Our Motobike trip in the country

Hey Everybody,

We just wanted to write a short entry on our trip we took out of Hoi An on Thursday the 18th Jan.

Marc and I set off on our rented moped around 7:30am. I must admit I was a little nervous at first , It was not Marc's riding that I was worried about more the crazy local drivers that made me nervous, But once we got out of that main town area I let my grip loosen a little.

The country was very quite and beautiful. We rode for over 9 hours and covers about 150 kms through the northern tip of the central highlands, but our asses felt like it had been much longer. They call this condition "monkey butt" here.

We passed through a number of villages and over winding mountains roads.
The scenery was spectacular.

We ran out of gas on the way up one of the mountains but fortunately for us, we were just uphill from a village. We coasted down to buy some gasoline from a lady who had set up shop out the front of her home. She had a number of old plastic water bottles full of gasoline so we bought 5 off her and we on our way.

We went through one remote small town with a newly paved 4 lane highway through it and no cars! It was apparently part of Ho Chi Mihn Trail which is a stretch of highway that runs along the central highlands. When we were going through, the school had just come out and there were lots of children riding their bikes & running home. When there saw that we were white they would yell out "HELLO". We pulled over to stop and ask directions to the next village. An old guy came out to help us as he knew a little English. The children all gathered around, they were all staring with amassment at us. More me then Marc as I had freckles, Blond hair and fair skin. They were very cute point and laughing.

We headed out to the next village call Giang and had lunch (well Marc did) at what I guess we would call a rest stop. The people were very friendly. They made up a few different dishes and said "eat, very good". Marc chewed down on his feast while we watched a very small pet monkey tried to a tree eating some fruit.

After lunch we headed along the Ho Chi Minh trail. We detoured a little and went over a bridge to a smaller village. It started to rain and little too hard to keep riding so we pulled over on a families front lawn. The children were very interested in who had pulled up and started yelling to their Mother. Soon the whole family was there to view the strange white folk out the front. The rain stopped and we headed home back to same way we had come to avoid getting lost.

It seemed like it took longer getting home then it did to get there. But this is always the way.

Love Marc and Emma