Motorbikes first. Bry found a Pom called Paul who'd ridden down from Hoi An and was selling his motorbike. For a coupla girls with a lot to learn about bikes we decided quite quickly that we'd buy it - Mostly for the yellow wheels and eagle stickers to be honest. Paul kept talking about carbouratters, clutches and blah blah blah ... Enough said mate - she's a beauty! Never mind that the speedo is bung and we can't find neutral. A ride around the block, an exchange of the bike's blue card/ownership card for 5 million Vietnamese dong, and the eagle was ours! If you're doing the maths, we paid just over three hundy kiwi bucks on the chance that this bike would make it. This blog may become filled with posts about fixing our broken eagle ... Who can tell! Oskar, Malachi and Darius - my 4 year old motorbike enthusiast mates ... Here's the motorbike photos I promised! And I miss you fellas!
We rented our other bike from a mini shop in the centre of Saigon. They do a rental deal for people going between Saigon and Hanoi, or vice versa. $185US either way, with a deposit. Super friendly people, and the bikes they've got for hire and sale seem sound (hmm, we should say they look clean!).
So with two keys in our hands, and some serious smiles on our faces, we had a burger and chips to celebrate. But massive apologies, cos there's no photo of potentially the best burger I've ever eaten. It was super cute, even looked picture-perfect, and the 'French fried' (not chups!) came in a brown paper cone. Maybe we were actually living in Pinterest! And, yum - that meal alone was worth the trip to Saigon!
After a nights sleep, our aim was to leave at 6:30am to avoid peak hour traffic. Ha ha ... what a crack up! Every man on our alley way watched as we bungy-corded our packs on the back. Then they graciously strolled over and redid them properly for us! Vietnamese have completely mastered the craft of strapping things on motorbikes. Saigon never sleeps, and the roads are never quiet. Was it even possible to get out of town alive? It's actual carnage on those roads. Most of the traffic is scooters, with some super rich cars and aggressive taxis and buses chucked in. And two little kiwi girls on putt-putt bikes trying to stay alive amongst that throng of WILD! Maybe our Mums should sit down to read the rest. It was time to go. Check out the link below!
We had a map. And made a plan. Our plan was to get ourselves intact to the next block, then pull over and make a new plan. In no way are we trying to over dramatise, but driving in Saigon is intensely insane. Here's why: 1 the massive volume of traffic (you literally have a guy 20cm behind your exhaust pipe, and if he's looking for a gap but doesn't find one, he just nudges through anyway). 2 there are no rules (except the go-where-you-like-and-don't-stop-til-you-get-there rule). 3 people actually go three ways on a one way street. 4 a red light means keep going if you like, but maybe slow down a bit just to be on the safe side. 5 people have distractify-ing things on their bikes that even if you're trying to concentrate, your eyes just go off by themselves (like a 1.75m square rack holding boxed incense sticks. Or because the man riding the scooter only has one leg and a crutch. Or baskets with the little heads of 40ish ducks peering out the top. Or there's a family of five all squished on the one scooter. We might dedicate a whole post to this later, mostly of photos though, cos it's too ridiculous for words).
So, to cut a two hour long story short, we packed our pants the whole time, especially around the round abouts, and when we were wedged between two buses heading into a v formation! Our printed map showed a tunnel that didn't seem to exist, meaning we were glad to utilise GPS on our phone, and continued to do so the rest of the day. Finally we were on our way!
Our first ride - wild Saigon to coastal Vung Tau. 113kms.
Oh my God...what a story!
ReplyDeleteYep probably there a few travellers in NZ writing blogs home about how we drive too ... No doubt it's just as fascinating to them how we have so many rules for getting from A to B!
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