Day 5: Ride from Nha Trang to Buon Ma Thuot

Day 5: Ride from Nha Trang to Buon Ma Thuot

My favorite picture from Day 5. I had stopped for a dehydration break and these kids kept yelling at me.

Day 5 was the day of my first breakdown, and a day of free food. On this day I started out with some video.

As you can see, getting out of town was pretty straight forward. But you may have noticed a lot of grey clouds in the last video.

Shortly after leaving town a downpour started up. I pulled into a gas station for some shelter while I put on my rain coat. By the time I got all of my gear sorted out, the rain had stopped.

Soon after I got back on the road, my bike started acting up. The bike started chugging and trying to stall if I didn't give it a lot of gas. Eventually my bike stalled and wouldn't start.

Broken down on the side of the road, I took a picture, then called the lady that I bought my bike from. She told me to call her once I got my bike to a mechanic. Unfortunately I wasn't close to much of anything. I considered going back to the gas station where I had put on my gear.

I spent a few minutes counting my blessings and not allowing this obstacle to sour my mood. I decided to try to start the bike up again, just because. The bike came back to life all on its own. The bike would still shutter and gasp when I was using the lower ends of my gears, but after 10 or 15 minutes the bike was back to normal.

I asked on Facebook and did a little research, but I had no idea what was wrong with my bike. This issue would cause another breakdown or two on my trip. I didn't get it fixed until I got to Hanoi. The problem was water getting to my spark plug, the guy fixed it with electrical tape.

Not long after that the sun came out and things went back to being very hot, like normal.

I took a short break and took the picture that's at the top of this page.

This is me leaving from that break.

These are some old machines that I liked.

As you can see, this part of Vietnam isn't exactly beautiful. The riding was nice when there wasn't construction, but the land itself wasn't very appealing. The people and "strangeness" of my surroundings were what made the experience exciting. Later in my trip I would find the stunning landscapes that everyone raves about.

At some point I stopped for a water break. I pulled over to the side of the road and started drinking some water. Across the street, some people hanging out drinking and eating some food. Pretty soon they started calling to me and waving me over. I brought my bike over and took a seat with them.

They didn't speak any English, but "Drink this shot" seems to be one of those universal terms that can be expressed by minimal gesticulating and pointing. I drank the shot, and one or two more after that. I asked if they had any beer and one of the guys ran off to buy one for me, despite my protests.

On the table was a plate of tiny little fried animals. They saw me looking and forced me to eat a couple of them.

I thought that maybe they were fried baby chickens. I asked what they were and one guy pointed at some sparrows and mimed shooting them with a rifle.

The birds actually tasted OK. The seasoning was spicy with lemongrass. Biting into the head tasted and felt like eating a hard-boiled egg yoke. I'm sort of a squeamish eater so I only had two of the birds.

Eventually I said my good-bye's. I still had about 20-40 miles ahead of me.

Getting back on the road.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. I took a few more pictures, but this post is getting too long. I did find something that I thought was interesting.

They have 7 dimensions in Vietnam! Their movies must be out of this freakin world!

Eventually I made it to MBT. After finding a hotel I went and got my oil changed. The lady that I bought the bike from said I should change the oil almost every day.

I found some food, then wandered around looking for an appropriate place for some alcoholic beverages. I found a cool cafe called "Cafe Rider" and it was pretty sweet.

They had all these scooters and scooter parts all over the place.

I hung out in Cafe Rider for 2 or 3 hours. I usually have either eBooks or audio books to keep me occupied, so spending hours at a place by myself isn't a boring as it sounds.

In the cafe a birthday party was going on. They played some really funny and horrendous birthday songs on the sound system. At some point the party decided to give me a slice of cake. So the group approached, constantly shuffling behind each other to not be the one who has to address me. They made it to my table and gave me the cake with lots of giggles before dashing back to their table.

The cake was not a lie. I don't usually eat sweet foods, but the cake was great. I thanked the group when I left, and wished the birthday girl a happy birthday.

From there I wandered back to my hotel room for some sleep.

Note: I know these videos are pretty terrible. After a few days, I eventually mount the camera to my helmet which reduces most of the rattling. So the videos do get a little better in a day or two.