The next morning I was awaken to the sound of Robin Williams yelling “Good Morning VIETNAM!!!!
Seriously.
So I left off after just arriving in HCMC and meeting up with my Couch Surfing hosts Natasha and Dafydd at Apocalypse Now, and crashing on their red elbow shaped couch.
The next morning I woke up before anyone else in the house (as always), shortly after I woke up Natasha’s live in house keeper Chiba woke up and made me breakfast and tea (thanks Chiba). I read a little bit of Mr. Nice and before I knew it the whole family was up (Natasha has two young daughters).
I found Natasha on CouchSurfers.com. She is the Ambassador for HCMC and really active on the CS scene. I could tell she was super positive and I wanted to meet her when I came to the city. She told me I could stay at her place. I asked her about taking a boat trip down the Mekong Delta. She told me I’d have a better time exploring the delta on a Motor bike. She even offered to loan me her bike. She put me in touch with her boyfriend Dafydd who is way into taking moto trips. He was recently injured on his bike but said he was up for the trip. Dafydd is a trooper, he got a really nasty first degree burn on his food from his from his exhaust pipe, but it wouldn’t stop him from taking a moto trip.
I talked to Dafydd a little about the plan for the day. He needed to have the inner tube on his bike replaced. Natasha originally offered to let me use her Moto, but Dafydd told me her bike had some issues and I’d be better off renting a bike. Dafydd went to get his tube changed and I took a moto taxi to the back packers area to rent a bike of my own.
The biggest difference of riding a moto in Vietnam and Cambodia is that Vietnam recently passed a helmet law. All the moto drivers carry a spare helmet for their customers. There is also a lot more traffic and it moves much faster, so I was more than happy to wear a helmet on the back of my moto taxi ride.
The process of renting a bike in Vietnam, takes about 30 seconds. You give them your passport, they give you the keys, $5.00 a day, you pay when you return. No liability forms, no credit card, no deposit, nothing. After renting the bike I went to Highland Coffee where Dafydd and I were supposed to meet up. I had two good but overpriced coffees. It’s weird how much better the coffee is in Vietnam than in Cambodia. In Vietnam there are multiple cafes on every street, the coffee is strong and individually brewed per cup. It is very much a coffee culture (unfortunately next month Starbucks is going to try and capitalize off this by opening up their first location in Vietnam). In Cambodia you coffee choices are limited to NesCafé instant coffee, and NesCafe with Coffee Mate powdered cream.
After Dafydd arrived we went to a book store where he picked up a Road Map for our trip and I filled up my tank with Petrol. Navigating our way out of HCMC took a while. There were a lot of detours, and wrong turns. We were on a flooded cobblestone walkway for about 10 minutes. Finally we made it out of the city, but the traffic was still pretty heavy.
We spent about half of the day on a big traffic packed highway. Dafydd had a problem with his new inner tube. The person who replaced it didn’t take the metal spur that caused the original puncture, out of his rim. Within a couple hours his new tube had a puncture. We found a salty old guy who repaired the puncture using an old tube and a torch. We also had some lunch when stopped.
The second half of the day it felt like we were finally in the Delta. We rode smaller country roads with less traffic. At one point we were driving through a section of dense, lush forest. It reminded me of every movie I had ever seen about the Vietnam war. It was eerie, I could picture the fighting going on. Young Vietnamese and American men living and dying in these jungles. I had been to Vietnam before and never had that feeling. Everywhere else that I have been seemed so far removed from the war. Even visiting the war museum and the Cu Chi tunnels, that seemed more staged and safe. But this section of raw jungle reminded me that I was in Vietnam, and not too long ago there was terrible fighting going on here (I’m not sure if there was even fighting in the Delta area). It’s strange how something had to remind me of the Hollywood depictions of the war for it seem real and affect me so much.
In the Mekong Delta the river splinters into dozens of smaller stream. It’s a rich lush area with good irrigation, and there are lots of rice paddies there. Towards the end of the day we crossed over bridges, drove through beautiful rice paddies, and took a few ferries over larger sections of the river. It was a nice ride, so much more peaceful than the chaotic streets of HCMC.
The ferries were a nice break from sitting on the bike, it was also good to take my helmet off for a few minutes. When I went to Vietnam in 2006, I didn’t really enjoy myself all that much. I had a few bad experiences with the locals, but once we got out of the city I found the people to be really lovely. On the ferries if anyone spoke English they would start up a conversation. I still feel weird telling them I am from the US when they ask. I met an woman who was a retired teacher, she was really friendly and spoke great English, but she told me her French was better. There was a man next to us with several baskets of Custard Apples, and she asked me if I liked them, I told her I did and the next thing I knew she bought me a huge bag of them. On another ferry, I met an IT guy who was down in the Delta for business, he asked me and Dafydd if we wanted to get some drinks with him and his colleagues later, but we were unable to meet up.
After the last ferry we knew we were only about 20 km from the town we were planning on staying it, and it was getting dark. We got to the town in about 30 minutes on dusty dirty roads. My eyes were killing me from all the dust. Even though I asked Dafydd the name of the town at least 20 times I still can’t remember it. All the words and names in Vietnamese sound the same to me. I’d have to spend a little more time there before I got used to the language.
The town was pretty small, but after spending several hours in the Delta it seemed quite bustling. We checked out a couple hotels and found a good one. They almost wouldn’t let us stay because neither of us had our passports. I had left mine at the Moto Bike rental place, and Dafydd couldn’t find his. It is illegal for hotels to let foreigners stay without their passports, and the police could come by at night and check the registry. Luckily Dafydd had a copy of his passport and his visa, they still seemed kind of worried at the front desk, but they least us stay.
It felt good to wash all the road grime of my body. When Dafydd was in the shower I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. On NatGeo there was an episode of Long Way Down a documentary show where Eweyn McGregor and his buddy ride motorcycles all the way down the African continent. In the episode we saw they rode almost 500 miles through a sand storm in Libya. There ride took over 12 hours and it don’t look too fun. Before watching that I had felt kind of bad ass for ridding all day in Vietnam, and putting up with a little dust.
We left the hotel and looked for a place to eat, it was after 8:00pm and almost everything was closed. But we did find a hotel with an open restaurant. We had a Vietnamese feast, and drank a few Saigon Beers, we earned them. Even though we didn’t have deal with a sandstorm is was a long ride, and the beer tasted good.
I’m pretty sure we both slept well after our long day (I know I did). We got up early ate some Pho Bo then continued our ride. We went a little further South into Delta before making our way back to HCMC a different way than we had came. Dafydd had to be leave HCMC for work by 4:30pm at the latest, he wanted to be back by 3:00 so he would have time to clean up and do some lesson planning. Our calculations were a little off and we had to ride really fast to get back. I could tell Dafydd was stressing and he was driving pretty fast. It was tough to keep up with him especially when we got to the outskirts of HCMC and there was a lot of traffic. We got back to the place about 4:15. Dafydd was frantic, he ran upstairs threw on some clothes and was out the door for work before I knew it.
Our trip was rushed and it would have been nice to have had a few more days in the Delta. But I’m really glad I was able to take the trip, and see a side of Vietnam that a lot of tourists’ don’t get to see. It was also the first time I have ever really taken a motor bike trip with anyone. I have done a few long rides back in the States but they have all been solo. It is nice to have some one to ride with, and to share the experience with. Dafydd was a great guide and I had a blast. There is no way I would have been able to navigate my way through the Delta without him. In a couple months he and Natasha are coming to Cambodia. It will be his first time to Cambodia and I would like to take him on a Moto trip when he is here.
