Oh my buddha!

Now I'm going to write about my best experience in Vietnam. I don't know how I'm going to fit the 4 days into one blogpost, but we'll try. Here we go!

It actually started in Battambang in Cambodia where I met Geri again and a girl from the states and a girl from Switzerland. They were all asking me what I wanted to do in Vietnam, since they had allready been there. I said that I'll probably work my way up the coast. Oh, don't do that they said, everybody does that. You should go on a bike ride with the Easyriders, you get to see the highlands which not so many tourists see, and you get to see the real Vietnam.

So when I met Irene I told her about this, and that I wanted to do it. And after a lot of planning and scheduling we decided to go to Nha Trang and find the Easyriders there. I thought that there would be an office which was called Easyriders, but all the travelagencies there had an Easyrider tour, and also many riders in the street offered tours. We did not know what to do. We asked around and tried to get the best price, but everybody pretty much offered the same. So at the end I tried to track down Eddie Murphy which the swiss girl had recommended. I found him on nhatrangeasyriders.com and we arranged a meeting. After some discussing on the price, we made a deal, and it did turn out that it was the same man who had been the driver for the swiss girl. He remembered her:)

So, excited the next day, we had packed our bags and were ready for 4 days on the bike. But eventually it turned out that Eddie had to go with somebody else, and it was his colleague Duc and Eddie's brother-in-law Vinh, that were taking us. Well, there was not very much we could do about it, so we just watched them pack our big backpacks on the bikes (mine is 20 kg) and amazingly it worked out just fine.

Don't worry, we are not driving! This is with Nha Trang in the background, where the trip started.

The first day, I think I can sum up with fishingvillage, sugar cane stop, tree carving shop, pepper plantation, coffee plantation and cashewnut fabric.

The cashewnut fabric was very interesting. They were peeling the nuts by hand, very fast! The nuts have some kind of oil which is asid for the skin, so they have to wear plasticgloves. Afterwards the nuts are roasted through a machine, and then they sort out the good and the bad ones by hand again. Maybe something to think about next time you eat cashewnuts.....

After some hours of riding on the bike it was really nice to have a stop by the road, drink some sugarcane juice and relaxe in the hammock.

Day 2 was filled with a visit to a local village where they were in the process of harvesting the rice. We also stopped at several places during the day like a buddha park, a place where the had a huge snake, a memorial from the war, green tea plantation and drove through cities and some amacing landskape.

Up Left: The highland taxi going to the market this morning.   Up Right: Harvesting the rice is hard work. 

We also stopped by a rubber plantation. Here we could see how the rubber came out of the trees, and how all the women collected and gave it in at the end of the day with money in return. 

The same evening we went out to a jungle BBQ with the easyrider guys. It was really good. Maybe there were other tourists there as well but I really felt like we were in an autentic Vietnamese place. The meat was chicken, and then there were some other sort of meat like hedgehog, and unfurtunately I can not remember the other two meat types. But maybe that's for the best anyway....

After the BBQ we decided that we wanted to go on karaoke. And how fun was that!!:) We got a private room with a private toilet and a box of beers. And we were all singing in English, Vietnamese and of course we sang Aha! It was a fun night!:)

The third day started with a visit in an orphanage where we bought them sweets, and they sang for us. Then we stopped at another monoment from the war and an old airport which was used by the Americans before we started on the famous Ho Chi Minh road. The road was used during the Vietnam War (or the American War which it's called in Vietnam) of the North-Vietnamese soldaries for carrying weapons and provision. It was really a fantastic scenic road and probably almost the best part of the trip. One time we went of the bikes to walk the original Ho Chi Minh path, since the road has been paved next to it.

The last day of our trip was only half a day. We rode to a little town where we had lunch, Vietnamese pancakes, mmmm, and then we finished off in Hoi An.

It had really been a fantastic trip, it's the best I did in Vietnam and absolutely one of my highlights on my whole trip together. I can really recomend it to other people. Duc has his own page now which you can visit here, and if you're thinking about if you should do it or not, just do it with a Why Not:) I'll finish this post with Duc's own pictures:)