The Real Adventure Begins

The 5 days I spent at home passed in a blur of family, friends, and final preparations. After yet another round of good-byes, I arrived at Ben Gurion Airport for the fifth time in 40 days to board a flight to Vietnam through Moscow. I was planning to travel on a motorcycle in Vietnam, and having been warned about the shoddy helmet quality in the country decided to bring my own full-face one from home. The woman at the check-in counter "couldn't guarantee" the baggage handlers in Moscow wouldn't lose it so I carried it by hand the whole way to Vietnam.

Curiously, Aeroflot, which handles most of the Israel-Vietnam traffic, schedules both its Moscow-Vietnam flights to depart less than 90 minutes after the arrival of the Tel Aviv flight. This has dozens of Israelis rushing through passport control and security at Sheremetyevo to make their connection, with stressed airline employees calling out long lists of Israeli names and hustling them to the gates. I shared some gallows humor with the other connecting passengers, making sure nobody had 9.6 grams of marijuana in their luggage (Google "Naama Issachar" if this doesn't mean anything to you).

0.6 Motorcycles per capita

What an introduction to Asia! The first word that comes to mind when trying to describe HCMC is "madness". Anywhere you go is jammed full of people, cars, and especially motorbikes. According to one local, the city of 14 million is home to 9 million motorcycles. The meaning of that number needs to be experienced to truly be understood.

There are bikes everywhere, and traffic is absolute madness: contrary to Western intersections, normal 4-way dead-ending hallways one another to see who can get through faster through a combination of honking and mad swerving. Motorcycles are mostly kept separate from car traffic in different lanes, with the complication of overlapping turning lanes for cars and motorcycles. Somehow though, the system seems to work despite the madness and everyone manages to avoid ramming one another, but as an outsider you can get dizzy just watching an intersection.

The city's liveliness extends past the traffic, which is to be expected considering it is one of the densest in the world. There are huge masses of people everywhere you go, eating, shopping, running small shops or generally hurrying past. The entire city pulses with energy and noise - the honking, shouting, and blaring music are essentially inescapable until the late hours of the night. Trash is everywhere, pollution is horrendous, and the air is hot and heavy with moisture. All in all, not my style but a good place to start.

One-Sided War Crimes

Ho Chi Minh City, also known by its pre-Communist name of Saigon, is also the perfect jump-off point for a history-oriented Vietnam trip. The city has plenty of French architecture from its colonial days and two very important war sites.

The first is Independence Palace, the former colonial governor's residence and later inhabited by the President of the Republic of [South] Vietnam. The opulence of the palace was obscene (which I suppose is the intended narrative), but the historic value of the place is what makes it really special. After seeing the President's war room and bunker where he directed his military forces and met with American advisors, you head to the courtyard to see the tanks that rolled into the palace in April 1975, officially marking the final victory of the Communist north.

The second site is the War Remnants Museum, an exceptionally well-done museum describing the history of the war, with an excellent collection of war photographs and American military hardware. Some advance knowledge of the war certainly helps see through the rather strong narrative, which doesn't mention any war crimes perpetrated by Vietnamese on either side and portrays the southern soldiers as victims of American imperialism. Any mention of the 200,000 civilians in the south imprisoned for collaboration with the US is also notably absent, along with the demoralizing effects the war had on the people of North Vietnam. For all its propagandic shortcomings, however, the museum is still excellent, painting a human picture of the immense tragedy inflicted on the Vietnamese people for over 30 years and the terrible price paid by all sides.

The museum taught me a lot about the horrific effects of Agent Orange and other deforesting agents used by the US in an effort to chase the Communist forces out of the jungle. A reported 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, along with over 2.5 million Americans and hundreds of thousands of allied forces, most notably Koreans and Australians. Besides being a carcinogen, Agent Orange also causes horrendous birth defects with effects lasting for generations. The museum painted these effects in vivid detail, both among Vietnamese civilians and children of American and allied servicemen. The problem is not confined to history, either, with an estimated 2,000 fourth-generation victims living in Vietnam today.

Everyone Turns Left Together

I headed out of the downtown to rent my motorcycle in Quận (District) 2, full of modern apartment buildings and wide, empty boulevards. Having promised my mother to err on the side of caution, I rented full safety gear - a vest and elbow and knee protectors to complement the helmet I had brought - making me look like Iron Man once fully suited up. I got used to the bike on the empty streets of District 2, but then it was time to face Saigon traffic. I can't accurately describe what making a left turn while weaving your way through dozens of bikes heading the other way feels like besides perhaps "sheer terror", since both directions are allowed to turn left together. I got used to it pretty quickly, though, learning that you just have to follow the flow and tolerate very close distances to all the other bikes around you.

The rental company gave me strict instructions to only leave the bike in guarded parking lots, which are everywhere in Saigon. I left it in a large lot near my hostel, but my helmet was gone (I had even gone to the trouble of threading it through the inside of the seat, meaning the thieves had to have cut it off). I confronted the non-English-speaking guards with hand motions, but they pointed me at a sign in Vietnamese, which Google translated to roughly "no responsibility for accessories left here". I was particularly annoyed at the theft because I literally have not seen a single Vietnamese rider with a full-face helmet, so it's most likely going to be sold to a Western backpacker. I headed back to the rental company (thankfully I had borrowed a helmet from them when renting) and bought a new helmet, resisting the temptation to go for a three-quarters one.

3 kg Gold Chain

After the helmet saga was over, it was time to go on a night food tour of the city. I had booked the tour the previous evening, after asking the hostel receptionist if a certain tour was good. He said it was terrible and gave me a different flier, which did have slightly cheaper prices. He turned out to be Benito, the co-owner of the second tour company, and I had fallen straight into his trap. He managed to get another guest, a Brit named Aidan, to join as well, and promised us it would be worth it.

We headed west of the backpacker area to Quận 3, where Ben dazzled us with delicious and strange Vietnamese dishes such as bò lá lốt (meat grilled in Betel leaves), bánh xèo (rice flower pancakes with vegetables), and others too weird to write here. It was cool to walk around a truly Vietnamese neighborhood at night, with kids playing in courtyards, couples on dates eating seafood in the middle of the street, and just more of the general chaos of the city. One of the places was run by a guy who looked like a total gangster, sporting a gold chain, rings, and bracelets. We posed with him and he let me try on his necklace, which weighed a full 3 kilos (the same as an M16, to put it in perspective).

We walked through a massive flower market, 500 meters of people buying, selling, and delivering flowers freshly shipped down from the mountains for Tet, Lunar New Year. Our last stop was for some kem, Vietnamese ice cream frozen on a plate and served in little rolls, a perfect way to end the hot night.

On the Road, At Last

The next morning I was up at 6, ready to start my motorcycle adventure through the country at 7:30. After breakfast, I lashed my bags to the bike, put my protective gear on, and set off for the city of Dalat, over 300 kilometers to the north-east. I had found a blog post with recommended back routes to avoid the traffic and trucks, and it actually helped me get out of the city remarkably quickly, a relief after hearing stories of fighting traffic for two hours.

Fairly quickly I arrived at a ferry across the Cat Lai river, a quick hop of roughly 600 meters. The ferry filled up extremely efficiently, with cars, trucks, and motorbikes quickly organizing themselves in meat rows and killing their engines as soon as they stopped. The moment we got to the other side, there was a loud roar of several hundred engines igniting at once, and we were off in no time. What a contrast to Kenya! Mombasa has a ferry connecting it to the southern mainland, but the wait can last several hours.

The traffic got thinner the further I got from HCMC, but the riding was actually quite boring - flat and unspectacular, with market town's every few kilometers to bring my speed down. Around 11, however, I finally made it to the Tà Pứa Pass which brought me into the highlands. The effect was instant: the temperature dropped by several degrees, the air became cleaner, and the scenery opened up. I drove through dozens of nameless villages, over narrow bridges, and down beautiful mountain roads. The best part was that the roads were mostly fairly empty because of Tet, so I had some passes all to myself (though the holiday did make it somewhat more difficult to find lunch).

I made a few quick stops to take pictures of churches, bridges and a bizzare replica of the Eiffel Tower in the town of Bảo Lộc, but mostly pressed on to make it to Dalat before dark. I also had to stop for fuel three times, since my tank holds just under 4 liters, good for roughly 150 kilometers. The one major stop I did make was to visit Elephant Falls 30 kilometers south of the city, which were impressive but a bit too touristy. Above the Falls, however, was a beautiful Buddhist pagoda, complete with a 54 meter high statue of Buddha. I climbed to the top, but the view was disappointing, with only narrow slits to see out of.

I learned some valuable lessons on this first ride. Firstly, distances in Vietnam are relative. 320 kilometers might not sound like a lot to ride in one day, but it took me 10.5 hours, of which at least 8.5 were spent on the bike. It's slow going, with low speed limits, narrow roads, and irritating traffic. Secondly, all that time spent on the bike takes a toll. My back was killing by the end of the day, my hands were numb from the vibrations, and the pads had given me the beginning of rather strange tan lines on my arms. Lastly, this is incredible! The feeling of freedom I experienced shifting into fourth and opening the throttle on an empty mountain road is truly incomparable, and for all the physical discomfort I had a great time.

I arrived in Dalat just after sunset and after a much-needed shower spent the evening swapping route tips and stories of riding and food poisoning with other travelers.

How to Cheat on Chinese Visas

The next day was a self-mandated rest day in Dalat. The city itself is cute, with a really pleasant climate, lots of French architecture, and another bizzare replica of the Eiffel Tower, but I wanted to see some nature.

I rode out of the city to Lang Biang Mountain, the tallest peak around at 2,167 meters. The climb up was really steep, climbing 670 meters in just over 4 kilometers through a pine forest that felt just like Jerusalem. The trees provided much-appreciated shade the whole way up, unfortunately blocking the view in all directions all the way to the peak, during which time I saw one other person. A final unreasonably steep push brought me out of the trees and on to the peak, only to discover another hiker calmly sitting there. This turned out to be Jakob, a German carpenter-apprentice biking his way across Vietnam and Laos. That probably explained why he seemed perfectly relaxed, compared to me huffing and puffing. The 360-degree scenery was made all the more beautiful by not having seen any of it on the way up, but the peak was totally exposed to the sun and I had to return to the cool forest after a few minutes.

Jakob and I climbed down together and had lunch at a local phở (noodle soup) place together, where he told me he was debating trying to bike all the way back to Germany and I gave him tips how to get a Chinese visa without the required booked flights and hotels. Some Australians at the hostel recommended I visit some waterfall near the city. Halfway there, I changed my mind and headed to Tuyền Lâm Lake, 15 minutes out of the city. The lake, which was created by damming a stream, was really beautiful and looked like it belonged in New England, with immaculate houses (and even a Dutch-style windmill) lining the wooded shores.

My bike, which had been performing really well the first three days, started acting up. It would stall in neutral anytime I let it idle for more than a couple seconds. This was far from ideal on the forest paths by the lake, so I decided to take it to a mechanic in town. The mechanic spoke no English, so I demonstrated the problem to him. He shrugged and said there was nothing to be done about it, I should just rev the motor in neutral.

According to everyone I had spoken to, the place to be after dark in Dalat was the Maze Bar. Aidan from Saigon was in town as well, so I joined him and a group of people from his hostel. The place was beyond trippy, designed in Lord of the Rings style over 5 stories, with staircases and dead-ending hallways all over the place. I ended up in the basement at one point and it took me a good three minutes of wrong turns to get back to the upstairs bar.

I met a guy named Joe, a native of Duluth who tried to convince me it was one of the greatest cities in the US, armed with endless trivia facts about Lake Superior. It was a strange night. A guy walked past and invited us to a party; I correctly pegged his accent as Swedish so he gave me a coupon for free shots. I declined, however, having decided to head back down to the coast early the next morning. Next stop: Nha Trang.