Still Talking About God

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In my notes I’ve reminded myself to write about the smugglers who I met and unwittingly abetted on the Trans-Siberian RR, about the veritable “Wild West” (in the far east) that is Mongolia, and about how entering Russia from Asia (as opposed to entering from the Europe) made me realize how similar I am to the average Russian. I’ve never really thought Russians and Americans had a lot in common, but when it’s just me, a Mongolian, and a Russian together in a room, somehow the Russian and I are brothers.
According to my notes those are the things I ought to write up, but somehow their moment has passed. I had another theological discussion this morning and it’s on my mind.
Any of you who’ve read this blog with any sort of regularity know that this trip, for me, has been a spiritual journey at least as much as it has been a regular journey. I’ve made a habit of posing the question “do you believe in God?” as often as I get the chance. Answers have varied drastically, and in most cases kicked off some worthwhile dialogue.
I woke up early this morning to blog. I was firing up my laptop in the hostel’s kitchen when three noticeably drunk hostel fellows whom I hadn’t met before came in. They’d been drinking all night. They were pretty sloshed (one fell out of his chair at one point, and another just laid his face on the table and started snoring), but w/o my provocation they started philosophizing. I stopped writing and started listening.
The burly Finish fellow was of the mind that death is all there is. “We may as well die, there’ s nothing besides death anyway.” Some of what he was saying would have fit well in Ecclesiastes, except he never thought to add the “fear God and keep His commandments” bit. He had a black and white picture of things, but it was more black than white. His less profound French companion (the one who wasn’t conked out and drooling on the table) argued that life was better than that because of the it’s “high” moments. “Even if you are sad more than you are happy,” said the Frenchman, “happiness is worth more than sadness so it can overcome your sadness and make life worth living.” He thought that buying a new laptop might be one such “high.”
I wasn’t at all sure I should enter the conversation because it was obvious that our ideas were quite different and would hinge on the discussion of whether or not there is a God. I prayed that I wouldn‘t make a fool of myself and opened my mouth.

I made a case for the existence of a God based on the idea that there is an identifiable moral code within ourselves (more fundamental than those that various religions arrive at) that we feel compelled at least to recognize if not to obey. I’ve not worked extensively with this stuff, but that was the angle I took. If there is such a thing as real, absolute right and wrong then there must be a writer of that code, a “something else,” a God.
Coming up with concrete examples is something C.S. Lewis is a lot better at than me, but I did my best. I tried to make it raw and poignant. “If I sleep with the woman you love (ladies you’ll have to adjust the example accordingly) you‘ll be well convinced that the thing I did was ‘wrong.’” I claimed that outside of any religious structure, and outside of any fabricated moral code that a culture has adopted, it would be WRONG for me to do this thing, and that the fact that you would be eager to smash my skull with a heavy stick means you are recognizing my wrongness.
Drunk as they were the guys were really great to talk to. They even helped me revise my example. They weren’t sure how the feminists would feel about the “ownership” that a man’s right to be angry at another man for taking his woman implies. So we changed question to “what if I kidnap your son and make him my slave?” Did I for sure wrong you then? Is that wrong enough to be described as absolutely wrong? Is it wrong beyond any “wrongness” that some well meaning but polluted moral thinker may have come up with in the process of inventing a religion?
At this point the Atheists made historical conjectures, and I made historical conjectures. We agreed that such behavior would illicit indignation in ourselves and in anybody we’d ever met, but they argued that there was most likely a time and a people in the past who would not have recognized this behavior as wrong. I think there was never such a people.

The guys were pretty staunch on the idea that everything we’ve ever recognized as right or wrong is only right or wrong because it’s come to be called right and wrong by the prevailing culture. I can’t prove otherwise my experience points me in another direction.
They’ve got their experience and I’ve got mine. That’s that. They may have been drunk but they weren’t stupid, and they weren’t lazy or wishful thinkers either. The guy from Finland praised the Christian moral code for what it was. He doesn’t think it’s “truth” but he does think it’s useful.
So what does a Christian disciple look like here? I don’t know if better apologists with better angles than me would be more convincing than I was. I kind of think there are enough words and theories floating around. For me the challenge is to be the real McCoy. If this Christianity stuff is legit people will see it in my life and want it. Integrity and authenticity are two things my generation demands. That’s good as long as I’m legit. Am I? Are you?

799 Words

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YONDER BLOG

Have you ever played the game Mad Gab? If you have skip the rest of this paragraph: the “it” person reads a short phrase off of a card aloud to his team. To him the words look like complete gibberish. The card might read “yewl bees or re,” which makes no sense, but to his team hopefully it actually sounds like (or approaches sounding like) “you‘ll be sorry.” The team tries to guess as many phrases a they can before time runs out.

They’re playing Mad Gab in China without knowing it. The Chinese character system is so complex that, in order to give foreigners an outside chance at literacy, there’s a hybrid (written) Chinese language that uses the English alphabet (It’s a phonetic rendering of Chinese sounds with accent marks denoting the proper tones). For an American the system makes reading possible. But for Chinese, this “pinion” language amounts to a game of Mad Gab in which they not only have to be the reader, but also the guesser (they must say the sound indicated by the pinion letters, and then ask themselves…the word that I just said, what did it sound like?) if they hope to derive meaning.
One of the coolest things about Chinese characters is their basis in practical reality. They‘re like hieroglyphics (perhaps they are hieroglyphics) -sketches of real things put together to tell a story. For example, when I’m in the valley of decision (trying to figure out which bathroom is for dudes) I need to look for a drawing of a field that includes the pen-stroke for strong. “Field Strong,” that’s “man.” The symbol for woman is harder to read, I think it’s “nag strong.”
There’s a lot of history in the characters too, some of which will really make your socks go up and down if you’re a fan of the books of Moses: the symbol for “covet” is a woman between two trees, the symbol for “boat” indicates a vessel and eight people. All this in atheist China, crazy huh?
Today we arrived in Beijing and introduced ourselves to the city’s infamous public transit system. Since arriving in Asia it’s been my dream to see the Packers in action (actually I did catch a few minutes of a Greenbay game on TV in Bangkok’s U.S. embassy waiting room, but that’s not the kind of Packers I’m referring to). The Packers are the people who are employed by the subway system to physically compress crowds in order to fit them onto trains. Today I not only got to see them working, I got packed!! I was the last person on one of the cars and that little packer pushed her hardest (yeah it was a girl, and she really had to lean into me) to make my shape fit the shape of the empty space remaining on the car.
Funny situations arise when people are in such close proximity. Breath is particularly noticeable when you end up in the front-to-front position (a position Americans customarily reserve for making out). It’s hard to figure out which air is yours to breath and which is theirs. Where should you look? What if they’re breath isn’t so bad and you wind up being attracted to them? Should you tell them or just try to remain aloof, all the while enjoying their closeness?
One guy sneezed all over his three friends. They would have liked to reach up and wipe millions of tiny snot rockets off of their necks and faces, and to beat their friend in atonement for his iniquity, but their arms were irremovably pinned to their sides by their neighbors in the train (I was one of those neighbors and narrowly avoided the blast zone). If the first guys arms hadn’t been pinned perhaps the whole ordeal could have been avoided by a well-placed hand over his sneezer.
Getting off the subway is the process of birth: Proper pushing, squeezing, and breathing must all be used to make it from the middle of the subway car to the door. Fortunately the “one child” law in China left a lot of midwives looking for work. Many of them now earn their living holding clinics on rhythmic breathing and other birth-related skills that equip people for success in moving small masses of human flesh through narrow openings in larger masses of human flesh. And what a worthy work, what is life but such movement?
Speaking of movement I’m glad I won‘t have to move far for the next few days. We’re taking a train to Mongolia, but there’s no train until this weekend, so we wait. For a person who does a lot of “passing by” it’s wonderful to stop for a bit, find a place to sit, and let the rest of the world do the passing.

MSG and Authenticity

Probably my biggest priority as a blogger is to write things that I think you (my reader) will actually read. For that reason I try to stay between 600 and 800 words -I cannot stand the thought of you getting bored while reading my blog. Today, I’ve got a lot to say. I’ll try to be concise, but I’m afraid this one might get long. If you get bored please navigate away from this page (I cringe to think I might be wasting your time). Here are some other options I’m sure you’ll find stimulating: Facebook, Hulu, Adventist Singles Connection.
In reference to my last (religious) blog I want to say this: I don’t think I am particularly gifted at peering into men’s souls, especially when language keeps me from talking to those men and I don‘t have long enough to stay with them, know them, and experience challenges with them that would expose the weaknesses of our (both mine and their) characters. I think God deliberately juxtaposed my experience meditating on what I‘ve called “wide-spread Sanctification,” with the experience He just gave me -an encounter with Chinese atheism (we got a big leg up by staying with some folks who have been living in China, and grappling hard to understand Chinese values and their spiritual significance). I definitely think there’s a lot of truth arrived at in a lot of ways, and that God works in non-Christian religions. But I no longer think it‘s necessary for me to put Christian discipleship “on trial“ in my own mind. Ways that Christianity can benefit people here are obvious. They don’t have a mechanism for forgiveness. People live with a lot of hurt and pain that God is willing to relieve them of. So I breath a sigh of relief; There is still purpose.
For those of you tired of my abstract musings who actually read my “travel blog” because you’re interested in travel, here’s your fix: Our Thai visas expired so we had to hit the road again, and with only a little over a month to get all the way to Greece (to meet Jeremy’s parents) it’s about time to boogie anyway. Our last night in Thailand was spent in Chiang Rai. I think Chiang Rai is the new Chiang Mai and I wish we would have spent more time there and less in Chiang Mai.
In one of my marketing classes we watched a documentary-ish film called “The Quest for Cool.” It’s shtick is that there are authentically new/exciting “cool” things that “cool” people (the early moving, progressive type that the rest of us try to emulate) find. Once the cool people have lent coolness to their new discovery every Jo-Blow trend follower jumps on board and it’s coolness plummets. The film studied this cycle in the fashion industry, but I’m finding the idea to be dead-on in the tourism industry. Chiang Mai appears to have peaked a long time ago. Now it’s a cash cow, helping crowds of “un-cool” tourists part with their cash (I use un-cool to mean folks who either aren’t concerned about cultural authenticity in their travels or else are ignorant in regard to that authenticity. It doesn‘t mean I don‘t think you‘re cool or that we can‘t be friends. If Paul was chief of sinners I‘m the chief of tourists).
I am, however, at least seeking authentic encounters with the gorgeous and diverse people who call this planet home. I used to think the best way to do this was to completely trash the “lonely planet” guide, but I was wrong. The guidebook is good for two things. First, it includes accurate, mildly academic (you can learn things from reading them, but still enjoy the reading) bits on history, economics, and other culture sculptors. The other main thing I think the guidebook is good for is helping you map out where NOT to go. If a place is in the “lonely planet” guide, but not described as particularly touristy, it’s “coolness” may not have peaked. It’s probably a bit touristy, but it’s also probably a good place to experience a bit of real culture while still in proximity to things like WiFi and Western toilets (if that‘s your thing…I often want those types of things). If a place is called “touristy” by the lonely planet guide you should recognize that the entire economy of that place is likely built around your dollar (I’m not saying you can’t have a good time, you can, amusement can be had in exchange for money). And to be fair, even hyper-touristy towns do still have their neighborhoods and sections where real people do real work (rather than finding clever ways to get your dollars). I think the culture is much more intact in these “real work” areas, and sadly marred in the areas where people make their grocery money by entertaining/swindling you.
(I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be telling you about the sights and sounds of Asia, I’m in a terribly editorial mood).
In America there are a lot of steps between us and our food. That’s not the case in a lot of the world. The different ways people cultivate the ground, and the micro economies and markets that spring up as a result, are some of my favorite things to see. It’s hard to see those things in touristy places because the economies and markets in the touristy areas exist because I brought green-backs.
On occasions when I find myself in unscathed territory I feel excited to see something real, but I also feel a bit hypocritical because the very fact that I’m there takes away from its realness, and if I bring my friends, take a lot of pictures, and submit raving reviews to the “lonely planet,” pretty soon that place will be another Chiang Mai. I remember a history professor in college who was against travel, I thought that was the craziest idea I’d ever heard, but if it was because she hates the flattening/westernization/materialization of the world like I do, then I at least agree with the logic. It makes sense to have the most sensitive anthropologists, historians, and linguists go undercover and do the traveling for us. We’d probably learn more from staying home and listening to their reports on the Discovery channel anyway.
(ok, that’s it for the editorial….here are some sights and sounds).
We left Thailand and entered North Western Laos. This was the least developed part of the world we’ve seen on this trip. Except for a few brick buildings in towns, the buildings in the part of Laos that we went through were all either bamboo and thatch or rough hewn board construction. The estates (if such primitive dwellings may be called estates) were, however, some of the tidiest I’ve seen. There was an obvious orderliness that was nice to see. Also the people seemed to be more fully engaged in their families, the concerns of those around them, and the physical realities of their surroundings (this tendency -in the whole world- seems to vary inversely with the availability of electricity).
I’ve mentioned before that this trip is all about the gradients -the fading of one place into another by minute, undetectable changes. The difference between the China and Lao sides of that border are the most “detectable” differences I’ve ever seen in the simple crossing of a border. On the Laos side a house made from bricks and mortar is an unattainable luxury and people continually adapt to their environment to stay alive. On the China side there are 72 inch plasma screen televisions, designer outfitters, tunnels, and elevated super highways (transportation is infinitely easier…man has adapted his environment to fit his needs).
Speaking of bricks and mortar, they are good metaphors for the products of a digestive tract. The white bread and fiber-less noodles we were eating in Vietnam resulted in the occasional production of some bricks. The bacteria ridden eggs and vegetables I had last Sunday resulted in the frantic manufacture of enormous amounts of mortar.
Other than the curiosities in my bowel, coming back into China has, in a really strange way, felt like coming home (Jeremy and I arrived at this conclusion independently and it‘s a bit of a mystery to explain). Maybe it’s just being back in a more developed place, or maybe it’s because we were with Americans last time we were in China, so we’ve been conditioned to feel like China is familiar. Anyway, we’re happily back in the land of dumplings and yummy (it just tastes so good!) MSG.

Christmas Vacation and Sanctification

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A great friend from college, Scott Kabel, flew in from Taiwan and spent Christmas with us in Thailand (it is my hope that those who don‘t know the difference between Taiwan and Thailand are forced to realize the distinction by the fact that they have now appeared in the same sentence). We made our way North to Chiang Mai and had a good ‘ole time reminiscing about college and Zambia (although none of us were in Zambia at the same time Jeremy, Scott, and I were all student missionaries there so we hold a lot of memories in common). Another thing we have in common is that we’re all single, and for a moment I thought this was a great coincidence, but then I realized, duh, of course we’re single. No one with a wife or girlfriend would be spending Christmas with two other bachelors in Thailand.
It turns out we‘re just “birds of a feather,” but I will say flocking, especially at Christmastime, is really fun. I’m super happy Jeremy and Scott were with me for Christmas because I identify with them easily. We share traditions, dietary preferences, humor, and language (not just English in a broad sense but the same Adventist University dialect). We’re the same in a lot of ways and it’s great.
I love being an SDA Christian. I love my SDA friends. I really love the Sabbath. It’s been really fun and uplifting for me this Christmas season to think about my roots and to bask in the joy and warm, yummy nostalgia that I get from singing carols, and reading stories about the traditions that I know and love. I identify with Adventists largely because (specific doctrines aside, that‘s for another discussion) I am Adventist. It’s what I know, it’s what I’ve enjoyed growing up in, Adventism is my culture and the lens through which I see the world.
All that being said, as a traveler, I have to stare down the obvious fact that I’m a product of my environment. I’m Christian, not Buddhist, because I was born to Sam and Susan Harboldt, not Chinh and Tranh Li. When I ask myself if I really believe, or if I’m really a follower of Christ, this keeps popping into my head. How authentic is my religion? I understand that there are elements of my beliefs that I should be willing to die for. I reckon when that time comes I better be pretty dang convinced of my authenticity and the rightness (and righteousness) of the cause for which I’m giving my life.
When I was seven or so I remember a church elder, one who I still hold a lot of respect for, told me this: “If Christianity is mistaken, and we’ve misunderstood the nature of Jesus and misinterpreted parts of the scriptures, we will still live happier, fuller, richer lives by following the moral law that Christ taught.” At the time I pretty much rejected this thinking right out. If Christ is someone for whom I may be giving my life at some point I’m gonna have to operate with a bit more certainty than that. Now that I’m traveling the words of my mentor don’t seem as far off. I think I’m seeing what he suggested manifested in the lives of many people I meet. The teachings that seem to bless these people, give them purpose, and cultivate a happy life, lived for the benefit of others, didn’t come from Jesus in the sense that ours did, but I think they may have come from God by other means.
I’m meeting people who don’t believe in Jesus, and some who don’t believe in God, who are better people than me. There are people who‘ve broken the habit of trying to prove their right all the time, people who’s brand of selflessness appears to consist of actually putting the interests of others ahead of their own, not just doing token acts of kindness (all the better if performed on the fringe of one’s comfort zone) to soothe the conscience. It seems that we Christians do not have the corner market on what we call sanctification (Romans 2:12 is a good place to start reading if you‘re curious).
The Bible talks about “losing your life to find it” and I think I see a lot of people from vastly different belief systems figuring out how to do that. I intuit that, for the moment anyway, this is the sort of “life losing” that deserves my focus. Not the martyr’s loss of the flesh life, but the giving up of my spirit to a better one. Dying to self.
Here’s the tricky business for me. The sort of spirit that attaches itself to being right (let’s say about Sabbath being the true indication of a remnant for a challenging example) is a spirit that likes to vindicate itself. It finds itself at odds (at least inside Bjorn) with the meek spirit, the one that willingly admits mistakes and doesn’t try to prove it knows better (tree of knowledge of good and evil should be ringing a bell) than God. I find the “old man” (the argumentative one) inside me isn’t quite as dead as I had hoped, and the “new man” not quite as alive when it comes to convincing others that they should switch to my belief system because it‘s “better“ than theirs.
So I’m trying to figure out what discipleship is. What does Jesus‘ commission mean for Adventists today? Should we be trying to get happy, well-adjusted, partially sanctified Baptists, Muslims, and Catholics to switch to our religion? Would we be doing them a favor by suggesting they leave the richness of their heritage, the things to which they have attached so much meaning, and enter ours?
One thing is for sure. There are plenty of people who definitely need more God in their lives. There’s still obvious discipling to be done. There are poor, widows, and orphans who are living without hope, and if we can jump start them by sharing with them a healthy way to relate to God (Christianity) it seems that must definitely be a good thing. I’m just curious about these folks who seem to relate to God well without Christ. I’m interested in your thoughts if you’d like to email me or leave comments on this website.

A Clever Lady and a Burmese Baby

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Burma is a closed off country. Before spending time on it’s border I’d never heard much in the way of specific news or descriptions of problems in Burma, only that it was a rough place. Indeed it is a rough place, particularly for those who born into the Karen people group. From what I understand the Karen sided with the Allies in WWII, which was fine until the war was over and the allies forgot them in the treaty writing and left them at the mercy of their Japan sympathizing countrymen. Ethnic cleansing is the name of the game the controlling party in Burma now plays. One of the best health decisions a Karen person can make is to sneak across the border into Thailand and try to make a new life. Life in Thailand is relatively safe, but not easy: no I.D., illegal status, no access to health care or property rights. Being a refugee is a real drag, but when the alternative might involve literally being dragged down the street behind a truck, beaten, and killed, you go the refugee route if you can manage.

Bamboo School, where we spent the last ten days, exists to help Karen refugees, particularly orphans and other option-less children. Catherine Riley-Bryan Is affectionately known as “Momo Cat” by her “Bamboo Kids” and friends in Thailand. She told us that even though she’s old enough to be grandmother to her bamboo children, she prefers the Thai word for motherly endearment (Momo) since grandmothers are called “Pee Pee” (grandfathers, as it so happens are called “Poo Poo,” perfect right?).

Before Momo came to work in Thailand she did everything from earning the prestigious honor of Business Woman of the Year in New Zealand and Australia, to piloting rescue helicopters, to marrying a Manchester United footballer and traveling the Premiere League circuit on the arm of an Athlete. As Jeremy put it, “this woman has really lived.” Eventually she and her footballer settled down happily on a ranch in New Zealand, but when her husband died God began leading her through another astonishing series of events that has ultimately landed her on the Thai-Burma border having a rip-roaring good time running an orphanage, clinic, and ambulance service.

Momo is the kind of lady who gets things done and has a good time doing it. For example (and examples abound -I can’t listen quite as fast as she can tell stories), she was having a problem with some of the villagers releasing their goats on her property and eat her seedlings at night. She didn’t know who the culprits were so she corralled the goats and spray painted them hot pink. The next morning she hopped in her truck and drove down the hill till she spotted the hot pink goats, then had some words with their darker pink (blushing) owners.

It was inspiring to see how Momo serves God, and to hear her excitedly explain how thankful she is that God has given her a purpose. Even the lady who has “lived” finds she’s getting a lot more out of life now, as a servant to the poor, than she was back in her wheeling dealing days.

For my part, with only ten days at Bamboo School, I caught the vision but couldn’t quite figure out my place in the work. Hard work is a value that Momo is instilling in her kids, and they‘re catching on. There’s a schedule for chores; by the time I’d go hunt down a broom I’d come back to find the girls had finished sweeping already. The boys took Jeremy and me to cut Bamboo in the jungle for a new wall in the main building (the dorms and guest houses are straight out of Swiss Family Robison: floors, walls, and ceilings all from bamboo -these are two story structures, too). We got schooled in machete technique, and learned that, at home in Burma, these boys would likely have been cutting teak wood in addition to bamboo, and loading it on the family elephant (evidently it’s quite common for a successful family group to have an elephant, a strong one runs about $2000).

If I said, “I learned more from the bamboo kids than I possibly could have taught them,” I wouldn’t be being philosophical, I didn’t know how to split bamboo to make flooring, how to cut jack fruit, or how to feed a baby. I’m slightly ashamed but largely relieved to say that I still don’t know how to change a diaper -a skill that’s important for the older bamboo kids to know since they take care of their baby brothers and sisters.

One thing Jeremy and I know a little bit about is pouring concrete without much in the way of tools. We were able to put some of our energy, and your “Good Samaritan” money, to that end. We spent a day running plumbing and building forms in preparation for the pour, but the pouring day was the most fun: Bucket brigades with a median age of nine. I had a good laugh when I remembered and hummed the “Little Rascals” theme song. After we finished the floor for the “club house,” we “he-men” took the afternoon off and headed for the swimming hole. Everything was O’Tay.

-bjorn2bwild

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.

Crash

“Uh oh. I’m gonna hit him.” I said to myself as a topsy turvy motorbike laden with a towering bundle of sugar cane veered unexpectedly into the full illumination of my headlight. My next thought was, “huh, so this is what it’s like to slide on asphalt.” By the time friction had finished grating me to a stop my main thought was, “man, I‘m afraid that may not have been healthy for my skin.”
Nothing hurt too badly as my body automatically dragged my motorbike to the side of the road and felt around for belongings that had escaped their bungees during the main event. I was happy to be alive and conscious, and it wasn’t until I managed to move my whole junk-show off of the tarmac that I realized the gravity of my situation: It was dark (we hadn’t yet reached a town with a hotel…so we had continued into the night), Jeremy was gone, my motorbike didn’t look good, I was in a very rural part of a third world country, I could feel my shoe was filling with blood, I had no idea where the nearest clinic was, no one around me knew any words in English or had any way to help me get anywhere.
Thankfully the guy I hit was fine (had he been hurt I might have found myself in jail or the recipient of some vigilante justice). He pulled his motorcycle to the side of the road and started giving me emphatic instructions. He may as well have been speaking Vietnamese (uummmm.) Another guy came along and picked my bike up off of it’s side. He started bending and kicking mangled parts back into alignment. He pressed the starter and, hallelujah, it started!
I fumbled around for ten minutes, reattaching my belongings to my motorbike and wondering what I should do. I hoped Jeremy would realize I wasn’t behind him anymore and come back. Every time a bike would pass I would shout his name. I couldn’t see who was on the passing bikes behind their blinding headlights, and since I was off to the side of the road I wanted to make sure Jeremy didn’t pass me if he came back looking for me.
Jeremy hadn’t returned and I knew I needed to get some medical attention. I didn’t know how bad I was bleeding, so I was worried that if I was really bleeding I might get light-headed and crash again if I tried to ride to the next town. I had a prayer and started down the road.
Jeremy was waiting on the side of the road less than a mile away, it was a big relief to see him. I took my shoe off so we could assess the damage. I couldn’t see the biggest gash (it was on the bottom of my foot) but Jeremy told me it was big. He wrapped my foot tightly in his bandana, but then I couldn’t fit it back into my shoe. I asked him if I could just wear his shoe, I figured his size 15 could accommodate my foot, bandage and all. He gave me his shoe and we started trying to figure out how to get to the next town that might have a clinic.
We were relying on sign language to ask for help and directions and we weren’t getting anywhere fast. Finally (this was a huge answer to prayer) we happened upon a kid who spoke English. He didn’t speak well, in fact he probably knew about 14 words, but it was enough to tell him I would pay him to lead us to the next town that had a hospital. We followed him about 15km to Thai Hoa. I rode with my injured foot slung up over the handle bars to keep it elevated.
The hospital was exceedingly primitive. A man lay grimacing on a table with a splint on his leg that consisted of two sticks bound together with a bunch of tape. As his friends hoisted him up from the table and carried him hurriedly through the door they came within a centimeter of slamming his injured leg into the door jam. I wondered what kind of care I could expect.
I presume the man who worked on me was a doctor. He said (through our 14 word interpreter) that we would have to come to his house so he could stitch me up. It seemed curious that he couldn’t do it at the clinic, but there was no way to ask why. We struck out again on our bikes, following the doctor across the small town and down a dimly lit alley to his home. I knew I was about to get some serious stitches, and I was pretty nervous, wondering whether or not this guy had any anesthetic.
Turns out he did have anesthetic, and other than the fact that his flea ridden dog sat right next to him as he stitched me up, it was a fairly sterile procedure. He produced several syringes and vials of mysterious serums which I hoped were antibiotics. All the labels were in Vietnamese so I just had him hit me with everything he had.
So now it hurts to walk, but luckily it doesn’t hurt to ride a motorbike. So we’ve continued our trip down Vietnam. The interesting thing now is that we’ve realized we would have been better off buying jet-skis than motorbikes. The flooding they mentioned in the news. They weren’t joking. We’ve driven through torrential downpours for the last few days. I’m trying to keep my foot from getting infected, but it’s a bit tricky since it has to spend it’s days in my soggy right shoe.
Now we’re in Hue, the old capital of Vietnam. I’ve made an invalid out of myself, mostly laying in bed keeping my foot dry. Jeremy runs errands and comes back wide-eyed with stories of people in canoes going down main roads. I really wanted to do a motorcycle trip because I was feeling like the train/bus method lacked a certain element of adventure. It hasn’t been hard to find adventure on the motorbikes. Not hard at all.

-bjorn2bwild