Viet Road Trip Day 8: Kham Duc to Hoi An. Embarrassing beginnings, incredible middles, and a happy ending (in part 2).

Viet Road Trip Day 8

Day 8 started out with a healthy dose of embarrassment. Luckily, for you, I was recording when it happened.

It's better if you don't watch this. Seriously, it's boring. The other videos are less boring, watch one of them instead.

Ugh, I can't even watch that video without cringing. I don't know why it embarrasses me so much, but standing there trying to start my bike over and over, as I slowly gathered onlookers, sucked. I guess I've got stage fright or maybe a form of mild social anxiety, but even now I can still feel the sweat building up in my armpits and running down my torso as my mind screamed "Oh come the eff on you dagg-gone Chinese knock-off pile of piss and puddy! START!"

As you see in the video, the bike finally started. As I write this, years later, I'm ashamed of the abuse I subjected my bike to. My bike treated me way better than I ever treated it. I hope it has a good home now... sniff

My plan that morning was to do a little tour of the town before heading to Hoi An. I was going to play a little Sly and The Family Stone and ride through the town before getting on the highway. After I finally got my bike started, I confused myself by thinking that I had stopped the camera. So when I started my tour, I pushed the record button, which stopped the already recording camera.

Actually, thinking back on it, day 8 was the day where I had the most GoPro blunders. This one being the first.

Some of you may be wondering how it's possible to be so inept with a GoPro. Let me tell you, it ain't easy. I've got this pet peeve about digital cameras beeping and clicking. I think cell phones and cameras making artificial shutter noises are stupid. There's no shutter on your camera to make a loud click, so why add that annoyance to your device? Same with the GoPro, why keep all these annoying beeps and boops when I can turn them off in the settings menu?

Well... it turns out that those stupid beeps and boops weren't put there just to annoy me. They're actually really good indicators for what your camera is doing. Very helpful in cases where... oh I don't know... cases where your camera is mounted to your helmet and you can't see its status? Maybe? I wouldn't learn this lesson until I reached my hotel in Hoi An and discovered that all of my best footage of the day was gone. All I had were the 5 second clips between all of the footage that I thought I was capturing. Live and learn, as they say, and live and learn I did. Now my GoPro makes stupid beeps and boops when I press buttons.

But first towards Hoi An!

I hit a mountain right out of town, so the going was slow

The air leaving Kham Duc was cool and bracing. It was on the edge of being too cold, but knowing of the impending heat made it enjoyable. The land itself reminded me of a book I read a while back called "The Ruins" where (Spoiler Alert) a semi-sentient plant kills a bunch of kids who get too close to it. The killer plant is out of control and would take over the world if helpful natives didn't keep it contained. This part of Vietnam looked like the plant had gotten out and was taking over everything.

Well I'll be darned... A waterfall!

An hour or two into my ride, I came across this waterfall. Plenty of people were stopping for pictures, so I figured I'd stop for some pictures as well. One nice thing about Vietnam is that stopping in the middle of the road, for any reason, isn't looked down upon. It may even be encouraged. It makes for dangerous riding, but stopping for pictures is a breeze.

The ride on day 8 was a ride of exuberance and joy. Despite my poor start to the day, every inch of the ride had me grinning. It seemed like I was constantly in awe and muttering terms like "Holy shit!" and "Oh my god!" at every bend in the road.

It's a real struggle to put the mix of feelings into words. There's a very real feeling of being alone in a foreign country where not a single person loves you, let alone knows your name. There's a kind of giddy terror to it, like looking down from a high ledge before jumping into a river.

There's also an exciting terror when faced with complete freedom. If I want to drive to China, I can drive to China. If I want to take a nap at this restaurant, I can take a nap. If something goes horribly wrong, it will be my decisions that bring it about. There's no blaming anyone else. There's no calling up friends for help when you need it. It sounds horrible, but at the same time there's this weird joy and excitement and giddiness that I don't recall feeling since Christmas mornings as a kid.

On day 8 I realized that I was the most free, at that moment, than I had ever been in my life. I didn't have bills. I didn't have a girlfriend. I didn't have rent to pay. I didn't have a travel buddy to cater to. I didn't have a schedule. I didn't have a job to go to. I didn't have chores to do. I could go anywhere and do just about anything. And I had my own vehicle to take me there!

I think the vehicle is the real key here. I was free in Europe and South America, but I wasn't as free. I couldn't tell the bus driver to stop for pictures. I couldn't see a cool town and decide that I want to stop riding for the day to explore it. But now I had my own scooter, and I could choose to go right or left on a whim.

I spent most of day 8 with a stupid grin on my face, and a weird sense of exuberance coursing through my body. The first half of day 8 was great, and the second half would be equally pleasant... in the next post.

This post is getting way too long so I'm going to stop it here. I seem to end most of my emails with a similar sentence. If you couldn't tell, I struggle with brevity.

Thanks everyone for reading. Stay tuned for part 2!