Vietnam

We awoke on the second day ready to leave for a day of fun driving at 8:30! Hung, as promised, had woken up early and arranged breakfast for us... super! well, it just so happens that the Vietnamese don't see the importance of a hearty breakfast and so we were provided with a bowl of rice noodle soup (known as Pho) with bits of pork. Should've seen the disappointed look on Haakon's face! We just decided to buy some extra snacks to hold us over till lunch, but boy were we in for a surprise. You see, these little windy dirt roads of Vietnam were not in great condition after the night-long rainfall. We were soon to face landslides, mud roads and numerous Minsk breakdowns.

After about half an hour of riding on compact gravel we left the "main road" and headed to smaller trails. In other words, we had entered the no-car territory. The first 100m gave an indication of how the day was to progress... half a meter of mud and water, and H&M crammed on a Minsk made for some spectacular riding (in Haakon's opinion anyways). How can we put this? We were ENTIRELY COVERED with mud, and that was just the beginning! For the next two hours we continued our mud riding further and further away from civilization.

At about 11, we came across the most challenging bit yet. A 30m long and 75cm deep puddle of muddy water had decided to place itself in the middle of our path, hehe FUN! Seeing that there was no way back, Haakon the great decided to force Helga into submission and power her across the "pond". Guess what, we made it through! Haakon had now become a master at mud-biking! Needless to say, he had to have another go! Without Mahta on the back, it was a piece of cake to maneuver and H&H (Helga and Haakon) flew back and forth across the "pond" two times.

After our half hour play time, we decided to continue on as our bellies were crying out for some real food and water. And that's when it all went down... 5m further, we come across a narrow path (10cm wide) with big puddles on both sides. Having conquered the previous obstacles with supreme elegance, Haakon felt confident that this 3 metre long path would pose no problems at all. Damn, was he ever wrong. With minimal speed, we left the "safety" of solid mud and rolled onto the narrow path. So far so good. That's when it all happens. Helga's rear wheel lost traction and the whole machinery lost speed. Now, what happens if you're on a bike with no speed??? It starts tipping!!! Yes, that's right, the bike starts tipping.. No problem right? Haakon has long legs, he can just push off from the bottom of the puddle as he has done so many times earlier that day... WRONG. See, the puddle was deceptively deep, and Haakon's leg just dissapeared down into the muddy water. And this is what happens next:

Mahta: Are we falling?
Haakon: FUUUUCCCKKK!!!!
Helga: WRRROOOOMMMMM
Mahta: OH SHIT!
Helga: Actually, by this time there is no more Helga, she is dead quiet!

So what happened. Well, the bike, Mahta and Haakon all fell over into the puddle and got almost completely submerged in water. He he .. But don't worry guys, we saved the camera and the scene looked really cool!! Yeah.

As described before, the Minsk aka Helga, is a solid and higly unreliable motorbike, which we were just about to realize. After our little swim, the damn girl decides to seize up and not start at all.. I mean, THERE WASN'T EVEN A CHANCE IN HELL to get her firing. SHIT!!!

The next 1 hour, was spent trying to fix the poor girl. Hung practically tore the bike apart and tried every possible trick at his disposal to fix it. The Minsk is probably the simplest motorbike ever built and should in theory be really easy to fix. but i guess dropping them in water is not that common. After an hour, the bike finally started working, and it looked as if lunch would be coming up very soon.

That's when the second problem starts. See, earlier (before H&M) tipped their bike, Paul had dropped his bike (Fantasia) in 20 cm of mud and had problems with the throttle. What this meant was that we had to stop (150 metres after the first stop) to fix his bike. Obviously, we had to turn the engine off.. BAD IDEA. See, fixing Paul's and Hung's bike was a piece of cake but getting Helga started after she cooled down took about 90 minutes. While the boys tried to apply their mechanics skills, Clare and Mahta spent the hot afternoon sleeping by the side of the trail. By the time we left, we had spent a total of 2.5 hours trying to mend Fantasia, Helga and Don't Kiss Me (Hung's bike). This sounds really boring, but remember that we were in the middle of nowhere in Vietnam. It was by no means boring. First of all the sceneray was gorgeous, secondly the weather was nice and hot, and thirdly, we were never really worried about having to spend the night. In other words, it was actually quite fun.

So, as mentioned earlier, we finally got back on the bikes and started driving. So far so good... But wait.. We just had two strikes, and we all know that three is the lucky number.. So what happens?? 50 metres down the road we find out that a roadslide has completely washed away the road!!! HA HA... But no threat, we slide down the side of the road down to the local river and start using that as a road. Kinda cool to be driving in a river (it wasn't filled with water though).

After our three strikes, we were obviously starving (it was 4 o'clock by now) and we had absolutely no clean water left, so we decided to drive hard to get to civilization. The next two hours were spent driving in even more mud, enjoying the scenary (mostly Mahta of course) and learning the ways to control a big ass motorbike in mud. I had the time of my life. The riding was challenging but really fun.

By 6.30, we have finally made it out of the super muddy parts and onto more gravel like tarmac, which was good, but another challenge came our wayt. See, by this time it was starting to get dark. YEAH. In the middle of nowhere, with no streetlights on a Minsk.. he he. Fun. Right after 6.30 PM we came to a halt by a HUGE river (which was flowing beyond its borders due to rainy season) with a non-existent bridge. No threat, the Vietnamese people are never far away. The local people had invented some sort of bamboo raft with lines crossing the river, and with the help of 5 Vietnamese people per raft, we drove the bikes on the tiny bamboo raft and muscled them over the fast flowing river. One of the most exciting moments on the whole trip!!!

Once safe and sound on the other side, another incident came our way. The banks on the other side were really steep and thanks to the fact that it had been raining for 2 hours (and still raining) the gravel was slippery and not well compacted. What this means for people sitting on a shitty motorbike is that we had to give lots of throttle. Guess what guys?? We gave too much throttle. The front wheel left the ground, the bike started tipping backwards and Mahta makes some unrecognizable sounds. It must have looked soooo funny. Anyways, we fall backwards with the bike about to come down on top of us, but fortunately we manage to throw the bike sideways and to the ground. The bike was fine, Haakon was laughing, but Mahta, poor girl, had landed on a sharp rock and bruised her butt. It was funny though. She was laughing and and au-au-ing at the same time. What a scene.

After the spectacle we created, we eventually made it, without any incidents, the last 20km to the small village where we were to spend the night. This was really cool. Instead of staying in a hotel, we spent the night with a local family, sleeping in their house. They were all really nice people, and the evening was spent eating, drinking beer and of course sampling the local rice wine.

By the time we went to bed we were super tired, and Mahta's ass was hurting.....

Apologies for the long entry to come...
So, we had heard about motorbike tours around Vietnam, and by sheer luck we noticed something very interesting on our way back from the bank. There was a motorbike tour leaving in 2 days headed for a 6 day trip around Northeastern Vietnam. We got all the tour info and decided to sleep on it for the final decision... We walked in the next morning confident on booking our tour for the following day, only to find that the tour had already left, in fact we watched the tour drive out of the shop!!! SHIIITTT. After a quick talk to the brilliant guys at Voyage Vietnam, we decided that there would be no problem, we would just have to speed things up a bit, and leave within an hour to catch up with them! So, within this hour we had to a) check out of our hotel, b) go to the bank and withdraw money 6 times due to the max limit, c) provide Haakon with his first encounter with the front seat of a motorbike, d) prepare Mahta for sitting on the back of a bike for the 6 days to come. What a scramble.. We were running all over the place just trying to get all the stuff together, but in the end we managed pretty well. After a total of 90 minutes, we were ready to go on a 6 day long motorcycle ride in the Vietnamese mountains. What a thrill!!!

Before we get started on telling you about the trip itself, let me give you an intro into the bike we were to use. The bike is called a Minsk, and is an old Russian motorbike. It is a 125 CC, meaning it has no more power that a regular moped, but obviously has more torque. The max speed of the bike is about 60 km/h, it weighs a whole bunch, and comes without any gauges (ie speedometer, fuel gauge etc). Having said that, the bike is unreal. It is called the mule of the mountains and has such a simple design that a monkey with a hammer and a stone could fix it. Well, not really, but pretty much any Vietnamese male over the age of 30 will know a Minsk inside and out. Our Minsk was nice and blue, and she quickly acquired the beautiful name of Helga. We also had full protective clothing, meaning motorbike jackets, pants, gloves, helmets etc. Ok, back to the trip.

Off we went, but first we had to get ourselves through bustling Hanoi traffic which can be challenging enough when you're crossing a street on foot. Haakon, the experienced biker that he was, popped a wheelie just as we were pulling onto the highway but managed to pull himself together and we successfully drove hard to catch up with the others. Driving at our max-out speed of 60 Km/hr , the wind and bike vibration forcing our face to move in ways we didn't know were possible, rice fields and mountains began to appear in the horizon. The sun was bright and hot while the wind was cooling our faces. What a feeling... We were finally getting a taste of the real Vietnam.

We drove hard for about 3 hours before finally stopping for some drinks at a local roadside cafe. By this time we were told that we actually passed the group and decided that we should just wait for the others to catch up. It was a good chance to rest from the whirling world on a motorbike. Soon enough, our new guide, Hung, appeared with an English couple - Paul and Clare - and we were finally introduced to the people which we were to spend some incredible days with.

After a quick lunch, we carried on at a pace that almost seemed boring compared to what we had been doing earlier till we reached an old "communist" hotel which was to be our home for the night. The hotel looked like it had been built in the mid 60's, with huge rooms of shitty quality. Oh well, I guess it was worth it for the scenary. The town we were in (and the hotel) was set right in between 5 or six large tree-covered mountains. Absolutely stunning!!!

After parking our motorbikes, our guide went out to find us some dinner while we refreshed ourselves in the communist hotel. 20 minutes later, we were all ready to go for, what we thought would be, a nice filling dinner. First the good parts: it was Paul's 27th birthday that same night, and we were all in a great mood to celebrate! Ie, the drinking was good. We got our hands on some Portugese wine which Hung believed was potentially made in China and quickly polished it off. The next thing on the menu was some local rice wine (moonshine) and finally, after 2 long hours of bad wine we got some cold beers. MMMmmmm, so far so good right?
Now, for the bad parts:. We can't say much nice things about the meal but we'll try to paint a picture for you anyways. First of all, they had freshly killed a chicken for us which was really nice, but they have the tendency of just hacking it up in chunks with the bone which is not so nice. Inaddition, the chicken is was boiled and not fried, which made for really grosse meat. For the rest of the dishes, Hung had decided everything and that may have included a plate of boiled cabbage, the water from the boiled cabbage (which was to be eaten as soup), rice, vegetables and some other stuff. All in all, the meal was highly unsattisfying and did not fill us up at all. We also asked if it was possible to get beef,, but received a negative response, as the town was too small to eat a whole cow before it went bad. HA HA... what a disappointment.

After the scrumptious meal, we took some beer back to our room to continue the celebration and eventually fell asleep around midnight, stoked about another day of motorbiking.

P.S, you can go here: http://www.minskclubvietnam.com/thebike.html if you wanna look at the bikes we were using

After the previous day's extraordinary drinking, waking up early next morning for diving was hell. Haakon's head was pounding and Mahta & Halvor were both super tired.. Apparently snake was supposed to turn you into Superman, but let me tell you, I did not feel like Superman, more like a rotten sac of shit. Oh well.

We arrived at the boat at 8.30 in the morning, and by 9 o'clock we were on our way to the dive site. Our divemasters were an ancient Russian guy and a tiny French/Vietnamese fellow. They both proved to be pretty good, but unfortunately the diving wasn't. Due to a strong current, the visibility was reduced and we were constantly pushed into the coral reefs. Our second dive was better, but all in all, the diving was shit compared to our experience in Thailand and Halvor didn't think much of the snorkelling... Guess that's the way it works out sometimes.

By this time, we had grown tired of Nha Trang, so we went to book a bus ticket to Hoi An. By the time we reached the office, it was already 6.00 PM, and we were really worried that they wouldn't have any tickets left. The relief was great when we found out we had scored the last three tickets on the bus!!! Kick ass.

The evening and next afternoon were really not too exciting, so I won't bore you with details, but we spent the day sun tanning on the beach and the next evening eating delicious seafood... MMMmmmmm.

As I just told you, we scored the last three tickets for the 12 hour overnight bus ride to Hoi An, which we thought was awesome... WRONG.. We got stuck in the very back of the bus, which on a normal bus wouldn't be THAT bad, but on a Vietnamese bus is horrible. Imagine this: It's 34 degrees and 80 percent humidity outside. The bus is absolutely packed (in fact there is one guy sitting on a plastic chair in the aisle). The airconditioning doesn't really produce any cold air. Mahta, Halvor and Haakon are sitting in the back seats with absolutely no room for shoulders or (long) legs. THE ENGINE IS RIGHT UNDERNEATH OUR ASSES, PRODUCING ENOUGH HEAT TO FRY AN EGG ON THE FLOOR... Seriously, it was too hot to keep your bare feet on the ground... WOW. By the time we arrived Hoi An at six in the morning, it looked as if we had just walked out of the shower.. We were all soaked and stunk really badly.

Our time in Hoi An was not really exciting. We spent 4 nights in this cute town relaxing, sun tanning and chilling by a pool. We rented some crappy bicycles (which could hardly support Haakon's weight, think of the struggle when Mahta and Haakon shared a bike) to take to the beach some 5Km outside of town... it was all worth it when we arrived at a beautiful, and clean beach with a gorgeous view of some islands. We opted out of the trip to the beach the next day, so we all decided to splurge and use the swimming pool at a nice hotel. Probably one of our worst investments so far seeing that we were rained on only after an hour! We finally came to the inevitable moment of saying our goodbyes to Halvor, he decided to spend a few days tailoring suits in Bangkok over spending the time with us... do you feel the love?
We left for a dreaded 17 hour long bus ride to Hanoi the same afternoon, but luckily the lack of engine heat help ease the pain.

That leaves us about one week behind current date. What happened this past week??? I'll give you all a hint.. Motorbiking on old Russian Minsks in Northeastern Vietnam. We'll update soon..

Until next time...

Before I get started on the travel stories, I would like to inform all of you that there is no worm!! I know you were all hoping Henken would get some support, but the doctor told me that there is no way that thing could have come out of my !@$%.. Wonderful..

It has now been about 10 days since we last updated you on our travels, and needless to say, we have moved on from Saigon and hit up a few more places in Vietnam.

The first place on our itinerary was the French-Colonial city of Dalat. Due to the city's high altitude (about 1500 metres above sea level) the French used it as a get-away during the colonial period, which makes it a rich and "clean" city. The city is what we would call a smaller town situated in the midst of gorgeous mountains. Very picturesque and quite chilly at night (Mahta actually wore a sweater)!! We only spent one full day in town, which was spent riding around the countryside on motorbikes. We rented a so called Easy-Rider (a group of bikers offering tours around the outskirts of town) for a whole day, and he showed us all the nifty places. Halvor got stuck behind the guy, while Mahta and I had our own pimping bike (well, we didn't have a bike, just a scooter).. It was actually really cool. We drove around to silk factories (Got to hold small silk worms !!! They look like the worm version of the Michellin Tyre dude btw) as well as a cool waterfall and some other stuff. All in all, a really nice day.

The next day we took the morning bus to Nha Trang, so-called Vietnams's beach Capital, looking for some sun, sand and cheap beer. Guess what we found!!! Sun, sand and cheap beer.. he he Our first evening was spent sampling the local wine, spirits and beer menu at various watering holes accross town. The beer was dirt cheap.. About 50 cents for half a litre bottles.. not bad! Anyways,the night was a blast. When the bar we were at closed (which really should have been a sign for us to go home), we ended up leaving with a vietnamese girl (YES, we were trying to set Halvor up) to another place. Kinda cool. She introduced us to all her friends and stuff, but by this time the twins were completely shit faced, so we were forced to leave.

Now, see, this is kinda where the fun starts.. On our way back from the bar, Haakon started talking to this Vietnamese dude standing by the side of the road. (I think I was trying to teach him a secret handshake, which is kinda funny cuz he didn't speak English) Anyways, I taught him the handshake, and I guess I must have made a huge impression, because before I know it, we're sitting in his living room.. hmm... wish I could tell you what happened, but I really don't remember..The point is that he invited us over for breakfast next morning at 10 AM (it was 4 in the morning, Halvor could barely stand and Haakon had his drunk face on). We accepted!!!

Drunk as shit, we showed up at this guys place at 10 next morning. Halvor could barely stand, and I was seeing stars!! Turns out this guy was 38 years old and had two kids. Funny. So we sit down on this guy's couch and start playing with his kids while he dishes up breakfast. 30 minutes later, he comes out with a HUGE tray of fresh crabs and a massive grin on his face. KICK ASS. Now, at this point, he asks me if we want anything to drink. Sure, some water would be really good, so I take off to the store with this guy. Once at the store, he says something in Vietnamese to the lady and she points towards to small water bottles. "Hmmm, must be all they have" I think to myself, so I look at her and ask for the last two remaining. After a weird look and a larger than normal price for water, she hands me the bottles and we head back for breakfast. Once there, another Vietnamese dude shows up (speaks a little bit of English) and we're ready for breakfast. MMMmmm, by this time my body is screaming for water, and I'm about to drag the two bottles out his hands so I help to get everything set up, including a small shot glass. That's when it hits me, we didn't go out to buy water, we went out to get moonshine (or ricewine, as they make over here) DAMN!!! The next few hours are bit of a blur, but it included copious amounts of crab and way too much moonshine.

About two hours after, Haakon is hammered, Halvor had thrown in the towel and Mahta is stuffed with crab. What a kick-ass start to the day! Considering my situation, it's of little surprise that when our friends suggest we should go to a restaurant and get some snake, Haakon's all ears and Mahta figures snake would be an interesting change for lunch. Oh-oh, here we go. I jump on a motorbike with my guy and head off to a restaurant to get some snake. Once there, we realize that it would be cooler just to stay there (as opposed to bringing it back) and the guy drives back to pick up Mahta and a third Vietnamese dude. Thus, just to recap, we are now 3 Vietnamese guys (all 36-38 years old), Mahta and myself (piss hammered) in a local restaurant about to get a big serving of snake. I'm not going to go into details, but the afternoon was spent drinking cheap draught beer @$1/2L (further intoxicating Haakon), eating snake and frog and trying to understand what the hell these guys were talking about. Actually a really fun afternoon.

In the evening, Mahta and I invited the guys out for dinner, which wasn't too exciting, but kinda nice. We all sort of left on bad terms unfortunately, due to too much booze and limited English skills. (The guy got angry cuz we didn't want to borrow his snorkeling gear and other situations that left us feeling used). Even though the ending was kinda crappy, the day had been very interesting and at times really fun. We went to bed at about 1 o'clock, piss hammered and not looking forward to next day's diving at 7.30 AM..

I know this is not entirely up to date yet, but my fingers are now really tired, Hanoi's bustling streets are calling my name, and it's been more than 5 hours since my last beer. I hope you all understand

Catch you later,
H

The last time we updated the blog, we had spent 2 days in Phnom Penh but the fun stories started after that.

On our third day in the city, Halvor decided to bring out his clean side and opted for using a cotton swab as the appropriate tool to clean his ear. BAD IDEA!!! See, the thing is that Haakon had brought these really crappy, no-name cotton swabs from Canada, which he gave to Halvor. He he.. Thirty minutes later, he comes out laughing. Apparently he had pushed the q-tip so far into his tiny ear that the cotton part fell off the "body" of the q-tip and lodged itself inside the ear canal. In other words, Halvor was now stuck in Phnom Penh with half a q-tip inside his ear. Kinda funny. Seeing that it was no real emergency, we waited until late afternoon next day, where the funny story ends. Getting the q-tip out of the ear proved to be of little amusement to Haakon and Mahta, as all that was required was an ear flush.. bummer, no surgery?

The two remaining days we had in Phnom Penh, we spent visiting various sites around the city. We went to one former school which was used as a prison under the Khmer Rouge regime. For more than 3 years, 100 people were tortured and beaten to death every day!!! The fact that this was only 30 years ago, makes it even more extreme. All in all, the Khmer Rouge Regime (or Pol Pot regime) killed between 1.7 and 3 million people in a matter of 4 years. Their preferred method of killing was through the bamboo stick lashes, and any intellectual or prominent person was at a higher risk of being captured and tortured. The goal of the regime was to make a pure agricultural society.. WOW!

We left Cambodia and Phnom Penh after 5 relaxing days. We opted for the slower, but more scenic route down the Mekong Delta to Vietnam, which ended up being really nice. For 5 hours, we cruised down the Mekong river and other smaller canals to a place called Chau Doc. The river looks exactly the way Hollywood projects it, and half the time Haakon was getting Apocalypse Now flashbacks he he

Chau Doc is a small city along the Mekong river, and apparently, 3 white people with big backpacks is not an everyday sight. Kids yelling "Hello" after us and people had to take double looks all the time. Kinda cool to be an alien for a while. We spent one full day in Chau Doc cruising around the country side and up a mountain with our super cool mopeds. (Halvor ended up with one that had a bum horn, he he..)

Seeing that boats were slow and expensive, our next journey was undertaken by the means of an old fashioned bus. When we started the 4 hour ride, we each had 2 seats and were cruising along nicely. Within 1.5 hours, our space had been reduced to barely one seat each. Not fun. The only cool thing was that our bus was filled with cigarette smugglers, the youngest one being 12 years old, and the oldest one being 70-80 years old. They all had about 1000 packs (YES, 1000 PACKS!!!!!) attached to their bodies and then hidden under HUGE clothes. They looked ridicilous, and I think you could spot them a mile away. Have no clue how they did it..

Our bus dropped us off in Can Tho, which is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. The city wasn't that exciting, but we spent the next morning cruising down the Mekong river to a massive floating market. Really nice. We then left the main river and went down through smaller canals and even stopped at some fruit gardens. We can now all proudly say that we have tried Snake Wine and been offered to pick our own chicken for lunch..

We took a small bus from Can Tho to Saigon (Ho Chin Minh City), where we have spent the last two days. Not much to report, besides Haakon's tape worm scare...

(insert by Halvor and Mahta here)
Conversation went something like this:
Haakon (in the bathroom, immediately after pooeing) - Uuuuh, guys.. I think we have a problem... Can you come in here
Mahta - What? Why? I don't want to come in there (reluctantly walks into the bathroom)
H&M - Halvor!!! Get in here! This is serious!!!
Halvor - Uh what... I really really don't want to (even more reluctantly goes into the bathroom)
Haakon - Check it out, I don't know if I shat him (2cm long centipede) out or if it was in there before
Centipede (in toilet struggling to get out) - Hey guys, give me a hand, I'm all feet. This toilet bowl is friggin slippery, I can't get out. Hey, what's that's flash? Here, let me pose for you. Take it away... No, wait! don't flush! Nooooooo....
(insert ends, back to Haakon's story)
so we took the pictures to a nice doctor who told us that it was nothing but a tape worm scare, Haakon was good to go!

... and yeh, we had a kickass ride on motorcycle taxis today. Quite insane with Saigon traffic!

For now, stay cool,

Cheers,

H H M