south east asia

motorbike trip

alastair — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 19:32:00 GMT

this is anouther really good trip that i thought was decent enough to put in my journal, it was a 3 day motorbike trip through the hilands of veitnam.

i was told by anouther volunteer in cambodia that when i go to veitnam i need to go to a place called dalat in the highlands and do a motorbike tour. i had also read about it in the lonley planet and it seemed to be the thing to do.

inew when i got to veitnam that i wanted to stay away from the tourist trail and go to less travelled places and see how people live out there. so i got to dalat and spent a few days there it is anice town in the mountains. i was told to keep my eyes open for motorbike divers with jackets that said easy riders on and that they were the guys that new everything about the region. i was wlking down the street and i saw a guy with easyrider on his bike he asked me if i wanted to go for a trip i said yes and i told him what i would most like to see. we arranged what we would do and we would start the next day, so i told him where my hotel was and 9am the next day we would start the tour.

the next day i packed up my things and met him out the front of the hotel. turns out he was very busy so his mate called young would take me. we said hello and his english was very good he also had a brand new bike and i was the first person to take a trip on it.

so we strapped my backpack onto the back of the bike and were ready to go. i would be spending 3days with this guy so we started off by going to a view point in dalat and chatting a bit about what i wanted to do. young really new all the good places to go and he had a good sense of humor so i new that it would be a good 3days.

young had severd 17 years in the airforce in veitnam and had worked alongside american soilders during the war, this is why his english was so good. this meant that it gave me a chance to ask loads of questions about the war, he new everything about the war. he had been doing the motorbike trips for 15 years and i was lucky to get such a good guied. there are about 60 actual easyriders most that served in the war but now there are lots of copycats that are not as good but the easyriders were the originals.

the first day we spent driving through the moutains on the winding roads with amazing views of rice fields and forests. he would point out things to me that you would not see if you just took a bus. and because it was only me there i could ask as many quetions as i liked. there were other easyriders doing the same route so it was nice to catch up with them when ever we stopped to say hello and exchange information that there guieds had tld them and what young had told me.

the first stop was a village of tribe people. they where called the chicken people i cant remember why but they were nice people anyways. they speak a differnet language so young could not translate but one woman spoke good english and told me about how they go to work in the mountains to look for food and wood.

we then continued throught the mountains with more great scenery. we passed through coffee plantations (vietnam is the 2nd biggest producer of coffee in the world) and loads of friut farms that young pointed out to me. we started to climb up one mountain with steep drops on each side, when we good to the top there was a small resurant where we had some noodle soup and caught up with other easy rider.

we had to cover quite a distance in the first day to get to see what i wanted to see so most of the day was spent on the bike. but that was ok because it was so fun going up mountains and back down then into dense rainforest and jungle where ther had once bin so much fighting. young stopped at one point and said it would be a good idea to stech my legs, he showed me this cool trick with a piece of grass where you can fire it up in the air like and arrow. there was also a coffee plantation acroos the road so i tool a walk in there to have a rest from the bike for a bit. i was walking through the trees as some people were working. the people there are very friendly and always smile and say hello. i saw that there was a house at the end of the track so i decided to go check it out. its ok to do this sort of thing in this area because the people here dont get to see other people from other countries that much and like to see visitors. so i gotto the house and there were two boys feeding some chickens so i said hello and they saw my camera and like every kid in asia wanted there picture taken. they really like it because they think its magic when you show them the picture after. young told me that some of the kids in thetribes still think that white people come from the moon, andi really think they do think that because of the looks that i get when we stop to say hello.

as the first day was coming to an end and we headed for the town we where gunna spend the first night we say people coming back from the mountains with wood food for there familys. the people here seem to me like they have areally hard life but when ever i see them they always smile and seem really happy.

we go to where we where going to spend the first night, i got a shower and cleaned up, i thought i had a nice tan untill i got in the shower and it was just a fine layer of dust all over me. i met young for dinner and we sat and talked about the day and what we would do the next day. there were also other easyriders there so when we had finished i when and sat with 3 english girls and talked about the day. it was really good to have a normal coversation with native english speakers, i tjink it was my first conversation in 2 weeks with some people form the same country!!!

the next day we loaded my bakcpack and set off again. we went round a huge lake where the there where lots of tibes people living. we then went trough a flat piece of land where there were rice fields as far as i could see. we stopped at a house on the side of the road that young took me into (you can just walk into anyones house even if youve never met them, as long as you smile and say hello its ok) they made rice wine in the house which is really really strong. there were 3 kids in the house 2 boys and one girl the two boys where about 6 and the girl about 4. even though they could not speak any english there is common ground where you can start. the first is wresteling and english football. if you say any wrestelers name like john cena or undertaker to any boy under the age of 12 then there is and instant conection all you do is act out what they do in the ring it always gets em laughing. also they love english football in asia they know all the teams and the players but they only relly support man u chealsea or arsenal but i did meet an easyrider driver that new where bristol was because he watched them play on tv. anyways the little girl did not like all the attention the boys were getting with all this talk about wresteling and football so young told me she wanted to sing a song for me that she learnt in school i told young to tell her that she would be a big star one day.

we drove a little more and stopped at anouther house where there was a family making food for the new year that was coming up. so we sat down with them and they got young to ask me loads od quetions about where i am from how old am i what do i do it wa funny. we had only bin there about half hour and word had got round a few of the other houses that they had a visitor when we got there there was only about 4 people in the house then it eventually turned to 15. there was alot of smiles and laughing in my direction so i asked young what they were saying and he said that they wanted me to meet there daughter who was about my age. she was a very pretty girl and the rest talking was about how she would be a good girl for me to marry. as you could imagin i did not have a clue what to say and i wen bright red! the time had come for us to leave and the mother of the girl said that if i come back to vietnam i must come and see them and stay with them for a while so they could arrange things. i thanked them very much and thought this was a good time to leave. the thing is there where not joking! seen as i am form the western world it was very strange that they would talk so openly about these things young understood this and took the piss out of me about it for the rest of the trip!

the next stop was some water falls and a place to swim in fresh water that came down from the mountain. me and a guy from holland went for a swim in the water and it was really good to cool off we also diver of theses big rocks into the water (i have pictures that i will put on me face book soon) the water falls were amazing they were huge it was so cool to walk around them. the place that we stayedin that night was right next to a waterfall. after i had a shower i met young at the resturant where we had something to eat. he also taught me some card tricks aswell, i have been practicing them since.

that is enough i think i may add some more to this at some point but not now as i a tired. so if you have managed to read all this way and actually understood it then well done.but the rest of it i can just tell anyone who wants to know when i get home.

as for the tip it was really good to get to see the real vietnam and the local people and young was the best guied ever. if anyone goes to vietnam go to dalat and do an easyrider tour it will be the coolest trip you will ever do!

getting out of the city

alastair — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:46:00 GMT

on the 19th of january i set off for kep in the south of cambodia to meet up with two other volunteers who were in kampot (next to kep) checking out the national park there. i had already done that with anouther volunteer and it was very good.

the bus trip lasted about 4hrs and was not to bad as normal in cambodia the bus was overloaded with people but at least the air conditioning worked. i got to kep about lunch time and needed to find a cheap place to stay so i got off the bus walked over to a moto driver and asked or a cheap cheap guest house, he told me there was one for $7 by the sea so i hopped on the moto and off we went. the moto driver was cool his name was long han and he was a part time english teacher so it was easy to talk to him. the people down south seem alot nicer than the people in the city. i got to the guest house and got a room the n went out and sat on the sea front. i had to wait for carolina (canadian) and megan (english) to get to kep from kampot so i had a few hours just to sit around.

when they got to kep we went for a meal at a nice resurant. it was carolinas birthday so it was a good reason for a big meal. we went to a crab resurant and i ordered a big plate of crispy crap. when we were finished we went to find a tuk tuk but they had all gone and our guest house was a fair walk back and was not safe to walk as there are lots of stray dogs that can be quite dangerous so a cambodian that worked at the guest house took us back in his car. we got back and sat out by the sea, it was a full moon that night so i took some pictures of the moon (i will try and put some pics on)

the next morning long han picked us up to go to the port to get a boat to the island. it cost $5 to get to rabbit island. it was really good to sea the island as we approached it we could see as we got closer there was not much there but that was the best thing about it. the boat pulled up on the beach and a woman asked if we would like a bungalow to stay, it was $5 for one and it was comforatable inside very basic. we decided to walk around the isalnd it was slightly bigger than we tought it took about 3hrs i said it would only take an hour but turns out i was very wrong. carolina shoes broke on the way round so we had to fix them with some twine from a tree. we got back very tired so we had somthing to eat on the beach. i had no money by this time i couldnt get any money out of the atm in the city so carolina payed for everything on the island. that afternood we just sat around on the beach and swam in the sea. there is not much to do on rabbit island but relax.

that night was a full moon there were also strong winds wich made the sea very rough, it was so windy that when we were lying down looking up at the moon a palm tree branch fell about a meter away from us. buy then it was quite late and it had bin a long day so we went to bed. it was very cosy in the bungalow it protected us from the strong wind the wind helped to the flys away wich constanly anoy me in my sleep.

the next morning carolina broke the news that she didnt have as much money as she tought. turns out that we only had enough to get off the island pay for the bungalow an get the bus home. we only had enough money for a plate of steamed rice. by this time megan had run out of money aswell so we sat around a table with a bowl of plain steamed rice laughing about how much money we didnt have.

we made it back to main land and sat under a tree for two hours by the road side waiting for the bus. megan had kept half a packet of prawn crakers that we shared to try and contain our hunger. we took one each and passed it on it was funny that it had come to this!

our bus came and all 3 of us got a seat again the bus really packed up and there were people in every avalible space. we made it to a toilet stop and scraped together enough money yo get some street food, it was really nice it was a banana covered in rice rappedin a banana leaf. the last part of the journey was not so bad and we made it back to the city in good time. when we got the apparment there were some new volunteers so we sat and talked to them for a bit and then rushed out to riverside where all the nice resturants are and got a big meal as we had not eaten hardly anything all day.

it was a really good weekend it was really nice to go and meet some nice cambodians in the south and the coast is amazing there it goes from jungle to sandy beaches to blue sea. i did pay carolina back in the end once i found an atm that worked