On the Road Again

Tim:  After leaving Hoi An, we continued to head south with Nha Trang as the destination we were looking toward. We knew this ride would take us at least two travel days so we expect to stay somewhere along the way for the night. We went in search of ancient Cham ruins on the way. Our first attempt got us no where. Turns out we were at the wrong site, and there did not appear to be a trail up to the hill top where the Cham tower stood. After plowing our way along a narrow dirt trail on our motor bikes we tried hiking up the hill but were unable to due to the dense jungle brush blocking our way. We got within 100 yards of the tower before finally turning back. The temperature was over 90 degrees so we were drenched in sweat by the time we returned to the bikes. We were all a little frustrated by the lack of progress, but 15 kilometers down the highway we saw the ruins we were attemptimg to find originally. There were no other tourists, and we were able to ride our motorbikes right up to the ruins. These Cham toweres were built around 900 A.D. There were obvious signs of refurbishing, but it was still and amazing sight.

After a fourty five minute stop there we continued on. We were behind schedule after our detour, and it was getting dark. We had ridden our motorbikes one other time in the dark on the highway and it wasn't fun. The headlights on the motorbikes do not work very well and only illuminate about 15 feet infront of you. The bugs also come out at night and you can no longer where your sun glasses so you tend to get a lot of bugs in your eyes. After 30 mintes of night driving we had had enough. We found a small hotel for $8.00 a night and held up for the evening. We had dinner at a small local restaurant where they served only one dish that included beef scewers, miniture spring rolls, and deliscious rice pancakes with shrimp. All this was dipped in a mildly spicy peanut saw. The food was great. We combined this with a beer. The whole tab was 90,000 dong or $4.50 for all three of us. So dinner was $1.50 each including a beer.

The next morning we were on the road by 9:30. We grabbed a cup of excellent Vietnamise iced coffee and a quick sandwhich. The drive was beautiful as we were right on the coast. I ran out of gas again. I've actually lost track of how many times I've run out of gas. I think this was the 6th time. None of our gas gages work and my bike has been gettng worse fuel economy recently. Our bikes are getting arond 75 miles to the gallon. Not bad.

We stopped at a small beachside village for lunch the only thing on the menu was steamed rice served with shrimp. The food was simple but deliscious. An old man who spoke some english sat next to us and told us about being a scout for the South Vietnam Army during the American war. He told us about his 10 children and 21 grandchildren. After a filling lunch we were back on the road. One and a half more hours and we had reached Nha Trang. The sun was blistering hot. I was forced to wear pants, shoes, and a long sleave shirt to avoid being fried by the sun. Right before we reached Nha Trang we found a drink stand selling cold drinks. In a matter of minutes Amber, Joe, and I downed 5 different soft drinks of iced tea and soda pop.

There are may hotels lining the beach here. We found a budget hotel one block from the beach for $8.00 per night.

Amber:  We left Hoi An and went in search of Son My, a South Vietnamese "American War" memorial.  While Americans record 369 deaths, the Vietnamese Memorial recorded 504 civilians that were massicered.  Most were women and children.  It was chilling to look at the pictures of the elderly, women and babys that had been herded into a ditch then killed, exicution style.  Others as they fled down the street. We were walking into the memorial and encountered school children leaving.  The common greating of "where you from" from one of the children caused him to actually take a step back when we responded "America".  The rest of the memorial included foundations of the homes that had been burned to the ground, bomb shelters that had been destroyed, and really, really tacky dead animal statues.

We drove a long ways after Son My.  It was a beautiful road, and very warm.  We wanted to reach Quy Nhon but it was getting dark.  Bugs are bad enough without it being dark out, let alone the traffic on A1.  We decided that we should pull over after who knows how many bugs died by hitting us in the face and being pushed off of the highway by busses for the hundredth time.  We discovering that our low headlighs didn't illuminate that the locals were drying straw on the road side.  Not fun!  We found a nice hotel, had some dinner and went to bed with a plan of rising early and checking out some Cham ruins.

The Cham ruins were beautiful, once we found them.  We put our bikes and our ability to back road to the test before we succeeded!  We could see a really magnificant one on the top of a hill and after asking several locals how to get to it found ourselves driving through cactus and pricker bushes on a tiny, faded path up the hillside.  The problem with asking a local how to get somewhere is you say "this way?" and point and they say "yes" and then you ask: "or is it this way?" and point the opposite direction.  The answer is again, yes!  We got so close to the origional ruin sighted before deciding that getting cut to shredds from the thorns or eaten by a huge spider wasn't worth it.  There were more on the way south, and it was 90' out. 

The next sight we attempted was far more successful and we got great pictures.  It was beautiful!  What a cool way to spend the morning!  We made it to Quy Nhon in time to make it to the beach and relax.  Beach time makes everything better, and it had already been a great day.

We got up early again, and headed out to concure the 220km south to Nha Trang.  We took an amazing streatch of road that hugged the coast.  As we wound along, Tim's bike ran out of gas.  He and Joe staied behind while I took an empty water bottle down the highway, in search of the nearest town and gas station.  Happily, I didn't run out of gas and have to walk by myself to the next gas station.  There was one just over the hill.  Joe met me at the gas station and I refueled then drove back to Tim.  Once everyone had gas, we headed off.  Everyones bike worked fairly well; Tim's seemed to blow a gasket that caused it to smoke, but we made it to Nha Trang by 3:00pm.  Just in time to get a hotel for $8 a night and more beach time!

Hue

Tim: After waking up early to cover more ground after the previous day's motorbike trouble, our plan was to start riding at 7 am, and eat breakfast further down the road. Our plan didnt work out. Joe's bike would not start after just getting it worked on the night before. Fortunately, there was a repair shop right across the street. We left the bike and went in search of breakfast. We found a popular place for breakfast. Many of the local restaurants only serve one dish, but the dish they served is usually really good. This place served fish balls, and small pork spring rolls that you would wrap in a soft rice noodle sheet then dip in a sweet and sour sauce. The fish balls were not our favorite, but the spring rolls were good.

After breakfast, Joe's bike was fixed. We're not sure what was wrong with it, but it was fixed. We got a later start than we had hoped, but our travels along the main highway were fast. We were about to average over 60 km per hour. We arrived in Hue early in the evening around 5 oclock. We found a really nice hotel with very pleasant staff for $13 a night including breakfast.

Joe had arranged to meet a couple of Vietnamise ladies for dinner. On their recommendation, we went to a nice local restaurant. A five course dinner for five people including five beers and two soft drinks cost a little over $22.

The next day we visited the citadel of the emperor.

Amber:  Most of the citadel had been destroyed over the years; WWII, the French War, the "American War" as they call it here, and natural disasters all taking their tole.  The Vietnamese have been working hard to restore it to its origional state, with slow and steady progress.  The ciadel itself is 10km long and 2m thick and surrounds the Imperial Enclosure as well as a large portion of Hue's population.  The Imperial Enclosure is actually a citadel within a citadel and at one point was several walled sections where the emperor dwelled and met with his minions.  He even had a special "Forbidden Purple City" where his concubines were only allowed to be encoutered by himself and eunuch servants.  Unfortunately, that portion of the citadel ws all but destroyed, but fasinating just the same.  The last emperor was living there in 1947... concubines and eunuchs were then possibly in Hue at that time.  Or even now.  You never know, but history sure is interesting!

Another part of Hue history was that the emperor had a mini Colloiseum for his own private elephant vs. tiger wars.  He believed that the elephant represented his power and wisdome, the tiger his foes.  He would have all the tigers claws and teeth removed, release the tiger and elephant into the arena and cheer as the elephant trampled the tiger to death.  Nice. 

Vinh and Motorbike Trouble

Amber:  Driving motor scooters has proven to be very eventful for Joe, Tim and me.  We spent the the day in Vihn where we found a Big C (SE Asias version of a walmart) for tools, rain ponchos for our back packs, gloves, chocolate, etc.  Everything was exceptionally cheap, they even had wine for about a dollar a bottle.  So, we of course bought one!  After finding the provisions we needed we discovered a fast food place and all enjoyed deep fried chicken, burgers, fries, and blizzards.  Stuffing ourselves on something other than pho was so deliscious, but not something we are going to do every day.  Just as a reward for motor biking in the rain and cold.

Tim: After the fast food lunch with more than 1000 calories each, we hit up the video arcade next door. We played air hockey, basketball hoops, and a few shoot-em-up games. We stayed that night in Vinh. In the evening we visited a Cafe with live guitar music. In Vietnam almost all cafes do not serve food. For the locals they spend their evenings in cafes rather than bars drinking tea and coffee. Vietnamise coffee is probably the best coffee we have ever had. It makes Starbucks taste like rat pee, not that I know what that would taste like. The Vietnamise coffee is very strong, but not bitter like the Laos coffee. It has a lot of caffiene too.

The next day we took off down the road for Hue, pronounced hway. About two hours into our ride, my bike made a big bang noice, but I didn't notice anything wrong. Within a few meters Amber was honking at me to pull over. She had see something fly off of my bike. On closer inspection, I noticed that three of my rear spokes had been ripped off the bike. This happened because a piece of the rear wheel assembly that attached to the framed had cracked off and flown into the spokes. This also disabled my rear brake. It looked really bad! After twisting the broken spokes in so that the would not hit anything, we limped off down the road to find a mechanic shop. They are everywhere over here. We don't really know the name of a mechanic shop in Vietnamise, but most of the ones we have been to have a sign that says Xe May. We found a shop within a few kilometers. He pulled the bike appart. Jumped on his motorbike to go find the broken part. After 20 minutes he returned to tell us he couldn't find the part. After putting the bike back together with some wire we head off down the road, me without any back brakes.

After stopping at a few mechanic shops who told us they couldn't fix my bike and just told us that the bike was fine because I still had front breaks, we found a shop that was able to find the part needed. We cut out the three damaged spokes. Total repair bill, only $10.00. After almost a two hour delay we were back on the road.

Another hour down the road, and Joe's bike began to have problems at a gas station. It would start fine, but it had no power and would stall out when it was put in gear.  To make matters worse, it had begun raining. I had to tow Joe's bike with mine with a small piece of rope that we had been given. Te rope was only about eight feet long, so as I towed Joe in the rain, mud and water sprayed all over Joe and his bike. Fortunately, we found another repair shop only one kilometer up the road. It took an hour or so to repair Joe's bike. It needed a new coil. By now it was getting late, and it was still raining. We agreed to sop at the next hotel we saw. We found a hotel with the next 15 kilometers. We had only made it around 60 kilometers that day. After a Beef Pho dinner we agreed to wake up early and tried to make more progress the next day.

Crazy Motorbike Ride out of Hanoi

Tim:  Friday morning we took a taxi over to Vietmotors where we had bought motorbikes. It took some time get everything ready to go. Last minute repairs, installing luggage racks, mirrors, etc. We finally left the shop at around 1 oclock. We made it about one kilometer from the shop when Amber's motorbike stalled out at an intersection and died. Joe and I had already gone through the intersection before we saw that Amber was not behind us. At first we thought she had frozen with fear at the intersection and wouldn't drive through, but after a minute or two we realized that there was something else going on.

We doubled back to find Amber's motorscooter not running and Amber trying to get the scooter started again. The locals helped identify for us that the motorbike was out of gasoline. We had just passed a gas station, but it was behind us on a one way street. A local offered to get petrol for us in a water bottle and bring it back. After a ten minute wait we were back in business with Amber's motorbike running fine. Five more minutes down the road we all stopped to figure out our route out of town. We began to pull back out into traffic when my motorbike stalled out. It was out of gas too! Once again a local offered to go get some petrol in a water bottle for us and bring it back. In the process Joe had gotten separated from us. After another 20 minutes I had gotten gas and we found Joe again. The traffic was crazy, so many motor scooters. The traffic continued for so long we didn't even realize when we were finally out of the city.

About two hours into our ride. We came up a train that was stopped in the middle of a smaller town. The train tracks ran with in 4 meters of the road. People were running towards the back of the train, and traffic was backed up on the main road. Beside the tracks was a severly mangled motorbike with a group of people standing around it. Then a few feet later we saw a piece of cardboard mostly covering a dead body with only the feet sticking out. We could see that all of the toes on one foot had been torn off. Amber saw a policeman trying to vomit beside the road. It appeared that the motorbike and driver had been struck by the train. The sight shook us up a little bit, but we kept our focus on the road.

Another hour of driving and we reached Ninh Binh. The city has little in the way of tourism, but we easily found a hotel. It had begun raining during the last two hours of our ride. Amber has full rain gear, but I only have a rain coat as I sent the pants back home to help lighten the load of our backpacks. Joe and I bought rain ponchos that were for sale on the side of the road for $3.40 each (70,000 dong).

After getting settled in to our hotel for the night, we went out for dinner, The Lonely Planet guidebook recommended a restaurant serving goat meet, so we went there and had goat. It was served grilled and eaten rapped in rice paper with an unknown leaf and mint then dipped in a spicy chili sauce. The goat was good, the corn soup we had as an appitiezer wasn't so great.

We were happy to be safe.