From Dalat To Hoi An, Vietnam

For six days, I rode on the back of Hien’s motorcycle as we wound our way through the back country from Dalat to Hoi An. My pack was wrapped in a plastic bag and tied to the back of the bike, Hien sat in front with his pack, and I was sandwiched between them. The weather was nice and warm for several days, but then grew cool and rainy toward the end. The cool wind blowing on your face and body masks the intense sunshine beating down on you. I wore long-sleeved shirts to protect my arms, but my left wrist and hand became burned and sensitive to the sun, so I wore gloves and a bandana around my neck. I also bought a face mask for the dust that buses and trucks would sometimes kick up into the air. Hien had a poncho for me when it started raining. Thank god I still had my jacket! The longest I had ever ridden on a motorbike before was about an hour in the Mekong Delta. I was unprepared for a six-day ride. After the first couple days, I would feel weary toward the end of the day. After a couple more days, I would feel weary after only a few hours of riding. I started to take breaks between lunch and arriving at the hotels. It was about that time that I wished I had only done a three day trip, but after it was all over I was glad I stuck it out. (The alternate title for this post is Buns of Steel.) Hien is supposedly the first one to provide this kind of motorbike guide service. He was discovered by a Lonely Planet writer some years ago, and since then the market for motorbike tours has taken off and there are many other so-called Easy Rider guides to choose from. In typical Vietnamese fashion, all the motorbike guides claim that they’re the original Easy Rider, and there’s almost no way to figure out who’s telling the truth. I found Hien through a review on TripAdvisor, and it all just kind of worked out. According to several guidebooks, Hien actually is the original guy, and his web site has pictures of the guidebook pages to prove it. He charged me $75 per day, which is really steep, and it’s also $10–$15 more than the competition’s prices. Based on his excellent reviews, I figured that he was worth the premium. Several times he pointed out how other guides passed up places and things that he took the time to show me and tell me about. Hien fought for the south in the American War, and afterward he couldn’t get a job because he was blacklisted by the northern communist government. He’s been an Easy Rider for about twenty years now, and seems to have taught many other Easy Riders which routes to take and places to see. He’s somewhere between middle age and old age, and has thinning, graying hair; skin like crinkled paper; and a toothy, white smile. He’s very sociable with other Vietnamese, seemingly able to strike up conversations with anyone, and carried shampoo and candy as bribes to allow me to get close to the local people for pictures. He was good at pointing out things that would make great pictures like overloaded motorbikes and colorful outfits. We didn’t have great chemistry, so there were lots of quiet meals shared between us. There are many minority villages in the back country that speak their own language and farm the surrounding land. Even Hien couldn’t speak to a lot of them. It being a communist country, everyone — even the poorest of the poor — had televisions and satellite dishes, which is just bizarre. The government builds a small modern building in a lot of these villages; I guess it’s their point of contact with the people there. Some minority people didn’t like the more modern (non-squat) toilets that the government installed for them, so they made their own makeshift squat toilets nearby. The government essentially bribes these people not to slash and burn the jungle around them. I saw too many things to list here, but I will say that the thing that struck me the most was the beautiful land. There are so many beautiful hills, valleys, fields, gorges, rivers, and sunsets there that I’m running out of room to store all the pictures I took of them. It is truly a beautiful country. The effort it takes to get out there to see it is worth it.