Vietnam with a European Twist

We survived the overnight train to Sapa, thanks to Gravol. Of course it was not a very deep sleep, nor long enough, but relatively uneventful, thankfully- especially as we were sharing a car with some Asians who were originally chatty with their cell phones.

We did the unthinkable: we rented scooters. Yes, the nightmares of our last
scooter/motorcycle rental horror story still haunt us nightly, but what better way to see a country then to get behind the wheel? Of course we would have preferred to rent real motorcycles, but Vietnam has laws that no one can have a bike bigger than 125cc’s, so a 110 scooter was all we were going to get. It was weak in comparison to the Baja, and I kept groping for the non-existent clutch, but I reminded myself that I was lucky to be on 2 wheels in the first place. I mean, in Canada I would be huddled in the 4 wheeled kind, cursing the weather...


Anyway, of course within 5 minutes of our journey, Meaghan’s scooter started leaking oil. We were tempted to push her and her scooter off a cliff, figuring she most definitely was Jonah and was harbouring some sinful deeds. Instead we exchanged her bike. I am pleased to report that was the end of the scooter nightmares. Phew.

We’re way up north- about 5 minutes from the Chinese border. To those of you who are jealous of us baking in the sun, your jealousy is wasted here as it’s only about 10 degrees.


We got a hostel for $1.34 per night, and it’s not bad. Quite nice, actually- complete with hot water and toilet paper. Practically 5 star compared to the train. We all chipped in for an extra $2 for a heater. No kidding. Friends who were just in Ho Chi Minh (the south of Vietnam, where we are headed next) advised us to pay extra for AC in Ho Chi Minh as the heat was simply unbearable. Here, we’re chilly.

Sapa is a cool town, kind of laid back with a definitively European feel, and we’re really enjoying it here. We’ve had some delicious food (which isn’t all that common thus far in Vietnam, springrolls aside) and a relaxing evening wandering around. I actually had a latte that put Starbucks to shame, a feat that I thought was impossible in Asia. My coffee addiction has never bothered me, but here it's been tough to feed at times and I've suffered a mild headache or two as a result. Serves me right, I suppose. Now as I sit here to recap the day, some tragically hopeless Asian karaoke from the bar next door has just started serenading me and I’m tempted to delete what I’ve written about the town being lovely and quaint with a European feel. The Asians and their music. It’s terrible when the voices are professional and on key. Add an off key karaoke singer, and it’s worse than an animal in heat.

Speaking of which, on our magnificent scooter ride through the mountains to a northern village, we saw some hilarious things. There was the pot bellied pig who lazily meandered across the road as we were approaching, her nursing belly literally getting a case of road rash. There was the ox that was pulling what looked like a skid with a couple plastic jugs on it down the road, being led by its master. The skid was just scraping the road. Wouldn’t wheels have made a more efficient system?
The topper was the scooters cargoing animals around. Get a load of this: a scooter was towing a cage with a live pig in it. Another scooter was carting around a mitful of chickens. I have no idea if they were dead or alive. And get this: a scooter was pulling a horse along! The man was driving, the woman on the back held the rope to the horse, and the poor thing was galloping along to keep up with the scooter. Peculiar!

The north is peppered with Hill Tribe people. They dress very ornately (translation: gaudy) and we often saw them working hard leading livestock around or selling things at the local market or cooking. It was very interesting to see, but they turned out to be a pain, always pestering us to buy the ugliest things we've ever seen, like pants that looked like they were made from your grandmother's old tablecloth! They even pestered us when we were eating in restaurants, so their charm wore off quickly.

Monday night we take the overnight train back to Hanoi, and the following day we snag a flight to Ho Chi Minh. Yes, be proud of us as we’re actually splurging on airline tickets. They were only $75 and we figure that we owe it to ourselves. We’ve had enough of the wretched trains and buses and we still need to get to Cambodia.

Our thoughts on Vietnam? We’re glad we came, although none of us would put it as a contender for our favourite country. Laos felt very laid back and had great food, where in Vietnam it’s much more developed and therefore more chaotic and the food has been a bit hit or miss- mostly miss. However, Vietnam is more culturally rich, as determined by the scooters toting animals, clothing, and markets here.

It's been very intersting, though. I mean, I've seen things that I figured I'd only ever see in pictures of National Geographic. How lucky I am to be travelling like this.

Snoozing on a Boat in Halong Bay

(Sorry, but if you can take a second to click on www.gamepillar.com that would be appreciated. I am just shamelessly trying to direct some traffic to this site to help someone out. A click is all I'm asking for, you don't have to read anything!)

Yay for relaxation! A couple days ago we boarded a minibus and were crammed in as tightly as the clothes in my backpack. The 4 hour drive was about as comfortable as some of the beds we've had to endure out here, but Halong Bay is amazing so it was totally worth it! Halong Bay is a picturesque part of Vietnam that boasts beautiful rock formations and islands. It is simply gorgeous and peaceful.

We boarded a boat that exceeded our expectations. I mean, we expect little here in the form of accommodations and bathrooms and even food. Spending a night on a boat was a sketchy prospect, but it's all in the name of experience, right?


The boat was so nice I almost expected Captain Jack Sparrow himself to greet us. There were about 15 of us whities- from Aussies to South Africans to fellow Canadians-- and we settled in on top of the boat very easily and lazed in the sun, read, talked, laughed, and shared travel horror stories (they were all enamoured with our "Road Trip from Hell" story). I have to admit that it was nice to connect with some people who were fluent in English and shared our culture. Lunch was delicious (Vietnamese know how to do Spring Rolls best, hand's down) and we got off at one point to trek through a cave, which was cool. The rest of the evening was spent eating, laughing, drinking local beer, and playing cards with our new friends, all on the boat. I must have been distracted by the doctor and lawyer I was playing cards with, both of whom were young and cute, because I lost. Hmph.


The rooms on the boat were great by Vietnamese standards, and I slept like I was dead. All in all, it was a great mix of fun and relaxation. (So mom, let your fears that I am not relaxing enough be alleviated!)

The next day they boated us to Cat Ba island for more relaxation and scenery. They organized a little "trek" as they called it, through the jungles. We determined it was what we would call a hike. It was lovely walking past banana trees with ripening bunches of bananas and mandarin orange trees.


But when we started to "trek"...good grief! It was more like mountain climbing! Up and up we went, steeper and steeper. In our parts of the world, you would have had to sign a disclaimer. You would have had to sworn near perfect health and not been permitted to go if you were 5lbs overweight, pregnant, or if your great great grandmother had a weak heart condition that could be deemed hereditary.

No such warnings in Asia! Just grab onto a bamboo tree and hoist yourself up over the steep rocks.


We arrived at the peak and the view was glorious. The "trek" was definitely worth it. There was this old dilapitated rusty apparatus that had stairs and stairs leading to a squeaky platform about a hundred feet up. The best part is that there was a sign at the bottom that warned, "5 persons only." The back of this sign said, "20 people only." Our tour guide said we should stick with the 5. "Or 6, or maybe 7," he added after the briefest of pauses. We climbed this danger mine and marvelled at the view and how rusty it was and obviously survived to talk about it.

Today was a lazy day again- a boat ride back to Halong Bay and another crammed bus ride back to Hanoi where I've concluded that near death experiences are now just a way of life when walking through this city.

Tonight we take an overnight train to Sapa. Travelling overnight is efficient- you preserve a day and don't need accommodations for the night. But the trade-off is steep: a poor night of sleep. If only getting from point A to B was not such a challenge for us humans!

But once again, we're still having a wonderful time, still getting along marvelously, and creating fantastic memories and meeting wonderful people whom we will probably never see again.

It's hard to believe my time away is more than 1/2 over.

Happy Hour in Laos

I saved this post for a rainy day, since too many of you have put the pressure on for a daily entry! We leave for a 3 day trek in Halong Bay today.

When we were in Vang Vien, we had a delicious Indian dinner (we are eating more Indian food here than Laos food. We just can't help it; we love it). We decided we needed a post dinner drink of mojitos. After all, the Lao people know how to make a mean mojito.

We went to a bar that was pumping Bob Marley. We read the menu, which was outside for all to look at at.

Some Lao dude that worked there came up to us and informed us that it was happy hour.

Happy hour! we thought in glee. We assumed we could now get our drinks for $.25 instead of $.50! To a bunch of dutch travellers on a budget, this was like manna from heaven.

We sat down and the dude brought us the Happy Hour Menu:


You'd think we were in Amsterdam!

(And while he informed us that this sort of stuff was legal, we found out after that it wasn't. Good thing we didn't order a mushroom pizza, or we might be in a Laos prison...)

Some Bumps Along the Way to Vietnam

We expected the 24 hour bus ride to Hanoi, Vietnam to be boring, long and uneventful. It was definitely long and boring, but certainly not uneventful.

The day we left Vientiane, I woke up with a touch of the flu. My head was about to explode, my body was achey, and my tummy was less than cooperative. The problem when you're travelling is that you just can't crawl into bed. Heck, you can't even make yourself a piece of toast. I managed to find a restaurant on the Mekong river with pillows that let you sprawl all over the ground. I ordered a mango juice and basically camped there for the day, reading and sleeping.

Hopping on a bus feeling this way was not a prospect I enjoyed. But what can you do? At 7:00pm we left. It was a bumpy ride until we stopped at 1:30am. Why weren't we moving?

Some Vietnamese guy who speaks English explained that customs in Vietnam didn't open until 7:00am, so we were camping here for the night.

Now this made no sense to us. Why wouldn't we have just left hours later and been spared the additional hours on a stagnant bus? You cannot get explanations to questions likes these in countries like these, so we accepted it and attempted to find the beds the Vietnamese guy told us we could buy for a dollar at this rest stop.

We know better than to buy rooms without looking first. Maybe it was the fatigue, maybe it was the bus fumes, but be agreed to the dollar rooms and almost keeled over when we walked in.

I mean, we've slept in some bad places, but nothing topped this. It was a cement room with a cement floor and no roof really- you could hear everything going on outside. The bed was basically a cement block with a sheet on it. Once again beds were in short supply, so we had 3 to a bed. To call it "uncomfortable" would have been giving it more praise then it was worth. We didn't dare put our faces on the pillows, so did up our hoodies to sleep on them instead. To top it off, the roosters started crowing (my new pet peeve is crowing roosters. I thought they were supposed to crow at sunset, but here they go nuts in the middle of the night! I want to shoot them!) and there were some vicious stray dog fights going for hours. The yelping, wincing and barking was enough to drive anyone batty.

But time always passes, even in circumstances like these, and at 6am we drove to Vietnamese customs.

Just to let you know, Vietnam is one of rare countries where you need a VISA before you arrive. We all had this taken care of.

But Kevin's VISA -- which was issued around the same time as Dana, Ben, and Meaghan's in Bangkok -- said that the admission date was December 12, 2007. It was December 11.

We were nervous about this. Maybe it would be okay.

Customs was a gong show. The Vietnamese were very pushy and it was a free for all of shouting and showing their passports at the windows. We went to the window labelled, "Door for Foreigners" and handed the mean-looking, communist, non-English speaking men our passports.

And waited.

And waited. And waited.

An hour later, we were nervous. What could possibly be wrong? During this time, we sat on a bench. We saw a customs guy hoark on the floor, and then give Meaghan shit for having her feet on the seat.

Finally we realized what was wrong as we saw a generator and a cord going to the "Door for Foreigners" window. The power had gone out at customs and they couldn't process the passports! They were just recording the Vietnamese ones in a book by hand, but I guess that wasn't good enough for us.

I swear the generator ran out of gas at one point, because it stopped and took another half hour to get going again. But we did finally get called to the window. Our passports were stamped.

But Kevin was told that his VISA was not valid and he could not get in.

"Please," he pleaded. "They made a mistake on it."

"Ten dollars," he said. (Gotta love corruption in political systems.)

"They'll do it for ten bucks," Kevin announced to us. That was a mistake. The customs officer did not like Kevin broadcasting this corruption and defiantly shook his head.

"No. You cannot come."

We're all getting nervous. We still had a 12 hour bus ride to the destination. We had exited from Laos. We were essentially in no man's land.

Kevin begged and pleaded. They ignored him.

Meaghan pleaded. "My husband!" She said. "Take all my money!" She begged as she threw a mixture of kip and dollars at him. He didn't even look at her.

She started to cry.

It didn't work. They begged and pleaded. Nothing.

Our stomaches were in knots. The bus driver came. "Hurry!" He said.

We would have to split the group. I mean, for 1 or 2 people to catch another ride to
Hanoi was one thing, but 5?

Meaghan was sobbing, Kevin was beyond frustated, and the bus driver was ushering us to the bus. We did the painful walk on--Dana, Ben and I--and left bawling Meaghan and Kevin behind, feeling nauseated, wondering how the heck this could be happening, wondering if we also should stay behind.

We got on the bus and felt sick. The driver was still behind us.

Five minutes later a tear stained Meaghan walked on, followed by a ticked off Kevin. The bus driver had worked some magic. The customs officer wrote "$30" on a piece of paper and let him on.

Phew.


So we did arrive in Hanoi. On one stop Meaghan was squatting in a bathroom (if you can call them that here) and a huge lizard jumped out at her from the top of the wall. She almost lost it.

Hanoi is nuts. We've never seeing driving so crazy, and the horns give New York City a run for their money-- even all night. It was another sleepless night as a result. Fortunately I had earplugs so therefore did not bear the brunt of this. Scooters are everywhere. It's dirty. Our hostel last night was only marginally better than the previous night's accommodations. Ok, it was way better, but still terrible. We've given up looking both ways before we cross the street, because the only way you'll get across is to close your eyes and hope the cars and scooters dodge you. I actually got my knuckles brushed by a scooter today and a bus marginally missed me at customs. When the bus driver saw how close he came to smoking me, his eyes grew big and his lips formed a big "Oh!" We're glad we've been to Hanoi, but we're moving on once again tomorrow.

Here's a very crude video of the streets of Hanoi. I know it's terrible, but I was walking.


There are beautiful parts of Vietnam and we're looking forward to heading there. Tomorrow we hit Halong Bay.

When Things Go Wrong

We were excited to go back to the town of Vang Vien. It was our favourite town and we had about a 7 hour motorcycle journey to get there. We learned the hard way that riding in the dark in the mountains was not only scary, but it took away the view. We did not want to drive in the dark again- and it gets dark here at about 5:30. Recall that we rented our bikes in Vientiane, and the original plan was to leave them in Luang Pratang. But we decided to head back to Vientiane with them, with a stop in Vang Vien for the night.

So we filled up with gas the night before and set our alarms for 6:45am, and went to sleep dreaming of the beautiful countryside we would see on this ride.

It all started with the food on the boat cruise, I suspect. When we were cooking the little bits of raw meat the previous night, we did make a comment or two, such as, “I hope this meat hasn’t been sitting out too long,” or “Cook your meat well.”

Whatever the case, that night the cute and cozy feeling of us all sharing 5 to a room with our own bathroom wore off. I was the unlucky one whose bed was next to the bathroom. All night, I was woken up as people stumbled into the bathroom. It was a treacherous route to get here, as our stuff was everywhere and my briefcase was a little too close to the door. So every time someone had to use the bathroom, he or she would trip over it, and thus cause a racket.

“My goodness,” I thought sleepily as I was woken up again. “These people have the bladders of children!”

Dana took such a mad dash to the bathroom at some point and tripped everywhere so much, that I thought she may have killed herself.


As you may have now clued in, and I had not clued in that night, a few of my travelling companions had terribly upset stomachs and had made mad dashes to the bathroom in fear of vomiting, or because of diarrhoea.

The next morning dawned bright and early, but half of us were sick, and the other half had no sleep because of the others being sick. But we had a long ride ahead of us, so suck it up and carry on.

We did have some breakfast, which was a good thing, because little did we know at that time that it would be the last meal in 24 hours.

We left on time and felt good about ourselves. Not only would we be driving in daylight to fully experience the view, but we would have a nice relaxing evening in Vang Vien.


We were on the road for only half an hour when Meaghan’s scooter broke down. Again. It had broken down a couple days ago in the city, but a mechanic changed a spark plug and it was right as rain again.

We groaned at being stuck at the side of the road. We all stopped and determined that Kevin should whip into town on his Baja and call the bike rental place.

A minor setback only. No problem. We did express some nervousness at the state of Meaghan’s scooter, but decided to wait before getting too bent out of shape.

We made the best of the situation. We played cards in a ditch, ate Myanmain treats and played...how shall we say...adult versions of “would you rather.”

After an hour and a half, our optimism was wearing thin. And every Lao person that passed us on the road seemed to view us as some sort of interesting event to stare at. They all stared; not one person offered to help.


Kevin came roaring on his bike shortly after that, followed by a Lao dude, who turned out to be a friend of the rental guy’s. This was the guy that originally switched out the spark plug.

“Where’s his tools?” I asked Kevin.
Kevin growled. “He didn’t bring any! I told him, but either he didn’t understand, or thinks we can’t start it.”

Well as we had already determined, the bike wouldn’t start. So this guy hopped back on his scooter, and zoomed away to get his tools!

When he finally returned after quite a while, he changed the spark plug again.

We’re nervous about this. Two spark plugs in two days?

We tried to communicate with him that “we have very long way to go! Bike okay?”

“Yes, yes! No problem!” He assured us.

We asked again, and again. “Long way! Very far! Bike break down?” It was a ridiculous game of charades, as most communication here is.

He waved us away, “No problem, I fix.”

We were suspicious, but we had lost a lot of time and really couldn’t be short a bike because we had so much cargo. So we utilized the power of positive thinking that this bike WOULD make it, told Dana to say a prayer for the bike since she’s the most spiritual of all of us, and carried on.

One hour later I groaned as I turned a corner and saw Meaghan on the side of the road.
Flat tire!

We slowly brought the bike to the next village (for now there were only villages within miles) and tried to communicate with them that we needed to use some tools.


To make a very long story short, the Laos people who tried to be helpful weren’t that helpful. Every time they put a new tube in, it would puncture! Finally as they reached for a third tube, Ben motioned vehemently, “Stop! It will puncture again! Something wrong!”

Turns out they hadn’t put the strip around the rim to protect the tube from the screws or rivets or whatever.

During this time we were baking in the heat (not that I’m complaining about that, but our shirts were soaked in sweat) and it was as if we were providing a real live Broadway for the town. They all gathered around and stared at the foreigners. They would leave and call their friends. There were mostly children, but by the end of it, adults had gathered around to stare. While this is assuming at first, after 2 hours, it wears thin.

Two hours later the tire was fixed and we were on the road again.

Within 5 minutes Meaghan was stopped again with that damn scooter!

“Kevin,” she said, in tears. “It’s not shifting right. I almost lost control.”

Kevin bravely relinquished his beloved Baja (thank goodness Meaghan knows how to ride a motorcycle) and took the decrepit scooter. We all followed him and held our breath when that thing stalled, and cheered when he got it started again. Sometimes he was only going 30 km because he couldn’t shift gears, but he was moving.

We just wanted to get to Vang Vien and we had already lost so much time! I wanted to get to Vang Vien only because I knew that I would get my own room and a hot shower for $1.50 a night.

After 2 hours, the scooter stopped all together. By this time it was most definitely dusk, and Dana and Ben were ahead of us.

We noticed the gas gauge was at empty. We hadn’t filled up that long ago, but we were suspicious that maybe it was out of gas.

“After all,” Kevin said. “I’ve been driving in second the whole time.”

So once again he zoomed to the next village while Meaghan and I sat by the side of the road, getting stared at by the Laos passers-by. We cracked open a laptop and one shameless Laos guy stood behind us and stared at what we were doing. It was definitely getting dark.

More than half hour later Kevin came back with a couple vials of gas. We put them in and held our breath.

Nothing.

We all growled. This was definitely bad. It was almost dark and we were in the middle of the mountains in the middle of a country with only primitive villages and no English. And most people still had upset stomachs. And we had missed lunch and now dinner. And Dana and Ben were separated from us.

Somehow Kevin started that scooter to be able to drive it to the next town, where Dana and Ben backtracked to find us. We knew now that the spark plug needed to be changed again.

It took forever due to language barriers, but we did change it.

It was so dark by this point that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We were still at least 2 hours away from Vang Vien and it was well into the evening, and we were tired, hungry, and in some cases still sick. Kevin was especially struggling with an upset stomach.

But carry on! Three kilometres down the road, the damn thing broke down again!

This was disheartening. If the spark plug blew after almost 3 kilometres, this thing could definitely no longer be driven. It was completely dead. And now the town was 3 kilometres away, so we had to push the damn thing back in the dark, through the windy mountain roads, up and down!

Ben drove ahead to buy some rope, and as he was opening the bag with a knife, he sliced his finger pretty badly. So his rescue mission went awry as blood seeped everywhere. Just asking the villagers for a band-aid was challenging.


While we waited for Kevin to push the scooter back into the village, as Dana’s scooter cast light in front of him, we felt extremely low. What to do with this scooter? If we did not get this scooter back to Vientiane, we would not get our deposits, or more importantly, Kevin’s passport would not be returned. But it couldn’t be driven. We had to call the rental place, but when we made motions for “phone” to the villagers, they shook their heads so vehemently, as if it was the craziest suggestion they had ever heard. Dejected, we were now completely annoyed as the whole town gathered round to stare at us. I mean, we were miserable, and no one wants anyone to make their misery a spectacle.

So as Ben tried to get his finger to stop bleeding, and Kevin successfully pushed the scooter from hell into town, we knew we needed a place to stay.

Everything had gone terribly wrong and we were feeling extremely low, not to mention stressed about this scooter, but one thing had gone right.

Back on the road while Meaghan and I were waiting for Kevin to get gas a couple hours prior, two Lao boys on bicycles stopped and asked in extremely broken English if we were okay. We assured them we would be okay, but I don’t think they understood.

“Guesthouse, 100 metre,” was all he could say in the thickest of accents as he pointed up the road.

Meaghan had grumbled after, “Thanks, but we don’t need a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. We need to get to Vang Vien.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” I said. “How can there possibly be a guesthouse?”

Now these words rang in our head. We needed a phone and a place to sleep, both of which seemed like non-existent prospects in the middle of the mountains. (I had at one point said “Guesthouse?” to a local, as most Lao people seem to understand that word. She shook her head so hard I swear it almost fell off.)

Kevin and I darted in that direction on our Bajas and found the guesthouse about 10 minutes later. They had 2 rooms and beds for only 4, but we didn’t care. We took them.

There was a strange shack across the street that said “police” and we figured that if this was indeed the police, they would surely have a phone. And they did! But the reception was terrible and we couldn’t make the call.

Kevin, sick, rode back to the village to tell the rest of the gang that we had accommodations. We left the broken scooter in the village and chained it up. One do gooder motioned that he would change the spark plug again. After frying 3 spark plugs, we knew this would be the temporariest of band-aids and politely declined.

They went back to the guesthouse where I was waiting for them. I was dying for a shower and didn’t realize as I stood there with nothing on and the water trickled out, that there was no hot water. I shivered as I washed my hair. Later when I went to brush my teeth, I realized the tap didn’t work at all, so I had to use the cold shower.

The rest of the crew came back and Kevin felt so terrible that we decided I should bunk up with Dana and Ben. This bed—which was more like a layer of bricks with a thin sheet over top—was very small and we had the worst sleep again. And Ben’s finger was still bleeding.

But things always look brighter in the morning when the sun shines. The wretched day did end and the sun came up. We realized that we were in some sort of Lao truck stop town and there was a restaurant. After going without lunch or dinner yesterday, breakfast was definitely in order.

We desperately hoped the guy who rented our bikes to us would let us leave it in the town. There was no way we could get it back.


The restaurant did have a phone! But the reception was so bad, it was situated just so, so it was the most Mickey Mouse way of making phone calls.

But we got through!

And he told us that we could definitely not leave the bike there. We had to get it back. He went so far as to ask us if we played with the choke to start it. Then told us to change the spark plug again. Did he think we were stupid?

Maybe it was the daylight, maybe it was the fact that stomachs were more settled, or maybe Dana’s prayers got answered in a twisted sort of way, but we got the scooter back to Vientiane.

We decided to tow it.

The guy called back on the cell phone and we told him, “We changed the spark plug, I think we’re stupid, we’ll be in Vientiane if things go well.”

And remarkably things did go well. Kevin towed it for 200 kilometres through the mountains while Ben steered it! It was ridiculous and completely Mickey Mouse. I mean, most people would tow for a couple dozen kilometres, but a couple hundred?

Yes, maybe it was dangerous, but considering our limited options, we were just relieved that we were able to get the damn thing back in one piece- with all of us intact as well.

So we’re in Vientiane, rid of the bikes, and in much better spirits. Let’s hope we never have a day like that again. Today we hop on a bus for a 24 hour ride to Vietnam...

When All That is Lost May or May Not be Found

I haven’t posted in a couple days because of some crazy mishaps. These mishaps resulted in the road trip from hell, but at least it makes for a great story! For now I’ll leave you suspense to post the entry I wrote a couple days ago:
It’s been a couple of relaxing days in Luang Pratang, which were needed. The town itself is a bit touristy for our taste, but still insanely far from anything you would see in the Western part of the world.


We strolled the markets and streets, visited a spectacular waterfall, took advantage of cheap massages ($4 per hour) and I even took my motorbike offroading by myself. (Though I must confess that it was more of an attempt. After the second close call getting stuck all by my lonesome in uncharted territory in the middle of the jungle, I realized that my power-packed bike could get me into some jams that I would be hard pressed to get myself out of, and no one would have the first clue where to find me if something went wrong. Yes, mom, let this prove that occasionally I do have some common sense.)

This evening we took a boat ride up the Mekong river and had some dinner and watched the sunset. The dinner involved crowding around little barbecue style things and cooking our own bits of meat, rice noodles, and vegetables- a kind of Asian fondue. Once again, the scenery was spectacular. We were the only ones on the boat, so we got our iPods and speakers, bought a couple Beerlao (the local beer here) and had our own private party.
We’re heading back south tomorrow, back to where we started. It’s a long story why, and took us hours of debating or researching to come to this conclusion, but we feel this is the best decision given the information and time we have. Travelling sounds exotic and romantic, and it certainly is most of the time, but one fellow Canadian we met on our journeys summed it up best: Travelling is full of highs and lows. We’ve had a few minor disappointments in the form of not being able to see and do all that we hoped due to misinformation (or conflicting information) and fully booked tours, but we remind ourselves that we already have seen and done so much. At least this way we get to relive the glorious motorcycle ride through the mountains, which I just found out today is “arguably the best motorcycle ride in Southeast Asia”, according to one website.

The group dynamic has been great. One would assume that travelling with 5 people could be challenging at times, but we’ve all gotten along so well and have had so much fun together. We’re totally roughing it, and appalled at how our hygiene has just been thrown out the windows. Sketchy shower facilities, limited laundry resources, razor sharp sun resulting in sweat baths...it’s like camping without the ability to go swimming! I swear I’ve forgotten how to put on makeup, my hair resembles a bag of uncooked rice noodles, and I haven’t looked in a mirror for 3 days. I’m very afraid to do so. Ok, so we’re not that bad. I mean, we do shower, and have managed to find ways to clean our clothes, but we’re definitely slumming it out here.

The funniest part of the group dynamic is that we can all be quite scatterbrained. I must say that Meaghan, Dana, and I can be absent-minded on the best of days, but put us together and it’s gotten ridiculous. Ben and Kevin even claim that we’re rubbing off on them.

There's the Oakleys Kevin left on the back of his bike and drove away (he did recover them), Dana’s loss of her her motorcycle keys TWICE, Meaghan and I both lost a pair of sunglasses, the shoes I left by the river, Ben's close call of a missing iPod, Dana's misplacement of her motorcycle helmet...ok, ok, I’ll stop boring you, but these sorts of things happen on a daily basis. It’s amazing we all manage to function in remote parts of the world like these.

Anyway, stay tuned for the tale of our crazy day yesterday....
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Road Trip!

It was the ultimate road trip, our own version of The Motorcycle Diaries.

One of my favourite things to do in the world is ride a motorcycle. In Sarnia, you get the slightest thrill from tackling the “s” curves on the Indian reserve, or the curves by the airport. The ramp to an overpass is always a cheap thrill as well. And that's it, much to the chagrin of me and my riding buddies.

But driving through the Annamite Mountains more than made up for my deprivation. It was a blast to zip along on the bike, singing my heart out with my iPod, grinning like a fool, because I knew the day was one of those life moments that I knew would be permanently etched in my brain. Plus, biking with other people is always a riot, and to be doing this with 4 terrific friends...it was something I couldn’t have even fathomed in my dreams.


We went up and down, winded through roads, tackled hairpin turns, climbed up up up to be delivered to a cliff with a view so stunning I was certain I was watching a movie like “Lord of the Rings”. Then we would descend into valleys and be completely surrounded by mountains with rock formations and greenery you only see in picture books. Yesterday I surely witnessed the most beautiful scenery of my life- even more beautiful than South Africa or the south shores of Thailand.

I should pause momentarily to give credit where credit is due. An honorable mention goes to Dana, whose motorcycle debut was on these windy roads. The poor thing was a little apprehensive when we originally rented bikes. During her first lesson on her 110 scooter, she somehow hit the throttle with the brake, and when she released the brake, she was propelled into traffic on a busy street. Reduced to tears, she asked if there was a bus she could take to meet us there. But she valiantly tried again and did wonderfully (Ann, no worries- she has improved dramatically).

While the views were spectacular, equally memorable was the culture of the villages we passed through. The cattle did not pepper the road like they did on the early part of our journeys. Only once an obnoxious cow stubbornly planted herself in the middle of the street and stared at us defiantly while we drove around her. The further north we went, the more stray dogs and pigs we saw. We saw dogs fighting, pigs fighting, and even a new litter of piglet feeding off their mama on the side of the road. There was a family of chickens that crossed the road in front of me (Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. It’s actually true! I saw it with my own eyes!), but the chicks were so little and cute that one couldn’t be annoyed. The one time I was annoyed is when the sun was long gone and it was black as asphalt, and a stray dog ran in front of me. That was definitely alarming.


But the villagers were amongst the most interesting that day. I fear we gave the poor Lao people whiplash! I was surprised that they noticed that we were white people driving through their villages, but they all noticed. Perhaps it was the blonde hair peeking from under our helmets, billowing around our heads. Perhaps it was the cargo loaded on all the bikes. Maybe it was the 2 Honda Bajas in the pack, when you don’t see real motorbikes here too often. Maybe it was a girl on one of these bikes, and granted, my bike is ridiculously loud. But they stared and stared, their round heads following our every move through the town. Naked children lost interest in the games they were playing by the side of the road to giggle and wave. Men stopped working the fields to stare. Women paused while hanging clothes to dry, and adolescents doubling on decrepit bicycles hit the brakes, stared and waved. This happened in every one of the numerous towns we drove through. It was almost hard to operate the clutch, because my hand was waving around to all the children in the villages that were grinning at us and fervently waving, as if we had just made their day a little brighter.

They live primitively in these towns. Their grass huts all look the same, and it wasn’t uncommon to see children toting sticks and wood on their backs, or even carrying their tinier siblings on their backs. There seems to be a community shower, because in every one of these villages, there was a shower like contraption by the side of the road, sputtering water, while people wrapped in towels gathered around. I saw one old man get right down to his skivvies, but Kevin topped that one by seeing an old women in nothing but her birthday suit. He says he was traumatized. Later on a little detour off-roading, he ended up at the community shower and the half naked Lao people laughed and laughed at the white person who was so clearly lost.

We left at 11am and didn’t arrive until 8:30pm, but granted, we had some liberal stops. It was a very long day. It’s cold driving through the mountains at night, not to mention a little treacherous. It was definitely a road trip to be proud of! The funny thing is that kilometre-wise, it’s not that far, but going through the mountains is a slow process.

But we made it to Luang Prabang safe and sound. Most of the guesthouses were sold out, which we didn’t need after a long day like ours. But ironically enough we found a room that sleeps exactly 5, so we had a giant sleepover. I slept quite well, but all I could hear was the rumble of my bike and I swore I was still weaving in and out of windy roads through the mountains.