night. (Margaret and I, the passengers, are on water) The four of them polish off a small bottle of vodka and a not so small bottle of Jim Bean. Margaret and I have to herd Rick home so he doesn't fall into a rice paddy. After dinner, Bon and Bob try to trick me with puzzles, but I beat almost every one. Bob calls me the master, as I got some of them that in their five years of doing this nobody has ever got. Thanks Mom! Eight o'clock and after a couple games of UNO (I shark them everytime) we head for bed.

When drinking: "Excuse me. Everybody here? Everybody say: Mo Hai Bah Yo!"

Day 3 The geckos are the noisiest thing I hear before I sleep, but I am happy for it as they eat the mosquitoes. Before dawn, the rooster crows, the pigs wake up, the babies cry, and the cows start mooing. Remember I said they lived under the house? The house is on stilts. It shook. No time for the elephant ride, but we did get to walk amongst them. What amazing creatures! So gentle and curious. We went to a silk worm farm, then a silk worm factory. It is incredible to watch the girls pull the tiny threads from the cocoons and then use wooden machines to make beautiful fabrics. I will never again take for granted where my clothes come from. We pass rice paddies and I see a tiny boy holding a hoe twice his size digging right next to his mother. It breaks my heart. The kids are so excited to see us, because they have only ever seen people like us on TV. We are like superstars as we drive through town and they all run out to wave. At breakfast an older lady came up to me and said something in very broken English before touching my cheek and leaving. I am the whitest still, so I get the most stares. That's okay. We are in Da Lat: Bon & Bob's hometown. We have a free night so they can see their family. The four of us go to V Cafe, a French bistro with live music. The food is incredible. We feel so full after only a few bites because it is so much more filling than rice! Early night because we are leaving at 7:30AM for Mui Ne.

Day 4 Bob has made it back to the hotel sometime in the night, but Bon comes in at 7:15 and reeks of rice wine. (Which is the most horrid thing you can imagine. Smelling it could kill a small rat.) He was up late with his uncle. Yay for me. He's been on a bike for half his life though, so I'm not worried about his driving. I am worried that one of us is going to throw up. Him from the hangover, me from how bad he smells. The mountain roads are crazy with hairpin turns and no guardrails. Bob is making a sport of hitting lizards. I woke up in Da Lat fog. It is one of the coolest (temp wise) in Vietnam. We hit desert. And I mean hotter than the Sahara, deader than Texas desert. I have my SPF 60 on and my arms are still turning pink. It is so hot that I can't breathe. We are driving the fastest we've been on this trip, because we don't want to pass out. It is too hot to even sweat. There is no electricity here, so we can't even find a cold drink. We head farther and farther south and see sand dunes rising on either side. Then something strange in the distance. Lush green trees and rice paddies are growing! We have hit Mui Ne: home of sand dunes and China Sea white sand beaches. The hot desert air mixes with the sweet sea breeze and turns into the strangest mixture of climates I have ever seen. Literally sand dunes on my right side and lily pads on my left. The sand dunes are too hot for us to bear, so we don't trek too far. And now the trip is over. Our goodbyes are short. No point dragging out something unpleasant. Jules and I get a bungalow in Hai Gia Resort and immediately dive in the pool. Life is perfect.