Mud

One of our Vietnamese friends told us that we had timed our trip perfectly since it would no longer be the rainy season. Yeah, not true. It rained at least for a few minutes every single day during the first week.

In fact, in the northeast of Vietnam, it was very rainy and thus very muddy. When we stuck to the main roads, we didn't have any problems. However, whenever we took a back road it got a little bit perilous:

Ethnic Minority Sausage

(PICTURE: I have pictures of the real sausage which I'll replace with this when my camera wire decides to start working during uploads.)

The immature side of me always laughs at an item on the menu at one of my favorite restaurants in Hanoi -- Ethnic Minority Sausage. Every time I bring a visiting guess to this restaurant, they always ask about the ethnic minority sausage with a giggle. We then try and order it but are told that they don't have any ethnic minority sausage in the kitchen.

Well, on the first night of our trip, we walked into a restaurant and there in the back was hanging sausage. Huyen ordered us some and the owners -- yes, ethnic minorities -- friend it up for us. It was delicious, albeit a little bit fatty. The next day we stopped in another small town and there were two ethnic minorities carry a stick with dozens of hanging sausage. You guessed it, we got a bunch more.

So, I'm happy to report that Ethnic Minority sausage does exist and better yet, it's delicious.

Leaving Hanoi

After giving our extra stuff to Su, Huyen and I left Hanoi. This is us crossing the Red River:



Our first destination was Cao Bang Province. Cao Bang is quite far from Hanoi so we thought we would take two days to get there. Originally we had planned to stop in Babe Lake the first night. However, at the last minute we decided to try going a different way since we went to Babe two years ago. At the intersection where we had planned to turn left, we took a right. Less than a minute later we took another right...to the curb because a policeman pulled us over.

In Vietnam, you get pulled over by a cop stepping into the road and shoving his baton in your face. They literally step into on coming traffic and steer you to the side like you're a charging bull. I think the guy pulled me over because I was speeding (although, Mom, I really wasn't going fast at all!). Huyen thinks they stopped us because they had cameras on the road and saw our out of town license plates. We're not sure exactly why they pulled us over because as soon as the cop saw my face he told me to keep going. I think the cop -- who must have been 25 or younger -- had no idea what to do with a foreigner. No complaints here because it means our bribing budget didn't have to get tapped on Day #1!

Another of my favorite things that happened on Day #1 is that when we stopped for gas, Huyen overheard a conversation between two guys that went like this:
Guy #1: Look it's a foreigner.
Guy #2: I guess Vietnamese girls like foreigners.
Guy #1: Only Vietnamese girls with big shoulders.

Yes, Huyen, has big shoulders...at least while she's wearing the protective motorcycle jacket we bought her (they didn't have my size!). So now I keep making fun of Huyen's shoulders being freakishly large.

At the end of the day, Huyen and I took a road with HUGE TRUCKS. We're trying to avoid this by going on all back roads. However, for some reason all these trucks were on this back dirt road. I'm talking massive 18 wheelers. Luckily they were only going about a mile an hour since they had to maneuver around giant pot holes (probably created by other trucks). It was a bizarre route for the trucks to go but technically it was highway...just this section was in the middle of a forest.

In total, we logged 285km on our first day. That is a heck of a lot on a motorbike and probably the most we'll log in a single day on the whole trip.

The Long Wave Goodbye

First off, a very special thanks to my cousins Adam, Justin and Dana. A couple of months ago they sent Huyen and me a Flip video camera as a wedding present. In all of our moving and finishing up work over the last month, we haven't had a chance to play around with it. However, we're about to have lots of time and reasons to use it.

Huyen and I have decided to do a big motorbike trip as a farewell to Vietnam. We had talked about this for a long time and debated on it up until we took off. In fact, we SOLD our Honda Win when getting rid of all our stuff. Those unfamiliar with motorbikes and motorcycles, the Win is a MUCH more comfortable bike for long trips than the Wave that we own and are now taking. There's many many many advantages to the Win over the Wave. However, the Wave does have two advantages:
1. It can be repaired in any town in Vietnam
2. It allows me to call this trip, "The Long Wave Goodbye."

We have a rough schedule of what we want to do but it's really all up in the air. We've got our plane tickets to leave Hanoi and to arrive in America but before all that we're taking it day by day.

Before we left on our trip, we had to get rid of all our stuff. We sent a ton home to Huyen's house and gave a lot to her sister. We thought we had everything we needed for a bike trip but it turned out to be way too much. This meant we had to drop some stuff off at Su's apartment before we left. Some things we left behind were our mosquito net (so far every hotel has had one), some clothing, my camera bag (the camera is wrapped in socks now) and other odds and ends:


You might notice that disgusting facial hair I'm sporting at the end of the video. I've decided to try and grow a beard over the next few months since, well, why not. I'm married and jobless so I don't need to look good for anyone!

Property Tax

The other day I was talking to Huyen's sister Huong about taxes in America. She had asked me how much a home was and I told her an average home in a nice town might cost between $300,000-$500,000. This didn't blow her mind since property in Hanoi is on par with this. However, when I told her how much tax could cost every year, she nearly fainted. I said that someone might have to pay 1.5% on their house every year which could mean $4,500 on a $300,000 home*. Huong told me that she pays 17,000 VND in property tax every year. Let me do the conversion for you: That's $0.82.

* For the record, I don't own a home so I could really have no idea what I'm talking about.

Earthquake

You might have read recently about the earthquake in Myanmar. It was a pretty big earthquake which only got a little bit of international coverage (being of course because of the horrible Japan earthquake/tsunami, the turmoil in Libya, and the fact that Myanmar ain't exactly press friendly).

The night of that earthquake, Hanoi actually shook too. It was the talk of the town for a few days because a lot of people had to evacuate tall buildings. Huyen and I were having dinner at the time of the quake and didn't feel a thing or just had assumed the rumble was from our stomachs and not from tectonic plates. Lots of people have been telling funny stories about how unprepared Hanoians were for any sort of quake, albeit a small one. Supposedly a bunch of people ran outside in their underwear and took nothing with them. Then after the quake was done, they refused to go back into their homes. I can't blame people for being scared but the thought of dudes in their undies on the busy street makes me laugh.

That said, earthquakes are no laughing matter. I've been told that the new modern buildings here are supposed to withstand a quake up to 8.0. However, I've seen some of these buildings being built and I'm a tad bit skeptical about that.

This year has had way too many earthquakes all around the globe. Lets hope that the Earth chills for a few hundred years starting now!

Street Meat

I consider myself an adventurous eater. However, there's even some things out here I won't try. Specifically there's one busy street here that is always lined with women selling hot dogs on a stick. I don't like hot dogs to begin with but I especially don't like them when they are curbside on a very busy, polluted street. I'd say at any point in time, there's at least one dirty muffler a foot from one of these hot dogs.

One night a few weeks ago I came home and said to Huyen, "I can't believe anybody would ever eat a hot dog from Duong Lang street." Huyen said, "I used to eat those all the time when I was a college student." To this I replied, "Are you serious? That's the dirtiest food I've ever seen." To which Huyen replied, "That makes it more delicious." Is this really who I'm married to?!