Thursday, November 30, 2006

Ha Long to Quan Toan

After coming back from the Ha Long Bay boat trip, I consider staying the night in Ha Long City. Ha Long City is one of those places with flashy hotels mushrooming all over the place and hookers on offer by tauts on motorbikes. Considering that I can neither afford nor want either, that leaves me with very limited options for the rest of the day. I go back to my hotel, change into my cycling gear, and pedal off.

The day's ride is nothing special. I stay on the main highway the whole way. The wide shoulder lane makes it relatively stress free as all the trucks and busses pass with more than enough room to spare. The exhaust from the passing vehicles doesn't bother me as much as the noise the vehicles make. It has been said that in Asia, car horns wear out before their brakes do. That definitely applies in Vietnam. As the trucks pass, the drivers always lean on their horns to let everyone on the road know that they are passing. The first time it happens, it almost makes me jump off my bike and leaves me with my left ear ringing. After a while, I get used to it and would simply move closer to the edge of the shoulder. Then I start to appreciate the Doppler Effect: as a truck comes up from behind me, the pitch of the horn blast would be in a high pitch; it then shifts to a lower-pitch sound at the point it passes me.

I stop at the only guesthouse in a small town called Quan Toan as night falls and take the cheapest room on the basement level. The ceiling is exactly six feet high, so I have to stoop a little to walk around the room without scraping my head. There is no hot shower. To wash myself, I have to scoop warm water from a bucket and pour it over my head. After dinner and some reading, I turn in for an early night under the security of a mosquito net.

Stats:
Distance today: 63.2 km

Of Food Poisoning and Ha Long Bay

I've always been proud of myself for never getting sick on local food when I travel. Ha Long City marks the place where my luck runs out.

I've always eaten street food on all of my trips and this one is no exception. I've eaten pho at the dodgiest-looking street stalls, had iced drinks at the side of the road, and eaten meals at truckstops. Never had a problem. So I suspect nothing when I sit down for a simple meal of fried rice at a brightly-lit and clean restaurant in the touristy part of Ha Long City. Everything goes well.

Until 2 am when I wake up with a jolt. Something isn't right. A storm is crash landing in my stomach. I bolt up, then scramble to the bathroom. After praying to the porceline god, I sit on him for a good while. Dragging myself back to bed, I curse the restaurant. An hour later, another session. This repeats several times through the night.

By morning, I am exhausted, but feel that the worst is over. I manage to eat a couple of baguettes and keep them down. Feeling a bit better, I debate whether to go on the three-day-and-two-night boat trip around Ha Long Bay I booked the night before. The boat is supposed to be big and the bay calm. I don't want to be holed up in the hotel room for a whole day, might as well have some company while I recover. So I decide to go.

Ah, glorious Ha Long Bay! The most glowing superlatives have been used to describe the bay with karst islands jutting out of perfectly calm green waters. And this time it doesn't disappoint, either. It almost makes me forget that I am still sick. I lay in the dining cabin/lounge, sip water, and watch the islands drift by. The little bit of rice I had for lunch is staying down. For the rest of the afternoon, I make a few more trips to the toilet, but at least now everything is only going one way. I start to breath a sigh of relief.

At dinner, I feel well enough to eat a bigger meal. Afterwards, I lay down again while the crew watch movies and other passengers chat. After a while, I decide that I should socialize with other people. As I sit up, I feel my dinner surge upward. Running downstairs to the outside, I double over the side of the boat, just in time for everything in my stomach to erupt through my mouth and nose. When that is over, I feel immensely better and limp back upstairs. A couple of sympathetic passengers hand me activated charcoal pills. And for the rest of the night, I actually feel quite well.

The next day, the storm in my stomach has all but dissipated. After breakfast, a local guide takes us on a two-hour hike through dense jungle up one of the peaks on Cat Ba Island. In the afternoon, our group goes out for some kayaking around the outlying karst islands for a couple of hours. My appetite is back! So it was the right decision to get on the boat after all.

By the time we get back to Ha Long City at noon on the third day, I am ready to jump on that bike and get going again!

Monday, November 27, 2006

Hanoi Scenes

Where did I park?


Just Passing Through






Florist at the Market


"You know that's a good price."

Who needs gatorade when you have fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice?

Dong Trieu to Ha Long


I wake up bright and early - to the sound of pouring rain - and immediately get back to sleep to the soothing sound of rain hitting rooftop. A couple of hours later, I wake up again with the sun in my eyes. Time to get ready.

Still half asleep, I decide to get a bowl of pho for breakfast. Walking into a random pho restaurant, I nod hello to the cook/owner and gesture for a bowl of pho. I then see a bowl of eggs sitting next to the noodles and gesture for two eggs. I want scrambled eggs, but can't remember the word, so I just sit down and wait for a surprise.

In a couple of minutes, the lady brings the piping hot bowl of pho and the eggs to my table. I take a look at the eggs - hardboiled. Oh well. The eggs look like they are covered in a fine web of something - blood vessels or wrinkled skin. "Weird, I'll see if they taste okay," I think to myself and start to eat the eggs.

Halfway through the first egg, I think I see an eye from the bowl staring at me. I open my eyes wide, totally awake now, and take a closer look. Yup, that is definitely an eye, and what's surrounding the eye looks like a tiny chicken head. At this point, I realize the eggs aren't your everyday ordinary eggs. They are fertilized eggs with chicken embryos at an early stage of development. I've heard about this as a delicacy in parts of Asia and thought I'd try it at some point. I just wasn't thinking that I would try it in such an unexpected way. I guess today is as good as any day to venture into a new gastronomic territory. When someone already eats meat, is it more wrong to be eating a chicken embryo versus just an egg? Regardless, I dig in and finish the rest of the "eggs" with the pho. They aren't bad, taste like eggs with a meaty undertone, although it's probably not something I would want to order on a regular basis.

My stomach starts growling only 20 km into the ride, so I stop at a roadside restaurant for lunch. Afterwards, I ask one of the girls working at the restaurant to take a picture of me outside. As soon as I take out my camera, a couple of other women in the restaurant come out. While they are taking pictures of me, more people come out of the restaurant. At the end, I get the whole family spanning three generations sitting and standing in front of the restaurant. They check out my bike; we joke around using gestures. Someone pushes one of the girls in front of me and says I should marry her. I sniff my armpits and say, "Not right now, I stink." We all have a good laugh.

Two hours later, I arrive in Ha Long City. It's a bustling town with gleaming hotels along the oceanfront. Groups of well-heeled Korean tourists mill around town. After checking into a decidedly less glamorous guesthouse, I book a two-day-and-two-night boat trip around the famed Ha Long Bay. I've heard mixed reviews about it, but I'll see it for myself what all the fuss is all about.

Stats:
Distance: 63.3 km
Odometer: 150.1 km

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Hanoi to Dong Trieu

After hanging out in Hanoi for a couple of days and testing out my bike, I decide that today is the day to start the trip.

The plan so far: head to Halong Bay to the east, then south from there.

Armed with a book of detailed maps of the country and a Vietnamese phrasebook, I leave the comfortable surroundings of the Old Quarter and pedal out of the city. Before long, the crowds on the road thins out as I get on National Highway 1. This is almost too easy: beautifully paved blacktop with no potholes to swerve around, hardly anyone is on the road, and the cycling lane is safely divided from the center lanes. I find the comfortable pace of around 25 kmph and ride into the distance. After Highway 1 becomes an expressway, the traffic becomes almost nonexistent. The cycling lane is wide enough to be another traffic lane. I am really enjoying this now.

I stop at a roadside restaurant for lunch. With a combination of the numbers I learned on the flight over (Thank you Singapore Airlines for the little Berlitz tutorial), pointing at the phrasebook, and some gesturing, I manage to order a very tasty and filling meal of rice with scrambled eggs, fish, and greens. As I sit down, I notice that the ten people at the next table are staring at me and obviously talking about me. Is it my helmet, the panniers on my bike, or do I have a black streak across my face? "What are you looking at? I look just like you!" I think to myself, then smile and nod at them. After a couple of minutes, they turn around and go back to their meals, clearly having come to some sort of conclusion about me.

The afternoon ride is pretty noneventful. Along the way, quite a few people on bikes and at the side of the road yell "Hello!" and wave at me. A few kids chase after me for a bit. Yet a couple of other kids give me high fives. I feel like a celebrity!

As the sun is starting to set, I roll into Dong Trieu, a nondescript town along Highway 18. I check into a guesthouse, wash off the road grime, and have another session of arm waving and pointing to the phrasebook. Another dinner comes out. Halfway through, I realize I am eating the rice straight out of the serving bowl. So that's why they were looking at me funny earlier, I must've looked like a pig at the trough.

It'll be an early night tonight. Looking forward to tomorrow's ride.

Stats:
Distance: 86.8 km
Time: 3h 47m
Average speed: 22.9 kmph

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Navigation in Hanoi Traffic

Just keep walking slowly and deliberately, I remind myself as I stand in front of a five-way intersection. Target: Hoan Kiem Lake at the other side of the intersection. Obstacles: a sea of moving buses, cars, motorbikes, and bicycles. Goal: get across the street and stay alive.

Waiting for the light to change is out - there's no traffic light. Instead, I would just have to step into traffic like everyone else. I take a deep breath, get a lungful of exhaust, cough, and step off the curb. Walking at a steady pace, I watch as all the traffic goes around me: cars, motorbikes, and bicycles all gauge my walking speed and either swerve left or right. Everyone is honking their horns, not at pedestrians, but to annouce their presence or their intention to overtake. I am immersed in a cacophonous mix of airhorn noise of every type: the terse high note beep, the drawn out bass punch, the cheerful musical ditty, the polyphonic echo toot, there are too many to count. Before long, I am at the other side of the street without even a scratch. Yes! The skills I developed previously in all the Asian cities are starting to come back. And this is the art of crossing the street in Asia.

While a steady pace can generally keep me safe as a pedestrian, it's a different story as soon as I get on a bike. When my two legs are replaced by two wheels, I have just joined the rest of the rolling traffic. I now have to dodge pedestrians and negotiate with all the motorbikes, cars, and buses for space and priorities. From riding around Hanoi these last two days, I've developed a heightened sense of hearing and peripheral vision. At an intersection, I'd have to look straight ahead for any oncoming turning traffic and motorbikes coming down the wrong way, but at the same time use my peripheral vision to scan for any buses or cars coming from either side, on top of that, always watch out for pedestrians and listen for honking horns. A little swerve here, a bit of braking there, turn a wheel a few degrees to keep balance, step on the pedals when all parties have selected their paths, and the intersection is safely crossed. On I go until the next intersection, then it starts again.

Such is the rhythm of life in Hanoi. The traffic flow is best described as controlled chaos. It's a dance, an impromtu choreography. Every Hanoian participates in this dance on a daily basis. Everyone is aware of his surroundings and constantly plans his next step. No one insists on his right of way. As a result, very few collisions happen and everyone gets home safe.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Thanksgiving in Hanoi

Pushing my bike-in-a-box and panniers on the airport cart through the arrival gates, I brace myself for the assault of touts offering taxi rides and hotel rooms. So it is a bit of a let down when the throngs of people at the gate make a gap for me to pass through. I look around, and everything makes sense.

The passengers on the plane are half tourists, half Vietnamese. The tourists are intantly recognizable: uniformly white with backpacks or rolling suitcases. Here is me: an Asian guy pushing a cart with a beat up box with two bike pedals poking through (they were rusted on, I couldn't get them off) and a bundle of fading bags. "I don't look too out of place," I think to myself, and walk straight out to the taxi stand.

I consider riding my bike out of the airport, but Lonely Planet advises against it because part of the way to the city is through an expressway. And sleeping less than two hours on the overnight flight makes me feel not quite up to the task. So when the cab driver waves me over, I don't need much elbow twisting to hop in to the taxi. Less than an hour later, I am deposited in front of the backpackers' hostel in the middle of Hanoi's Old Quarter.

The way I jammed every piece of my bike into the box, I almost expect it not to survive the trip over. So I am really glad to see that every piece has arrived intact. This is an old bike I picked up almost two years ago in Brisbane - a third-, fourth-, or fifth-hand bike. It looks like it was put together using cannibalized parts from the bicycle graveyard - making it the perfect bike to bring to Vietnam.

While checking email in the lobby of the hostel, I overhear two Americans talking about Thanksgiving. My ears instantly perk up. It turns out that a pub near the hostel is doing Thanksgiving dinner tonight. I've already written off the idea of having a Thanksgiving this year (again). So when I hear that a place is offering Thanksgiving dinner, I just can't turn it down. Yes, it'd blow my budget for the day; okay, two days. But how often can one have Thanksgiving dinner in Hanoi?

Dinner is a lot of fun. Four other Americans and I sit down and have a wonderfully cooked turkey dinner. It is as good a Thanksgiving dinner as you can find in this part of the world. The only thing not American about the dinner is the portions. The upside to that is, I get full without slipping into a turkey-induced coma afterwards.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Turning Thirty

As my Big Three-O is coming at me faster than you can say "over the hill," I can't help but ask myself, "What the hell happened to my twenties?" Let's see: college, work, master's degree, burn out, quit everything, become a drifter, then medical school. And we're all up to speed - that's ten years in one sentence!

I have nothing to show for what I'd done in the last ten years. Well, as far as material things are concerned anyway. When I moved away from DC, all my worldly possessions could fit in my car. Now I don't even have a car to gauge what I have. I still live on a shoestring budget; I have to constantly watch what I'm spending my money on - not so different from ten years ago. And yet, I'm content. So why am I so comfortable with where I am? You can even say I take pride in my proletarian life. Worse, I don't really find anything appealing about the American Dream - a nine-to-five job, house, cars, gadgets. That's why I've done nothing to chase that dream. Instead, every chance I get, I daydream about the places I may travel to during my next break. Most of the time, they'd have to remain being daydreams. Sometimes, though, those daydreams turn into reality, like Tibet, Southwestern China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the cross country drives in the US.

Or like now with Vietnam.

I was in Vietnam last year. I didn't really see Vietnam at all. I spent most of the nine days in the country looking out the window of a train or a bus. In Hanoi, I happened to pick up Catfish and Mandala by Andrew Pham and read the whole book in one go. Part travelogue, part memoir, it was about this Vietnamese American who returned to Vietnam and rode his bike up and down the country. I'd seen plenty of travelers on their bikes, even in Tibet. This book, for some reason, really gave me the inspiration to hop on a bike and start riding. Okay, riding a bike in Vietnam is not exactly charting new territories. It's been done to death by so many people even Lonely Planet published a guidebook on that topic. Regardless, it's a brand new adventure for me. I thought it'd be a good way to finish my third decade of life and start the fourth. So I scraped together enough frequent flyer miles collected over the last ten years to get myself a free flight from Australia to Vietnam.

And the rest were minor details.