Squeeze the Throttle and Point ‘Er South

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I fell in love with traveling all over again on the second half of our two-wheeled Vietnamese odyssey. My South Vietnamese premonitions were unfounded. The dense, feverish, mosquito infested jungle I expected never showed itself. There were wide open spaces and green hills under blue skies that had me wondering if we’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in Tanzania. The mighty “former rain” which had so thoroughly inundated our first week on the road left us unimpressed by the “latter rain” (about 15 minutes of drizzling…refreshing, really) two days before we reached Saigon. Mostly it was blue skies and balmy breezes. Perfect riding weather.

Bike trips are for dreaming. With nothing to listen to but the wind and the sound of my own thoughts, my imagination went totally bonkers and I got really excited about life, and the things I’d like to do with mine. I changed prospective medical specialties three times during the 800km of Ho Chi Minh highway that separates Hoi An and Saigon. Also it became momentously important to me that I own and run several businesses before I die: hot dog stand, peach orchard, ergonomic design studio, and ice cream parlor. As if all that and medicine won’t keep me busy enough, I solemnly vowed I would learn to sew (well enough to make suits and gowns) and that my culinary repertoire was in grievous need of expansion and would require an ample dose of attention when I get home. Do they have online Home/Ec classes for travelers?

We covered half the length of Vietnam in the last three days of riding. We were up with the sun, and in the saddle almost until dark. Every couple of hours we’d stop to stretch our legs and treat the sweaty hinder regions to some revitalizing breezes. A motorcycle trip, as it turns out, isn‘t a bad past time for a guy who‘s foot is out of order. I could keep up fine as long as we were on the road, it was the stopovers where Jeremy would have to pick up the slack in running errands and getting food and water.

Jeremy, as a rule, makes excellent consumer decisions, so I was happy in my handicap state, to leave hunting and gathering up to him. Everything he scrounged up was great, with the exception of the onion ice cream. That was foul. However, the irony in the fact that the ice cream truck, in rural Vietnam, drove off with it’s speakers blaring “It’s a Small World After All” was sufficiently delicious to leave me with a palatable memory of the experience as a whole.

As we finally entered Saigon I remember thinking passively, “Don’t Crash! Don’t Crash! Aaah there are cars everywhere I‘m gonna die!!.” Luckily I was able to postpone my foray into the maniacal throng thanks to the fact that I ran out of gas. What luck! After I hop-pushed my bike (still in one foot mode) to the next gas station, I realized I was having electrical problems to boot and had to use the kick start to get her going again (her name was Christine by the way…I christened her Christine for the sheer joy of making such an alliterative declaration). .

The goal was to drive to Saigon and sell the bikes. Christine made it to Saigon, and I suppose I should be thankful, but upon arrival, as a bid farewell I suppose, she hit me with a $25 repair bill (this might not sound like much, but it was by far the most expensive tab I ever paid on her behalf…stuff’s cheap in Vietnam). Christine got a makeover and I posted her on Craigslist and also taped a for sale sign to her. She sold easily, and for a good price, as did Jeremy’s bike who’s name escapes me at the moment.

Speaking of paying tabs on behalf of girls, I had a date in Saigon with a Vietnamese girl. Her name translates as “Picture” and as far as those go I thought she is well composed. She has a really cute smile. My attempts to get her to smile turned quickly into flirting, which turned into a date. She picked me up on her motorbike and we went to a restaurant on the river for rice-paper wraps. I was worried that people would think she was a prostitute and that I had hired her (a tragic amount of that business does go on in Saigon), but I think our laughter was too genuine to create that sort of confusion. It was a really fun date, her English vocabulary can‘t keep up with her sassiness. I thought it was cute when she would talk herself into a corner and want to express herself so badly that it looked as if she might explode. She said I could only be her boyfriend if I stay to live in Saigon. It didn’t work out.