High Road to Sapa

As soon as the first rays of sunlight poked through the wooden slats of my veranda window, I walked out to my balcony to greet a new day in Vietnam - what were YOU doing on Monday morning? Ok, bad joke. Sorry all you 9 to 5er's (the very few I actually know).

But my day did start off great - sun shining and not a cloud in the sky. Good thing because I was heading up, up, up and over the tallest pass in Vietnam to the high mountain village of Sapa. Once again, I was amazed at the quality of the road as I started off and hoped that it was as good for the entire 60 km of my motorbiking day. Before leaving Lai Chau, I grabbed a picnic breakfast and tossed it into my backpack. Immediately beyond the city limits (just beyond the Eiffel-shaped radio tower above town) the road started climbing straight up. In second gear with the engine screaming I was able to maintain forward momentum, but any stopping and restarting presented a challenge. After pulling over at a beautiful overlook for a quick bite, I continued on, riding past vertical rock walls, mountain sides drenched in thick tropical jungle, and dozens of waterfalls - including two that had to have fallen over a thousand feet. The landscapes of central Costa Rica, the Annapurna in Nepal, and the pictures of Hawaii's Na Pali I'd seen immediately came to mind.

The top of the pass was obscured by clouds, as it is during most of the year, and as I got closer I had to pull over and add a few layers of clothing. I had been warned that it would be cold at the top - some of the nearby peaks, including Fansipan (at 3143 meters, Vietnam's highest) actually get snow in the winter. After an hour of switchbacking, I crested the top of the pass to find a handful of government vehicles parked at the top and their formally dressed occupants toasting their arrival with rice wine. We waved at each other as I passed by, but there was no reason for me to stop - couldn't see more than 10 feet through the clouds.

I assume the pass marks the dividing line between two provinces or regions because, as often happens in the States at county or state lines, the road went from perfect tarmac to absolute shit. Sixteen downhill km of washboarded, potholed, gravel strewn, muddy "road." Slow going as the clouds began to thin out a bit and I knew that I was approaching Sapa when I began to pass motorbikes going the other direction, toward the cloud covered pass, with their riders - local men at the wheel with pained looking foreigners clinging to the back of the bike, bouncing and weaving on the rutted road.

Before long I was coasting into the village of Sapa - "Queen of the Mountains"

Lai Chau City

Lai Chau was a pretty typical Vietnamese city: one long strech of multi-storied buildings along the main road, a market, a bus stand, and smaller dirt roads branching out to low slung neighborhoods surrounded by, and surrounding, fields of rice and corn. Nothing special, but one look beyond the city limits and I was certain I could stay here for days, maybe weeks. According to the tattered Lonely Planet I'm hauling around, Lai Chau "is set in a verdant valley of conical peaks that resemble diminutive volcanoes. The countryside around the city is sublime." A slight understatement, to say the least. The green peaks in the near distance reminded me of a toned down, spread out Guilin, China. It turned out to be one of the friendliest, most easy going towns I've been to as well. I easily found a place to stay on the main drag - a large French colonial-style building with columns and balconies ($9 per night, tv included) and spent the remainder of the afternoon visiting the market, catching up on news via the internet (bad idea - I had almost forgotten the political and financial bullshit going on at home), and trolling for good food at the local food stalls.

While Lai Chau really did deserve a longer stay, the weather forecast I tracked down persuaded me to continue on to Sapa the next day. Apparently, I only have a couple morning's worth of decent weather left before more storminess arrives (typhoons a brewing out in the Gulf of Tonkin) and I'll need it to get over Tram Ton pass - at 1900 meters, the highest mountain pass in Vietnam. After yet another bowl of rice and vegetables for dinner - served by a cranky, gap toothed mamasan - I called it an early evening. Knocked out a few more pages of my 10 lb. "History of Vietnam" and crashed. Onward to Sapa and the good life......for a couple of days, at least.

Dien Bien Phu to Lai Chau

During my one and only night in Dien Bien Phu, I was jolted from sleep at 3:00am by a sound I had come to dread - rain pounding the tin overhang outside my window. The weather forecast had called for mostly clear skies, but I suppose there's no arguing with Mother Nature in this, or any other, part of the world. Nothing I could do other than hope the rain fizzled out before long and pray that the roads ahead of me were decent....or half decent....or at least not washed away, buried under landslides, or submerged beneath newly formed lakes. I rolled over and attempted another few hours of fitful sleep.

Hoping for an early start, I woke with the sun, packed my bags and headed downstairs to settle the bill. Granted, it was earlyish - lets say 6:30 - and I found my hosts sound asleep in their rooms and the front doors bolted shut. Given that the windows in my room were barred, I wondered what I would have done in the event of fire in the middle of night. At any rate, I turned around and trudged back upstairs to settle in for an hour or so of reading until the rest of Dien Bien Phu woke up.

Soon I was on the road and heading east out of the DBP valley. The city, such that it is, dropped away quickly and before I knew it, I was skirting past rice fields and small sub-villages as I climbed back into the mountains. Once again, this has become my favorite part of the day: protected by the disguise of my scooter and helmet, watching the locals go about their everyday business. A couple morning markets were in full swing and I pulled off the road to grab a quick breakfast of bread, roasted meat (probably water buffalo), and a Coke, before continuing. I was scared to death that the well-paved road I was on would peter out into the potholed muddy messes that I had been dealing with over the previous couple of days, but this one held strong. Around every bend, the tarmac road seemed to stretch on and on as it climbed into the mountains and I let out a little whoop for joy as I maintained a steady 50km per hour. The scenery was beyond spectacular - a simplistically boring description, I know - and I found myself making excuses for stretch breaks at overlooks and water falls crashing nearing the roadway. Greener than green, the mountains kept growing rougher, more jagged, and higher by the mile. According to the map, the road was supposed to "follow" a river for quite a ways, but before long I was a couple thousand feet above it and climbing.

Assuming the worst, both weather and road wise, I had planned on a short day, only going as far a mid-sized town called Muang Lai. However the good road held up and I had long stretches of it completely to myself, if you don't count the pigs, water buffalo, and their child shepherds. The weather turned out to be perfect - sunny and warm - and before I knew it I was down to shorts and a t-shirt. I ran into Muang Lai before noon and decided, after a roadside lunch of instant ramen-type rice noodles, hardboiled eggs, and peanuts, to keep going. The further I went today, the closer I was to Sapa, my eventual goal.

Great road, good weather, and amazing scenery continued all the way to Lai Chau, my stopping point for the day. Other than a dozen patches of landslide debris to slow for and a strange piece of road I coined "Snake Alley" (a stretch several kilometers long where I passed 4 or 5 snakes on the road - all multi-colored and pretty good size. Not knowing my poisonous Vietnamese snakes from the non-poisonous, I kept riding....quickly), the ride was perfect. I was saddle sore after 7 hours on the bike and, once again, managed to burn the backs of my hands, but beyond that I was feeling great. Only 60km and 4000 vertical feet to Sapa. I'd tackle that another day.

Dien Bien Phu

Pulling out of Son La, the very first sight I encountered was the huge CAT backhoe that had been clearing the road the day before. This time however, it sat squarely upside down - the operators cage crushed, tank treads sticking straight in the air - a few feet off the road and down the slope into town. No idea what happened other than the waterlogged road gave way under its weight and over and down it went. I hope that it was a slow-motion event giving the driver plenty of time to get out because he could not have survived otherwise. After amusing a gaggle of locals by taking a photo, I was off in the direction of the wrecked bridge that had stopped me the day before. When I got there, I could see that it hadn't really been repaired, but overnight the swollen river had dropped back to a trickle and I was able to get the bike across without even getting the tailpipe wet.

The skies had cleared - beautiful blue - and I had an amazing, trouble free drive all the way to Dien Bien Phu (161 km). Took me the better part of the day as the road wound up and over mountain passes, into and out of ravines, and along rivers (looking much tamer than a few days before). There had been dozens of landslides along the route but all had been cleared just enough to permit the passage of vehicles, even if it required slopping through mud. I was amazed by the VIetnamese highway system (yep, this was "Highway 6"). After miles of muddy, washboarded roads, I'd run into stretches seemingly in the middle of nowhere that were immaculately paved. Then more crud. A good stretch. Crud. Good. Crud. And so on. But the scenery was spectacular: jagged peaks drenched in green, small montagnard villages, and mostly empty roads. For hours I ended up dodging more water buffalo, pigs, and dogs than other vehicles.

"Dien Bien Phu" had become my mantra over the few days, if only for the reason that, looking at my map, it kind of resembled a midway point on my journey. I had heard the town was nothing special (it wasn't), but Dien Bien Phu is one of those mythical places in the history of Vietnam, and more specifically, warfare in Vietnam. The French were routed by the Vietminh there in 1954 (eventually setting the stage for American intervention) and since I was in the "neighborhood" I wanted to see it. It was also a convenient place to crash for the night.

The valley that Dien Bien Phu is situated in is gorgeous - maybe 10 miles long by 6 miles wide, surrounded by rice fields in the flats and big, green mountains at its edges. The city is pretty blah, as predicted, and it was hard to picture the pivotal battle that had taken place here fifty-something years ago. Lots of run down monuments to the Vietnamese side, a French memorial to its fallen soldiers, scattered war junk - tanks, cannons, rusted jeeps (mostly American, as it turns out. The Vietnamese were using weapons given to them by the Chinese who had taken them from the Americans in Korea a couple of years earlier...ironic). I made the rounds, but power was out all over town and the museums were dark. I spent the night in a small guesthouse at the rear and above a family's clothing store on the main drag. After a very quick breakfast in the morning, I was off again.

The highlight of Dien Bien Phu was most certainly the scenery on the way to, and leaving, the city. I've gotten into the habit of starting the days ride early - around 7:00 - in order to take advantage of daylight (should anything go wrong during the day), But it has the added benefit of allowing me to catch glimpses of Vietnam waking up each morning as I zip through suburbs, small towns, and villages: uniformed kids on their way to school, women cooking breakfast under the front verandas of their homes, men heading off to work, older kids leading the family animals to pasture, and my all-time favorite: young mothers yanking their naked kids along the roadside to the nearest spring for an icy cold-water bath.

Son La and more Son La

Woke up this morning and, joy of joys, there was a small patch of blue sky in the distance. Hoping to take advantage of the break in the weather I loaded the bike after a quick breakfast, said goodbye to the very friendly staff at the "Sunrise" and headed up the rough road out of time towards Tuan Cio, the turn off to my next stop, Dien Bien Phu. Exactly 2km from the hotel, I rounded a bend and my spirits dropped a notch. Another line of traffic and humanity stopped by...something. Slinking my way to front of the pack, I was met with a huge yellow sloppy mess of a landslide that had buried about 200 yards of road the night before. A backhoe and bulldozer were busy clearing the wet cement-like gunk, so I joined the crowd and waited. At one point I was joined by the only foreigner I had seen in a couple of days - a French guy about my age riding an ancient, and heavily used, Minsk motorcycle. We chatted about the previous days storm for a few minutes - turns out he had been stuck in Mai-Chau with me, we just hadn't crossed paths. But he was now three days late, the bike had to be returned to Hanoi in three days, and he needed to get back come hell or high water. The last I saw of him, he had recruited a small army of kids to push his bike through the muck. When I lost sight of him around the bend he was making progress but it didn't look pretty.

After an hour or so of waiting in the sun (SUN!!), I retreated back to town, figuring I could do something more productive than watching heavy equipment sling mud around. Returning a couple of hours later, found that the road was opened and, spirits suddenly raised again, I took off down the far side of the ridge. So far so good - until about a half hour into the journy when I was met by another road block. This time a bridge was out and although there were dozens men working like ants to repair it, I realized it would take hours. The gods were not looking favorably upon my efforts to leave Son La so I gave in. Returning to town for the evening, I settled into a lazy day of praying the sun would stay out long enough for all the roads ahead of me to be repaired.

While Son La is a pretty little town set in a beautiful valley, its only real claim to "fame" (or infamy) is that it was routinely targeted for "off loading" of ammunition by American warplanes returning to their bases in Thailand after bombing runs across northern Vietnam. Apparently it made more twisted sense to drop unspent bombs on a town than bring them back home. The main target was an old French colonial prison - which, I guess if you're going to bomb something, is as fitting as anything. I walked around town, hiked up a nearby hill to a radio tower, avoided rabid, obviously communist dogs protecting said radio tower, chatted up a couple of english-speaking college students who ran the front desk of the Sunrise, and read a bit. A mellow day and in the end the time was well spent - repairs on the road were made and I was off early the next morning.

Mai-Chau to Son La: A Soggy Day in Hell

I had mapped out the next stretch of my stretch of my ride and although I knew I'd probably be riding in the rain for most of it, the 188 km to Son La didn't look to bad on the map, especially if I broke it into three legs: Mai-Chou to Moc Chau, Moc Chau to Yen Chou, and finally Yen Chou to Son La. That probably doesn't mean much to you, but to me those towns signified little island sanctuaries in the storm - hopping from one to another until I found a place to sleep for the night. The rain had let up a bit, more of a heavy drizzle as I left Mai-Chau but before long, I had to pull over and put on the heavy duty military poncho I had picked up in Hanoi. As uncomfortable as it was, the upside was that under the poncho and wearing a helmet, I looked like a local - kind of nice not drawing unecessary attention to myself. I could pull right up to the Vietnamese on the road before they noticed something wasn't quite right about me. Upon recognition, the double-takes were priceless - usually confusion, then a smile and wave. At any rate, the air temperature was warm and the roads, even if wet, weren't much of a challenge as I started climning into the mountains at a whopping 40 km per hour. The clouds were low and clinging to the surrounding peaks as I began the 3000 foot ascent to Moc Chau.

Made it to Moc Chau without a problem and pulled into an abandoned cafe. Had to find the owner - she was still in pajamas and curlers - and asked for coffee. She made a small batch of the rocket fuel that I'm slowly getting used to (strong, nasty, bitter, but with enough sugar and sweet milk it becomes palatable). By the time warmed up a bit and pulled out of Moc Chau, the rain was coming down harder.

The road to my next stop paralleled the Nam Som river for most of its length. It was raging from the storm runoff, but having never seen it before I couldn't tell just how much higher than normal it really was. I knew it was going big because rice paddies along the banks were completely submerged, and water was creeping up and piling into the foundations of homes. I also saw more than a few whole banana trees being swept into the current. But my biggest clue that this was not exactly a normal event was that the locals were out on the roadsides and bridges just staring and pointing at the water. Ever the river guide, I found myself stopping every half mile or so to check out the rapids down below - bigger than anything in the Grand Canyon, except maybe Lava or Crystal at thier worst. Finally arrived in Yen Chau, completely soaked from sweat and rain, and found a little road side restaraunt. A wonderful older woman made me a bowl of hot soup and, as I slurped away, she and I just sat under an awning and watched the rain get even worse. I know she thought I was nuts when I went back out into the storm and got on the bike, but what was I supposed to do? Short of begging a local for a place to crash, there wasn't anywhere to spend the night in Yen Chou...and at this point I didn't know what lay down the road. Two legs down, one to go.

Passing through a small town called Hat Lot, I rounded a sweeping bend and ran into what would become a VERY common sight over the next two days: long rows of trucks, cars, motorbikes, and people (a few water buffalo and pigs thrown in for good measure) stopped in thier tracks by thick, muddy-yellow water as it swallowed up the road. I didn't know it at the time, by I was heading into the hardest typhoon-hit province (Son La) in the entire country. From my perspective, I could see that a river had overflowed its banks and was covering a good chunk of downtown Hat Lot. The water was rushing through the lower levels of a few homes on either side of the road, cars and trucks were stuck midway throught he "new" river channel and nobody really knew what to do. As I stood there, watching the water lap at my front tire, a man ordered a group of boys to load my scooter into the back of his 2 1/2 ton military-style truck and waved me into the cab. I wasn't asking any questions and hopped in. Then he was off, directing this and that while I kept his young son company in the truck (who couldn't get enough of pruney white hands - ha ha). I just watched the chaos from a safe and dry six feet up, and eventually the rest of the trucks bed was loaded with four more scooters, a half-dozen people and a big, fat pig. Then we headed out into the deluge. Water up to the axles, but no problem for the big truck. Only when we got to the other side did I realize that we were also pulling a mini-bus behind us with a steel cable. So, 1 hour and 25,000 Dong later, I was past obstacle one. Son La was getting closer, so I thought.

I passed through the rest of Hat Lot and started climbing into the hills, which I assumed was a good thing - water generally runs downhill and pools in the low spots. Not so in Vietnam apparently. After a half hour of rain-in-my-face driving, I turned a corner and ran smack into a literal lake where the road should have been. Four or five feet deep judging by those trying to wade across. A traffic jam had formed and I motored up to the front of the pack and met a group of budding (and highly successful, judging by thier bulging pockets) entrepreneurs. These guys had actually constructed a raft and were floating all those willing to pay across the 150 yard long lake. The "raft" was just a bunch of scrap wood and bamboo lashed to a half dozen inflated inner tubes. They offered to take me across for the equivlent of $8 and I flatly refused. I pictured the scooter -for which I was financially liable - tipping off the raft, or even sinking thier "Titanic," and settling nicely on the bottom of the lake with all of my belongings attached. I waffled, watched as the line behind me grew, and wondered what in the hell I was supposed to do. The weather was getting even worse, I knew I couldn't go back to flooded Hat Lot, and I certainly wasn't spending the night in middle of friggin nowhere Vietnam. Finally I rationalized my decision to float the bike across the lake by recalling that these men were probably the sons of the men and women who won a couple of wars with crazy slapped together technology like this on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Still, I couldn't believe what I was about to do and have never been more relieved when they safely deposited me on the far side. It would have been the most rediculous picture - me, perched on my bike (firmly applying my handbrake, of course), on top of a flimsy bamboo piece of shit, being slowly pushed across a pond by four Vietnamese guys, neck deep in muddy water. And they were laughing all the way to the bank.

Off again, getting late, and Son La seemed so close that I could taste it. Another flooded village, a backcountry short cut that I'm amazed led anywhere, missed turns, more rain, and I finally arrived at my destination...only to find that it was also flooded - and I was on the wrong side of the river again.

Soaked, tired, and becoming less amused by my circumstances every second, I handed another truck owner all the cash I had in my pocket (a bargain at 15,000 Dong - less than a buck) for one last lift across a flooded street. Finally, my 188km adventure had come to an end as I pulled up to the - no kidding - "Sunrise Hotel." Shower (cold), dinner (delicious), and bed (hard as a rock), and I was completely done.

POSTSCRIPT: As rough as my day had been, I later found out that the very same Son La province that I had been traveling through suffered the country's most casualties as a result of this storm. Sixteen people were killed in Son La due to flooding, flashfloods, and landslides. As of today, 41 have been killed across Vietnam and thousands of homes have been destroyed. While I had an adventure, many of the locals had lives and property destroyed and my heart goes out to them.

Mai-Chau Mayhem (in a Typhoony sort of way)

Set in a long, thin valley, surrounded by jagged green peaks, at about 600 meters above sea level the village of Mai-Chou is sort of an oasis after the craziness of Hanoi. The main strip through town isn't much to look at, but just a quarter mile beyond the last building, the smaller sub-village of Pom Coong is literally an island surrounded by rice-paddies. As I approached in the early afternoon, I prepared myself for what I assumed would be a tourist trap. The travelers bible (Lonely Planet, or LP for short) had listed Pom Coong and a neighboring sub-village as area highlights. But as I pulled into the narrow walkways between the village's traditional stilt-houses, I didn't see another foreigner anywhere. I puttered around for a few laps before a young woman waved me over to her home and communicated via hand gestures and a couple of english words that she had a place for me to spend the night. In Pom Coong, the villagers have opened up thier homes to visitors - for a completely reasonable fee. For $12 I had a traditional roof over my head, the best dinner I've had in months, and a small breakfast (b-fasts just aren't big over here). The family, consisting of a younger couple and their three-year old boy, and I all slept in the main room of the home on bamboo floors and under a tin roof.

And what a night it was - as promised the rains arrived with a vengeance. At dark, thunder started booming and lighting flashed. It literally rained, unabated, for over 24 hours. Lightning would flash here and there and here and there. There were were stretches of solid minutes where the sky was completely lit up outside. The remnants of Typhoon Hagapit were doing a number on most of Vietnam that evening, as I would later find out.

After waking to the rain gutters overflowing and the concrete walk ways between homes flooding - and with more than a little prompting from my hosts - I decided that it would be best to wait out the storm in Mai-Chau and postpone my departure for a day rather than face the mountain roads with my scooter..I mean, motorbike. So, I checked back into the stilt house and spent a damp (but warm) day alternately reading and taking rainy-day walks through the rice paddies. I managed to find a run down internet cafe in the newer part of town and shared it with a dozen school-aged boys playing on-line video games. Back to walking and reading, reading and walking. By the time evening rolled around the rain was slacking off a bit and I had high hopes for the following day. What a sucker....

Easy Rider....without an "eph"

Disclaimer: The keyboard I'm using is missing the letter " " (the one that comes ater "e" and beore "g")..... have un deciphering!

Well, I can add one more lie experince to my collection - successully inding my way out o Hanoi on a motorbike. As planned, I picked up a scooter early yesterday morning to begin my 10-day road trip though northwest Vietnam. O course, it wouldn't be an adventure without the news that I received over breakast rom a Dutch guy at the hostel: Typhoon Hagapit, Hagaspit, Shagapot or something similar was, at that very moment pummeling Hong Kong and was headed our way. A quick check o the orecast showed that he was right. Damn. But I had already paid or the bike and the mechanic assured me that I would be ine - by the time it got to where I was headed, the storm would be downgraded to a class 2. Sweet. With that reassuring bit o insight, he helped me bungee cord my backpack to the scooter (yeah..it really is just a scooter) and sold me a heavy duty, military issue poncho or good luck. Ater one last scan o the map, I was on my way.

The skies were pretty clear as I let town, and I was just hoping that the storm would hold o long enough or me to clear the suburbs. Well, I lucked out and had great weather all the way to my irst destination, a small village called Mai-Chau. The weather was so great, in act, that I burned the hell out o my arms. The visor on my helmet is tinted - so tinted that I didn't realize the sun was shining as brightly as it was. At any rate, I managed to ind my way to the "country-side" with only two wrong turns. Beore I knew it, I was cruising the highways o Vietnam at a whopping 40km per hour! Laid down about 135 kilometers and climbed about a 1000 eet in elevation in roughly 4 hours - and the only minor complication came at my irst stop or gas. Something was seriously lost in translation as I was attempting to pay the attendant and beore I knew it, a small crowd had gathered to watch clueless oreigner sweat in the sun. The problem seemed to center on 300 dong (about 5 cents) and or the lie o me, I couldn't understand what she wanted me to do. I put money in her hands, she handed it back. I pointed at the numbers on the pump, she pointed at the numbers on the pump. I even watched careully as another man came in, got gas, paid, and recieved change - just to make sure I wasn't missing something. It's a truely humbling experience, especially when you know that while you may not be the smartest guy in the world, you're not the village idiot either, to be stymied by such a routine transaction. Ater about 20 minutes o back and orth, and ALOT o sweating on my part, she just laughed and waved me on. Just like that. I'm quickly inding the Vietnamese to be some o the nicest (or most accomodating to oreign morons) people I've met.

By 3:00 in the aternoon, I had arrived in Mai-Chou, ound a home, cracked a cold beer, and then.....the rains came.

Hanoi Weekend in Review

Oh man, where to begin. The internet in Hanoi has been spotty at best this weekend so all of my "reports" have been put on the backburner until now. In the interest of brevity - not to mention my comfort (it is now 7:15 pm and still about 90 degrees with near 100% humidity) - I'll just do my best to provide a highlight reel of my weekend in Hanoi. Here goes: I wandered around the city. I sweated. Wandered some more. Sweated. I was also unceremoniously booted from my hotel room, but that is a whole 'nother story.

In all honesty, for the weekend, I played the consumate tourist as I gathered strength in my jet-lagged and culture-shocked body. Laminated map in hand, Lonely Planet in backpack, I managed to squeeze in all the sights that Hanoi is famous (or infamous) for: The Temple of Literature (a God-send of a serene escape from downtown Hanoi), the Vietnam History Museum (moderately interesting exhibits labled exclusively in Vietnamese), the Museum of the Vietnamese Revolution (another hour there and I would have turned Commie), the "Army Museum" (plenty of self-congratulating displays concerning the many wars the Vietnamese have fought and won over the centuries...with captured French and American weapons - including a Huey, which I thought was pretty impressive), St. Joseph's Cathedral (I attended an early morning Sunday mass and, while the service was unintelligble to me, the hymns were absolutely beautiful), and finally, the Hoa Lo prison. Also known as the Hanoi Hilton, this is where John McCain and many other captured American pilots were imprisoned. Say what you will about McCain - you'd never catch me voting for him - but you can't help but respect him. Oh, and finally finally, I stumbled across a bizarre little museum in a back neighborhood called the "B-52 Museum." Piles and piles of junked B-52 bomber parts from planes that the glorious commrades shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam (here they call it the "American") War.

So that brings me to now. As I alluded to earlier, I've moved beyond the Bodega hotel (they claim a burst pipe in the room above required my departure, I think they double-booked). But after four days in Hanoi it is time to move on. I rented a bicycle this morning and spent the day exploring further and further from the city center, finally making it over the Red River via the Long Bien bridge and in doing so I caught a quick glimpse of the mellow Vietnam: small towns, quiet neighborhoods, rice paddies, water buffalos. I've really enjoyed my few days in the city - and realizing that chances are slim that I'll ever return, I've tried to take advantage of my time here - but I'm ready to get out. I tracked down a very reputable guy in the Old Quarter who rents out motorcycles and scooters by the week and, fter visiting him at his shop, decided to rent a Honda Wave 125 (hell yah!) for the next ten days to tackle Vietnam's northwest. Normally, I would be a little way at the prospect, but everyone I've spoken to says it really is pretty safe - once you get safely out of Hanoi traffic. Part the the deal is that I get a map with very explicit instructions concerning my escape from the city: four turns (four lefts and a right) and I'm home free. Then I'm off to the mountains at my own pace: Mai Chau, Son La, Dien Bien Phu, Muong Lai, Sa Pa, Lao Cai, Bac Ha, and then back to Hanoi around the third of October, give or take a day. Of course, as luck would have it, a major multi-day rainstorm is set to hit tommorrow (typhoon season's last gasps) so we'll see how far I get each day. Nothing if not an adventure.

So that's where I am. After I left the Bodega, I sucked it up (or weakened considerably) and checked into a classic Australia-style backpacker's hostel down the road. That means a lot of bbq, beer, and scandalously-clad Western girls with their faux-hawked, tatooed, fisherman panted companions. It's certainly not Vietnam, but it's cheap, the internet is free and hey....the beer IS cold.

Next stop, Mai Chau.