$3.50 changed (and risked) my life

I was in trouble. Both immediate and longer-reaching. A major part of my life had just shifted, bringing a serious challenge to the way I’d been doing things. Travel, this deep love and part of my life, might never be the same. For about $3.50

Moments like this. Local woman hacking off slivers of a
banana trunk with a machete to feed the buffalo.
How quotidian.

How many long bus rides, watching the undiscovered world out the window, seeing these unlabeled moments of interest blur past, nothing I can do, the driver’s in charge? But now, with the rubbery grip of a rented motorbike twisting its satisfying pull of kinetic energy beneath me, I was the decider. This day in Viet Nam might have changed everything. Would I be able to travel as I used to? Or would every trip have to be evaluated for its accessibility to motorbikes? And I’d need to learn about maintenance, quick.

But anchored in the present moment I had mist on my cheeks as they grinned out wide in a breeze of rice paddies and buffalo patties, the typhoon tingle of land washed for weeks, and I was moving in the world, not past it. The bajillion unknown niches of the nation all available to me, and life was good. I gave it a solid twist, opened her up, pushed that needle higher.

Felt like freedom

You already know this, but traffic laws in most of the world? Nah. In Southeast Asia? Hahaha Yeah, no. You just go. More of a vibe than a formal system, do nothing hasty, no sudden changes of velocity. And I was feeling the flow. Had been for weeks, and now with my own wheels. So I merged onto that road with just a glance at what was coming and what was ahead, cars and people, all manageable. No need for brakes.

But my stubborn American eyes just had to look one more time as I pulled onto the Ho Chi Minh Highway. To see the truck come around the corner in exactly the wrong spot, hidden from my first look but a bit too close now. I gave it more gas, accelerating to get ahead, turning back around, feeling the bike pull faster. That’s when the water buffalo stepped onto the road in front of me.

Now I could pull over for the lady
selling a head in her driveway

No sudden changes of velocity! Physics backed up the native system as my brakes slowed this wheel while combustion accelerated the other, or somesuch kinetic dilemma, and the bike went down, sliding across the pavement, taking me with it among the pretty tinkling shards of my side mirror glass.

You remember that jarred feeling. When you realize something happened? The abstract awareness that the quiet is louder because you were just listening to the crunch of collision? The idle curiosity as you assess your body for bones sticking out, glass sticking in.

REALLY never expected to post this online,
but seems a bit too perfect, taken at the very
beginning of the day. (The buffalo in question
was as big as all those mere cows put together.
I promise.)

I had none of those. Just another bike lying on its side in the maelstrom of Vietnamese motorways, palm a little scraped, mirror shattered. And a very large water buffalo showing me no interest whatsoever as the truck drove past.

I still feel that deep shift, the pull of a motorbike beneath me, tugging me into a different sort of adventure. But maybe I can take it a little slower.

Hanoi is many things, let's start with the loudest

Hanoi is of course many things, but one seems like a logical place to start. And nevermind that two come to mind first. So we’ll begin with the primary denizens of the city, filling its streets like those industrious ants, buzzing through its byways fit to put the flies to shame. Even when they’re still, they line the sidewalks like ribs, or cluster in alleys that no one else needed.

Everybody has one. The humans that coexist with them. Or at least, every family has one, both kids held in mother’s arms while dad steers, and she’s not tense, it’s just too everyday for that. Because you have to take the scooter. Everybody does. Drives. Walking is a precarious dare, in among the handlebar horde, since didn’t I already warn you that everybody drives? It’s a feedback loop, 49 cc’s of inevitability.

I smile more these years after giving up on auto ownership, but on those times when I have to pilot one of the things, or more precisely when I have to park one, I wonder at the foolishness of people owning four-wheeled transport in San Francisco. Everyone should just have a scooter. You can fit so many more, scoot so much quicker, and get much better mileage. And you’re out IN the world, not hidden from it!

Why, how do you deliver dishware?

So while I love walking the streets of a new city for hours at a time, in Asia I always make it a point to catch a scooter ride somewhere. Rickshaw? Tourist gimmick. Scooter? Cultural interaction.

“Have you noticed how many Mercedes there are here?” my Vietnamese friend asked me yesterday. I hadn’t, but that seemed impolite. So instead I asked something I’d been wondering.

“Speaking of expensive cars, back home I’ve learned that BMW drivers are more likely to be assholes,” I haven’t seen any Priuses so didn’t need to include them, “Is that true here too?”

My friend scoffed. “Anyone in a four-wheel is an asshole here.”

Seemed true, on yesterday’s walk that took me along Hoan Kiem lake, past the Opera House, and through byways and backstreets until I caught a bus in front of the Soviet Friendship Hospital. (Because that’s a thing.)

Sorry about the blur, but you can still see his method, no?

So after dinner, somewhere off my map, I grabbed a scooter taxi guy dude thing. I don’t know if they have uber/Lyft here, but I’ve seen plenty of Grab Bike guys in their uniform green jackets and helmets. He handed me his spare, which perched on top of my massive cranium, squeezing a headache in but that’s the price you pay, along with about $1.00 to cross the city.

Taking photos while riding?
The things I do for you people. ;)

Motorcycles technically have their own lane here, a great idea, but traffic is a fluid concept, lane lines and red lights whizzing past all around like so much decoration as we squeezed between trucks and two-wheeled clusters, wrapped a roundabout and dodged the people going the wrong way. It’s another of those times when you just have to sit back, relax, and wait to see if you make it.

I did. Home, to another day, and tonight, I’ll head to another place. 300+ kilometers away, I think I’ll pass on the scooter this time. My overnight train is out there somewhere, waiting for me...