Sunday, February 15, 2009

Motorbike Montage

I don't want to bore you with a couple more days of motorbike trip posts so I made a video with a bunch of highlights. Here were some of my favorite things:

1. Long and I both like to lead on our bikes. However, after a couple of days Long decided he wanted to drive last in our caravan. Why? Well, everywhere we drove, kids and adults would wave to us from the side of the road and yell "hello." When I say "us" I really mean Nicky and I. It's not too often Western faces drive through most of the areas we drove through and well, Long doesn't exactly have a Western face. Long decided he liked to go last because he could get the wave affect of the waves. They'd wave at me in front, then Nicky and then Long who they would realize was with us.

2. Because we were going during Tet, businesses weren't open at night. This meant it was difficult to get food. In Phu Yen there was nothing for us to eat. Long told the security guard who was watching the hotel and he made some calls. Before we knew it one of the hotel employees brought over tons of food for a hot pot. Literally they bought us a wash basin full of vegetables. We had the huge meal with the security guard in the lobby of the hotel. It was probably the best meal of the trip.

3. At a coffee shop Nicky struck up a conversation with a Vietnamese man who spoke Spanish -- he learned it while studying in Cuba.

4. Taking two boats to cross large lakes. One of the lakes wasn't even on our map because our map was so old. No, it wasn't printed before Pangea. The water was a dammed hydroelectric lake made about ten years ago.

5. Tons of car free, well paved roads.

We ended up on the highway for about an hour of our trip and it was the worst hour (minus the three being interrogated) of our journey. The trip was quite an adventure and I'm already craving another one. Huyen just bought me a detailed atlas of Vietnamese roads.

Enjoy the video...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed it a lot - life is truly an adventure with you! So nice to be young and free.

Anonymous said...

Ben! Your last two blog enteries are my favorites. EVER! It'll be hard for anybody to top that trip. More pictures please. Are your photos posted anywhere other than your blog? LH in KY

Benjamin said...

Thanks, LH! As a long time reader that means a lot.

All of my pictures from the trip are posted on facebook. Are you on facebook?

laura said...

every single one of your posts makes me wish i had the balls to do something like you're doing. (the fact that i was on vacation all last week--did you notice an uptick in your hawaiian readership?--didn't help.) i'm always so impressed by your videos. i also thought that job at the great barrier reef would be amazing, but figured that the fact that i didn't know how to make a video at all should really preclude me from getting the job, so i've voted for you a few times instead. if you get it, dibs on one of the extra bedrooms for a week or two!

Benjamin said...

Laura were you in Honolulu (19 hits), Kapolei (1 hit) or Kihie (1 hit). I'm gonna guess Honolulu and Kapolei since they both had huge spikes last week.

Glad you like the videos. Next time I'm in DC I can give you a beginner's course on how to do it if you have a mac. It's pretty easy.

My trip was fun but Hawaii sounds pretty amazing too!

Laura said...

just the one in kapolei. i don't actually sign onto the page much anymore, b/c i have learned how to use google reader. as an indication of my technological prowess, i was really pleased with myself for that.