a motorbike road trip...

the great Mr. Jone checking my bike in Saigon before I venture off into the unknown.

here i go....

So my first venture out into Vietnam completely on my own started a bit rocky. I had to navigate through the outrageously crowded streets of Saigon and then hop on the even more crowded highway. To get an idea of how crowded it is, i was averaging about 20km/h (at the begining) which i think equates to roughly to about 12mph! But honestly, I would have been frightenend to go any faster- i opted to just go with the flow! In addition to the craziness of motorbikes and cars on highway 1, it started to pour down rain. I put on my bright blue poncho and toughed it out but in the end i was drenched. So as I was continuing (slowly & carefully with alot of honking- thats how the vietnamese signals to pass) I couldnt find my turn off to the mountain town of Dalat bc the road signs are in vietnamese and are very inconsistant ( i later learned how to navigate fairly well) Just when i was giving up hope to find the Dalat turn off I lucked out and stopped at prob one of the only shops with an english speaking family!

Here if my "Vietnamese Family"

When I stopped off to grab a drink and try to figure out where I was, this lovely family who owned the shop wanted to practice their english with me and therefore asked me all the same questions that one learns in like high school spanish/german class. "whats your name?" "where are you from?" "how old are you?" "how many brothers and sisters do you have?" "what do you do in your free time?" and so on... however, their vocabulary and english did extend beyond the typical questions. As it turned out, I had arrived on their daughters 21st birthday and they extended to me an invitation to her birthday dinner. I decided why not, i thought it would be cool to see how the vietnamese celebrated birthdays. So for the rest of the day I hung out at their shop/house and it turned out that they have relatives in Texas and Florida and they LOVE America (everyone here wants to go to America which I find strange since we basically destroyed their country only 30yrs ago) Dinner with my vietnamese family was great...they taught their 90yr old grandmother to say "you eat" and she kept putting food in my bowl and insisting I eat more and more. The birthday girl ordered about 12 different dishes and we all ate from each family style, delicious! We then went back to the house and ate birthday cake...it didnt taste as yummy as our birthday cake but it was pretty good. They then insisted I stay the night in their home instead of a hotel. What generous people! I almost got tears in my eyes when saying good bye. It was a great experience with the local people.

I finally did make it to Dalat and hired an "Easy Rider" guide to guide me through the mountain roads for five days eventually taking me a town called Hoi An. On the five day ride I learned about so many of the different ways vietnamese people earn a living (mostly doing something with agriculture- silk, pepper, rubber, bricks, coffee, tea, flowers, veggies, fruits, rice and on and on and on...) I also had the amazing opportunity to visit many local ethnic minority tribes on my way. Each tribe has different customs, buildings and language. We always brought candy for the kids who came running when they heard our motorbikes enter their village. I also drove on the Ho Chi Min trail (a famous trail during the war for the viet cong) through the mountains. It sure was a different experience driving on mountain roads by motorbike than by car. Firstly, its easier to stop and take pictures and secondly it is unreal how much more you can see on motorbike! i highly recommend!

Dalat, a town in the mountains where the air is cooler and its less crowded and busy, although you wouldnt be able to tell that from the picture.

here is the "happy" budda, it is different from the budda's in cambodia since vietnamese buddism comes with chinese orgins and i believe cambodian buddism come from indian orgins??

typical buddist shrine

they always have some crazy stuff at buddist temples. who would have thought a horse and bugy would be part of a religion? anyone want a ride?

a rice field in the mountains

going to one of the many flower greenhouses. all the flowers are grown in the mountains and then shipped to Saigon (where the rich people live) this how many vietnamese women look with the face mask to keep out the dirt and pollution, the cone hat to keep the sun and the rain away and totally covered from head to toe (white skin is beautiful in vietnam)

learning how the vietnamese make silk. the red basket is filled with larva which is later sold at the market and then fried up with garlic and onion. (i have yet to be brave enough to try it)

a glimpse of the mountanous countryside.

these were the first ethnic minority kids i visited, arent they cute? It was actually sad bc it is custom for them to burn fires inside their huts thus filling them with smoke. so they live and sleep in a constant smoky environment.

I got to try on their backpack baskets and hold their knife thingy. I guess they hold it behind their back because then the Tigers wont attack them with the knife pointing outward? I wonder if thats really true?

I thought this was a cool but somewhat disturbing picture.... a lady smoking while carring her newborn.

I learned the whole process for making bricks...the govt wont allow the people to build their houses with wood anymore since the forrests/jungle is diminishing (that was very evident during my drive through the mountains, whole hillsides of trees were cut down) so brick making is a good way for some to earn a living although its very primative...they still do everything by hand.

I had the fantastic opportunity to spend the night in one of the ethnic minority villages. This is how they earn some extra money to buy goods they cant make on their own. They sell rice, here is how they dry the rice before they put it into bags to go to the factory so it can be shelled.

this is the longhouse where I stayed the night. it was an interesting experience. the cows and pigs and chickens sleep under the house so I woke up to the sound of pigs squeeling and cows mooing! that sure is a different wake up call!

the village also had "pet" elephants. they were basically ginormous! here the villager is taking the elephant for a bath in the lake. (here's your elephant jen)

an old lady in the ethnic minority village where I had the opportunity to spend the night.

a common occurrance...stopping for cows to cross the road

during my 5 day mountain drive, in front of some rice fields

bananas anyone? these little guys are sweeter than our giant bananas

saw some amazing waterfalls along the way and got the chance to cool off in them as well!

another beautiful waterfall in the vietnam jungle. as i was walking to this waterfall i was on a path alone in the jungle and i heard a loud noise, i was so frightened thinking it was a tiger but it turned out to just be a huge family of very large monkeys. it was so neat watching them jump from tree to tree like it was the easiest thing in the world!

nope, i didnt chance swimming in this monster of a waterfall!