well we awoke early to meet our easy riders. they were picking us up at 8 o clock. thats when papa hanh intoduced us to chan and bon. chan was to be my driver and aoife got bon. it all started off well. pointing stuff out and stopping for us to take a photo. it wasn't tell we stopped for a rest and a drink when we started to see what they were all about. chan introduced himself as crazy chan and bon was there to agree, with "more crazy more fun". oh no what did we get ourselves in for. ha ha found out chan was 28 and bon was only 23. well they think thats their agaes as they go by the moon cycle or something like that. so i guess its hard to know :) chan was asking us where we were heading next after our tour. when we told him saigon. he said the traffic was crazy there. well we said if it was anything like hanoi, we already concurded it. then he told as story about saigon.
there was a young couple who just got married and they went to saigon for their honeymoon. when they got there they were really scared of the traffic as they had never seen anything like it before. they went to cross for the first time. stepped on the road, but got scared and ran off again. they said to each other we'll never make it across. but they swallowed their fear and went to cross the road, but got to scared again and ran back. a local from saigon saw the couple huddled together beside the road and gave them some advice. he told them just to walk together very slowly across the road and the traffic will go around them. and the man walked out himself and crossed the road really slowly to show them how it was done. after the couple saw the man cross the road they decided, they would give it a go. they walked out together and very slowly walk across. holding onto each other and stopping and standing still when they got to scared. and just as the man said the traffic went around them. they eventually made it across. but it took them so long.
that they had a baby in their arms.
well that concluded our first stop and a glimpse of what was to come. our first stop was at a brick factory i guess you would call it. a place they made bricks. we were shown the clay that they put into this machine and condenses and pushes it through a mould. then it is cut and picked up and transported out into the sun to dry, and then is put into a kiln and fired. walla. brick! it actually was very interesting nad guess women did all the brick making the guys stood around and watched untill they had to cart it off!
then it was back on the bikes, and next stop was to show us a lovely view and to stretch our legs. its amazing how sore your butt gets when your sitting on a bike. anyway it turned out that they weren't just showing us the lovely view. there was red patches on the hill and we were told that it was from the agent orange that was dropped from the war. that the goverment was still trying to claim back the land that was distroyed. so you could see old trees with new trees, and the new trees were the ones that were planted there. it was really our first kinda physical evidence of the destrution for the war. every thing else was talked about, and being repaired, its kinda real when there is spots where there still isn't anything growing.
so back on the bikes but not for long, as lucky for us the weather changed. off our bikes to put on our beautiful and very flattering blue/purple rain gear. they on the bike for a very uncomfortable ride. as it was raining there were no more stops. they they did was drive with us hiding behind them as much as we could. as we had no visors, so the rain hitting our faces were like little stings. also after awhile, man did our butts gets tired. i never hopped and jumped and tried moving my butt to get comfortable like i did then. i really think they were trying to break our butts in. actually my butt is getting sore right now just thinking about it. anyway you get the message. sore BUTTS.
man i never so happy yo stop for lunch like i was then. even if we wet and had sore butts. HA HA. the weather after luch was looking promising but just incase we kept our wonderful outfits on. next stop trees. rows and rows of trees. they were rubber trees. actually quite interesting. i had seen it on t.v before so i wasn't wow struck, but then again it was rubber trees who would be? now aoife has a photo that might make you think otherwise. i have to admit it's funny i'll have to make sure i put it up. though we did find out that you can get rubber from a tree when its 7 years old and can continue to get rubber till its 50 years old. thats some old rubber. so when the tree is 43 years old, work out the math! they plant a new to take over from the old one when its all rubbered out. ha ha
this is when the second story came in, to do with rubber, and how it was very impotant for the vietnamese. now aoife and i both started laughing right away, dirty minds, what can i say. but chan said no really do you know the story. so i decided to say no i don't know the story hoping the the story was going to be profound. but he goes and says that there was a large family in the hills and they needed the rubber, and thats when myself and aoife were laughing our heads off and aoife goes, " yeah they needed the rubber to walk across the street". ha ha man i'm still laughing about it now. if you don't find that funny. it was a be-there situation.
well anyway our last stop was our lodgings for the night. where there was a small waterfall that we explored before dinner. dinner was funny, where chan and bon joined us. they introduced us to rice wine! and i thought i was buying a small vodka, i was but it ended up being a small bottle of vodka. needless to say we all got merry and we learned some vietnamese. all useful stuff of course. like COM COM DIN DIN- is crazy, i personally like this one. also they thought us to say cheers - mot, hai, ba, yo! which is one, two, three, yo! and bon was teaching us how to say thank you and your welcome properly. your welcome is CUM CO CHI- with the chi part said high. when chan was at the toilet. bon told us you have to be careful when you say cum co chi as if you change the chi to gim and don't go high at the end it means lady boy. ha ha so when chan came back of couse we had fun call him lady boy and pretending we didn't know we were. ha ha
all in all it was a funny night.
