Well hello again. It's been some time since I've consumed any more valuable space on the internet with my short stories, the most recent ones being an impulsive purchase and clumsily implementing "health and fitness" into my lifestyle. I promise that one of them isn't an extended monologue about how great old cars are and how much of a smart and interesting person I am for getting one.
Aside from that, there's something new I am now able to share. What's better is that I'm able to offer you not just one, but two entertaining focal points in video form. One of which is the culmination of my efforts to keep my visit to Macau a surprise, and the other a result of my inexperience on a motorcycle. After all, what good would my stories be if I'm not going to other countries to embarrass myself in some shape or form? Throughout the approximate year's time since my enthusiastic return to Canada, I had been trying to keep myself busy to help distract myself from the pain of being away from my former students and still current friends, like buying a neat car (the link is still up there), and stocking my house with all the things I deemed "fun" and "neat" (like a 55 inch television to play WWII strategy games on while blasting classical music out of an impressive stereo system, because those are my priorities). Since cognitive dissonance isn't that easy to sort, there remained a persistent and nagging feeling that I had made an enormous mistake leaving behind good friends, silly students, and an irresponsibly fun job. I was trying to mind my own business and piece together a tolerable existence, and here is my social media feed, FULL of pictures of people having fun without me. Birthday parties and celebrations were brazenly taking place without me, favourite restaurants being patronized with delicious dishes of hungry friends with smiling faces and clean shirts that said "We're having fun without you". Even fall class pictures from the new school year made me green with envy that someone else was teaching MY STUDENTS.
MY STUDENTS. THE NERVE.
So maybe I had a little bit of FOMO.
No, I didn't hastily book a trip right away, that would be silly and impulsive and irresponsibly expensive. I'm a reasonable, rational, logical fellow. I can control my emotions and feelings, even when they seem overwhelming. I have the ability to make sound judgement calls and show restraint by weighing my options and taking my time to make a mature decision. In fact, I'm so rational and logical that I waited a full two weeks before folding being intelligently decisive and hastily sensibly booking my flights.
In my defense, I had been planning to age my parents faster and risk my life on a motorcycle for some time (and perhaps restore the old Honda bike in my folk's backyard), but there lied the problem in cutting through a little bit of red tape. Apparently the government needs to see proof that I am a legally approved operator of two-wheeled motor vehicles. Claiming that "I've done this before, I know what I'm doing" is NOT, in fact, a substitute for an Ontario Motorcyclist's licence, even though I HAVE done this many times before, and I DO know what I'm doing. Don't believe me? Here are the top 3 motorcyclist rules of the road. 1. Drive like stink to remind other vehicles that you are faster and cooler than anything else on the road. Weaving between vehicles at high speed adds style points. 2. Rev your engine loudly when cruising past any group of people. They will doubtlessly be impressed by how cool you look and sound. 3. Don't get caught. Don't let anyone catch you.
Did I mention it's important to go fast?
Further research into this topic claimed that all this "legit" stuff would cost me several hundred dollars, and I would still have to pay extortionate monthly rates for "insurance coverage" or something.
As you see, the only reasonable way to drive fast on two wheels without a license, insurance, or formal training was to to a trip to a foreign country with minimal regulations or enforcement of the rules of the road. Obviously, anyone can see the logic in that.
Safe, Sensible, Smart!
With the school year affording me either a week or two for March break, I compromised with a full three for the trip. Through YYZ deals (a handy little website for anyone living in the Toronto area), I was able to find a return flight from Toronto to Vietnam (via Singapore) for the same bargain as a used, rusty 1995 Buick Park Avenue (which, for those of you not quite as well versed in the market value of such things, is a meager 800 Canadian dollars). Once that was booked, the further destinations, time frame, and accommodations were considered to make the trip as flexible and affordable as possible. An inbound flight to Singapore with a 1 day layover, two weeks in Vietnam, with a final 6 days for Macau before a return flight out of Hong Kong. As you can see, there was quite a bit of thought put into this. Any enormous quantity of emotion and/or impulse is purely coincidental.
The first stop of the trip was Singapore, a rampantly humid but thoroughly tasty city. It's a little bit like Hong Kong in that it's a modern, condensed financial center with air like hot soup,and more fresh cheap food than timbits in a 6 AM Tim Hortons. Also, there are a number of rules in Singapore that make it sound like the person who writes the law is that Type-A condescending friend we all know. Pesky rules in Singapore look a lot like the large group emails and staff room notices that someone put their big boy/gurl bossy pants on to share. Here's what I mean. - Gum is NOT to be imported or sold ANYWHERE in the country. Rogue chewers WILL face a MANDITORY FINE of $500 for willfully threatening urban cleanliness. - There have been some complaints about certain individuals connecting to unsecured WiFi networks that are not their own. Such practices are exploitative and hereby illegal. Failure to respect others' lack of extremely-easy-to-setup internet security can result in up to three years in prison. - Absolutely no spitting. Not even if you eat those weird bird seed type things at an Indian restaurant and you think they're going to be good but they just taste weird and then you bite into that one that tastes really strong and then you want to bail on the whole experience but you can't even get all the half-chewed bits into one gob so you end up either swallowing the entire mess or sloppily spittooning gobs onto the ground. (Yes, of course that's happened. I enjoy Indian food as much as anyone) Technically, homosexuality (or generally non-heterosexuality) is illegal too. How rude. All that aside, it was a pretty neat place.
Here's the famous building that everyone takes pictures of
There were a lot of neat buildings that looked neat and cool and modern
The food markets offer a wide variety of cheap, fresh eats
The famous big tree things at the garden place
Two wonderful humans by the name of Mel and Goose showed my sunburned, jet-lagged self around the city and we enjoyed a fantastic meal and night out while I struggled to maintain consciousness. It worked. Nice folks.
Yes, that IS my goose shirt that I wear when I see Goose cause that's neat and fun and unnecessary but also neat and fun and a little stylish too.
That short stop in Singapore was followed by the beginning of the motorbike trip, starting in the People's Glorious-and-not-quite-as-malevolent-as-China Socialist Republic of Vietnam, in it's southernmost metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City. This is the part of the blog where I will introduce my friend Michael Trulson, an expert traveler (so expert that he's never been locked in a zoo) and seasoned motorcyclist.
No, we don't have any pictures together. We're men. Gender roles specifically state that men do NOT share warm feelings or show any reciprocal appreciation unless they are masked within an insult or other deprecatory form. He's also both photogenic and possesses such a good eye for photography that I'd look like a shlarb next to him.
Michael is strategically missing from this photo
We had one of those loose "yeah let's to a trip or something some time" agreements that rarely come to fruition, but in this case my desperate need for an adventure enthusiasm and his geographical flexibility allowed the stars to align and make this trip a possibility. Our stay in Saigon was limited to a single day, but here are a few pictures with some reference.
My snap of the Presidential Reunification Palace
The same building in 1975, the penultimate event of the war
A Cathedral
The Top Gear (now Grand Tour) presenters at the same spot for beginning of their own Vietnam bike tour
My single contribution to the entire trip was finding and reserving the bikes (something I did really well, I'll have you know). Since cross-country journeys like these have become such a popular tourist option, there are several options for those wishing to take part. The cheaper (and more precarious option) would be to purchase a pair of very used bikes outright. In big cities, there are a plethora of ratty Honda knock-offs being sold by slouchy, oblivious, sunburned tourists who claim their piece of re-used garbage is "running just fine". These hand me downs can be had for as low as $200, but could easily have a number of mechanical issues waiting to arise once you leave the city limits. You can also purchase used bikes from local dealers & mechanics who may even be generous enough to give their inventory a rough tune up before pawning them off on the next clueless owner. It can be cheap, but you're on your own if something happens.
Our choice was a rental company with multiple locations for convenient pick-up and drop-off flexibility. They're not as cheap, but the bikes are well maintained and come with helmets and bungees. I bought a pair of inexpensive riding gloves to keep my soft, city boy hands from getting sunburned or blistered. Our bikes were a pair of Honda 150 XR's, a smaller dirt bike with good suspension, off-road-ish tires, and just a handful of horsepower. While small for North American standards, topping out at just over 100 km/h, it was the perfect bike for the smaller, winding roads of rural Vietnam. The total cost for one bike (including the damage waiver) for 10 days was $230 USD. Michael didn't get a damage waiver because he's "Not an idiot who's going to crash" or something.
Michael could probably go into more detail and make me look like an idiot with my elementary school vocabulary and riding inexperience. Unfortunately for him, he isn't the author of this lovely and entertaining piece of online literature.
I forgot how many lil green bits come with a bowl of pho
The smart ass on his dumb bike thinking he's ready to go
Before we get any further, I'd like to do a bit of motorcycle safety review. There were a few remarks about how my choice of attire might not have been the most stylish or prudent for the rural roads of Vietnam, with some comments questioning the intelligence of my choices. For those people I made a comparative and informativechart between myself and an entirely anonymous individual.
For anyone with an eye for detail, yes that may indeed have been the other fellow on the trip with me, but if you look closely, you'll see that I've very cleverly MS paint'd his face onto the body of the typical slouchy college-aged tourists you see sloppily blazing through South East Asia at all times of year. If you look even more closely at the succeeding photos, you may even notice that Michael (either out of sheer embarrassment or from extensive biking experience) almost completely copied my look throughout the trip.
Stylish, safe, SMART!
HECK our bikes look sharp
The journey panned out by leapfrogging from town to town, aiming for about 4-6 hours of riding time each day, which is about as much as you'd comfortably want unless you really like getting sunburned and windblown. We found that most of the coastal roads weren't the scenic routes we had hoped for, but instead were busy and boring highways. Instead, we shifted to interior routes whenever we could, taking us through mountains, jungles and rice paddies. Our odometers tracked our total distance covered as ~2200 km, which isn't too shabby for a Canadian fool without a license and an American who wasn't even shot at once.
Those old road post signs were pretty neat, this denoting the Ho Chi Minh Trail
The winding roads of the Hai Van Pass
A beach
Since we're not fans of riding through torrential downpour or typhoon-strength winds, the trip took place during the dry season. We were lucky enough to avoid any kind of considerable rainfall for the entire journey, which is handy because I didn't bring any waterproof clothing or bags. SMART!
The dry, dusty road to Dak To/Phoenix Airbase
A train in Dalat that took us to a temple
One of our hostels overlooked a military flight academy, with some old air force hardware on the lawn
Michael found some nature
A regular day on the road would start with a few hours of riding along a chosen route, then a stop for lunch where we'd book our next hostel/homestay, followed by a few more hours of riding before sundown. We tried to avoid the thrills of night riding like extra bugs in the face and very low visibility for spotting people, debris, animals, and other fun surprises that could easily cause a trip-ending accident. Otherwise, the roads were well-maintained, easy to ride, and quite safe while still entertainingly weaving through a variety of landscapes.
A typical country road.
While booking accommodations the day of arrival left us at the mercy of vacancies, we had the flexibility to stay put or press on as we chose. Having a local SIM card paired with a few travelling apps (hostelworld and the other one) made things quite easy.
This was our home stay in the town of Kon Tum
A neat lil place, they cooked us a fantastic dinner as well.
The nice folks saying nice things to Michael
Michael made the astute recommendation to check out the Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary beforehand, making our visits to airfields, military bases and battle sites especially interesting. My knowledge on the subject was only that the Americans lost (something I reminded him of many, many times), and bits & pieces of the timeline of events. It's quite something to learn about a 30 year conflict from the internet, but another thing entirely to put yourself in the boots of the combatants at the very places they fought. To return the favour, I got him hooked on history memes (saying that out loud makes me question if that's even an achievement).
Some of the hardware captured from the Americans & Southern Forces
A Chinook heavy helicopter
A war marker we tried to translate, unsuccessfully
One of the fortress gates of the ancient city of Hue
During the course of the trip, we encountered some pleasant German travelers who we gave a lift for a small leg of the journey. We had a riveting conversation comparing common English phrases to their German counterparts, as well as deconstructing uncommon and variable English grammar sentence structure (just when I thought I was having a break from teaching). Rude comments aside, they also taught us a neat card game that had so many rules I thought I was back in my teacher's college legal framework course, and were quite good riding partners for the roads through the Hai Van Pass
We almost, almost, had an accident free trip. During the latter half of the trip, we found a good bend in the road flanking a waterfall and valley, so we thought it would be cool snap a few pictures or otherwise show other people how much cooler we are for doing a thing and putting it on the internet to make sure people know we're cool. Personally, I place the blame on Michael for filming me, which not only put the pressure on me to look cool (rule #1), and go fast (also rule #1) but to look cool and go fast by keep my engine rev's up to sound good (rule #2). It didn't turn out too well, as you can see for yourself.
The rear wheel went out from under me on a patch of gravel, and the bike dumped me square on my ass to remind me not to be a showoff. All I had to show for it was a scuffed up arm and a damaged shoelace, the bike getting a few scratches on the mirror and turn signal. These were hardly the battle scars I expected to return with from 'Nam. Looks like I'm the smart one for getting that rental insurance after all, eh Michael?
Pretty tame, all things considered
All in all, Vietnam was a heckin' swell time. Affordable, safe, delicious, welcoming, and ever-educational as to how a different corner of the world goes about its business. I'd recommend you try Vietnamese coffee the next time you find yourself in a grocery store that stocks it. I'd also recommend you tear through town on a motorcycle with only a helmet, a button shirt, a pair of dad jeans and loafers to keep you sensibly dressed and safe. I'd also recommend doing what you want because you can decide for your damn self how to spend your money and free time, thank you very much.
The last chapter of the trip was to visit Macau, the city in China (sort of) that I spent 3 years working as a grade 4 teacher. Obviously, a big part of the trip was to see old friends again, but my secondary objective was to surprise my old students who were confident they were rid of me forever. After arriving in town, I took a bus to my old apartment in which I spotted three of my former students coming home from school. Sneakily avoiding them at the bus stop, I prepared myself for a drop-in visit for the following day. A coordinated effort by several of my colleagues made this wholesome video a possibility.
What nice kiddos. It was such a pleasure to see them again, although I think someone's been overfeeding them because they are a good few inches taller than when I left them behind. Apparently their new teacher doesn't even call them stinky kids, mess up their hair, or make them listen to long monologues about automobiles, history, and video games. What a missed opportunity! With rose coloured lenses of returning to everyone still in town, I had forgotten how endlessly humid, pervasively schmutzy, and excessively tacky Macau was (at least for someone travelling on a budget from a chilly Canadaian spring). Outdoor BBQs, a junk boat party, and an enthusiastic visit to Hong Kong about a week before the government tried to pull a fast one on its people and get them up in arms.
(more late on Hong Kong in a future post that I hope you'll have the time to check in on)
Without becoming unbearably melancholy, this visit put to rest a lot of the fussy, restless and generally mixed feelings I'd had returning to Canada a year ago. On one hand, I had missed the same young faces that made up 3 years of homeroom classes, a group of fine folks that co-habited that part of China-not-China, and the stability of steady work, vacation time, and a flow of dirty Macanese money into my bank account. Yes, dirty. The stories are a little too spicy for this blog but ask me in person and maybe I can fill you in. On the other hand though, I'm reminded of my abundance of blessings at home. I've got enough of what I need (despite what I might tell myself sometimes), I work in the field I enjoy, and there are plenty of fine folks on this side of the planet, not to mention a couple snazzy cars with my name on them too.
Well heck, here's one now! How'd that get there?
I'll stop becoming melancholy and emotional now, and thank the peerless and quite excellent Michael Trulson for his expertise, comradery and infrequent chuckles at my history jokes & anti-American ribbing, as well as the other fine folks who made the trip pretty swell. It was a true pleasure to share the road, a couple meals, and a good three weeks time in what I perceive to be my last stint in Asia for some time.
