Red Light, Green Light, No Light...

(PICTURE: A roundabout in Da Lat. This is clearly an old picture I found online because there are A LOT more cars/bikes/buses these days.)

Right now we're in Da Lat, one of my favorite cities in Vietnam. This is my second time here but my first time noticing something -- there are NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS in the city. When I came here in 2008, I wasn't yet riding a motorbike so I guess I didn't pay attention to small things like traffic lights. Now that I'm on a bike, it's hard not to notice the lack of lights.

I did some quick googling and it turns out Da Lat is the 20th largest city in Vietnam. I had thought it was probably top 10 but apparently it's not. According to another google search I did, Boston is the 20th largest city in America (based on population). Can you imagine if Boston didn't have any traffic lights? Frankly, I can't even imagine if my hometown didn't have any traffic lights.

A local told us that since the city is very hilly, people used to not be able to stop when going downhill and thus there were no red lights. Instead, they have a ton of roundabouts at major intersections.

While I was thinking about this blog today, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen any accidents in Da Lat...but sure enough, a minute later there were two motorbikes at roundabout, fresh off a minor accident.

Tire Patch

(PICTURE: Tire patches.)

I admit that I know nothing about cars. I've read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and I can also state that I don't know a thing about motorcycles or motorbikes for that matter. One thing I've found interesting out here though is that when you pop your inner tube, you don't necessarily need a new one. In fact, most of the time you just get a tire patch. The process of fixing a tire goes something like this:
1. The mechanic finds the hole, often using a bowl of water to see where the air bubbles come out.
2. He files the hole.
3. He puts a tire patch on the hole and does some more filing.
4. He burns the patch a little bit.
5. He files more with a machine.
6. He fills the tire up with air and you're on your way.

Despite having trust in the mechanic who patched our tire, we got a new tire a few days later just to be on the safe side!

Flat Tire

(PICTURE: Getting our tire fixed.)

I woke up one morning and said to Huyen, "I had a dream last night that we had a flat tire." Huyen promptly told me to not to tell her that...which confused me because after a bad dream a few nights earlier, she told me that it's good when you have a bad dream since it means it won't come true.

Well, this dream came true. About an hour after leaving Mai Chau, our tire popped. We got really lucky because: a) We were on a straight road and not a curvy mountain road. b) We certainly weren't in the middle of nowhere but we towns were few and far between. However, we happen to have just driven through one so it was only a two minute walk to the shop. c) We were fine.

Prior to the tire popping we had been filling our tires every morning with air. We had even replaced the inner tire two days before at a Honda shop just to be on the safe side. Well, the new tire clearly wasn't as good as the old one since it lasted just 48 hours before popping. Every day since, we've filled up with air before taking off for the day.

I fought the law...and I won

(PICTURE: It's hard to speed when these guys are on the road.)

In twelve years of driving in America, I was only pulled over 1 time. In the first fourteen days of our motorbike trip, Huyen and I were pulled over 4 times. Yes, 4 times! Seriously, what's up with that?

The first time I was apparently speeding but the cop let me go when he saw I was a foreigner.

The second time, we came around a mountain bend and were pulled over by a cop who was checking everyone. As soon as he saw me he laughed and let me go. I think they were doing license/breathalyzer checks on the ethnic minority people since we were in the middle of nowhere.

The third time was without a doubt the funniest. Huyen and I drove by a bunch of cops on our way to a small city. About a minute later though the road sign said we were on the wrong road. So we turned around and I immediately said to Huyen, "I bet you the cops pull me over." Sure enough, they pulled me over for speeding again. The cop wrote on his hand 40/45 meaning I was going 45 in a 40KMP zone. He got on his radio, talked with some other cops (who I could see across the road), made some foreigner comments and then let me go.

The fourth time I was pulled over for another routine check in a middle of nowhere spot. Once again the cop let me go after I showed him my license.

Huyen and I have come to really enjoy these stops. The best part about them is that Huyen is sitting on the back of the bike with her helmet, sunglasses and mask on so the cops have no idea she is Vietnamese. If they did, I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten off without a fine each time. Seriously, no fines! I feel like a hot chick in America!

Would you like the room with hot water or the one with a used condom?

(PICTURE: A used condom and dirty underwear. This was the good room.)

On the map we're using, there's supposedly a way to tell if there's a place to stay in a town or not. If there's a broken underline under the town name, there's at least one nha nghi (guest house). If there's a solid line then there's supposedly many. For the most part this has been true but since the map is six years old, there's generally a few extra places along the way with places to stay.

Well, Huyen and I were taking a very very back road and came to the last town on a map for probably 200km with a guest house. The problem is that it was still sort of early (4:30PM) and we hadn't driven much that day since we did a lot of sightseeing. We decided to press our luck and keep driving, thinking there must be something along the way. Wellllll, naturally there wasn't for hours. By the time we found a place to stay, we were right near the Lao border and had been driving along a mountain pass in the dark for nearly an hour and a half. There were literally bats flying around us and thousands of insects hitting our shields because they were attracted to our headlight.

When we found the nha nghi, we couldn't have felt luckier. The place had two rooms. We were told that only one had hot water so we took that one. That room was next to a large pile of garbage. Inside the room, there were THOUSANDS of bugs. I don't know if it was because of the garbage or because of the rotting wooden door frame but there were termites everywhere! We did our best to kill all the bugs but it was an uphill battle. While I was taking my shower (which was not hot!) I killed two bugs which must have been stink bugs because all of a sudden there was a noxious smell in the room. Huyen started to feel sick and between the bugs on our sheet, we decided it was best to change rooms.

The other room had no obvious bugs except for a few mosquitoes. However, this was just about 48 hours removed from the centipede incident so I moved the bed away from the wall to see if there were any killer insects there. Sure enough there was something lethal looking on the wall. Huyen grabbed a broom from the garbage room and killed the bug (yes, Huyen, not me. God my wife is awesome!).

After that bug was killed, we noticed something else lethal under the bed: a used condom and dirty underwear. Yup, that was the good room!

The girls who ran the place (and perhaps had shared in the condom use as this could easily have been a brothel) were not happy when we changed rooms at 10PM. To make it up to them we ended up voluntarily paying them an extra $1, which they were very happy about. So yes, I paid EXTRA money for this experience.

Eat Shit

Huyen and I were driving down a country road and came upon a bunch of stands selling cucumbers. I randomly pulled over at this one:


While Huyen was buying cucumbers, the woman under the umbrella came over to me and offered me a cut up cucumber. I said "Thank you" and the woman repeated, "Thank you." She then walked over to the woman with the white scarf and said in Vietnamese, "I just said thank you but I don't know what it means." The woman with the white scarf turned to her friend and said, "You said thank you? That means to eat shit!"

I thought that was pretty funny...but while typing this, I wonder if the first woman had thought I told her to eat shit because I didn't want her free cucumber (although in reality I did want it and ate it).

Everyone's knows I'm horrendous at Vietnamese. Well, it's nice to have a translator with me to be able to experience some of these little things I couldn't experience on my own.

A Reason To Wear Sandals

Right before we took off from our Mai Chau stilt house, I decided to use the bathroom one more time. While walking back from the toilet I saw this:


This centipede was very colorful and definitely caught my attention...thankfully. I called over to the son of the homeowner and he looked very concerned. He immediately got a bottle and smashed the insect. I called over Huyen, who was by the bike, and showed her what I found. Huyen told me that this insect is VERY POISONOUS and confirmed with the homeowner that if a person gets stung by it, they're most likely a goner.

Considering that the centipede was under where I had slept AND next to where I ate AND where I had walked back and forth from like twenty times, I'm just glad I wasn't barefoot!