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Cruising through the idyllic rice fields
outside of Hue City |
We just wrapped up our second day of the ride from Hanoi to Siagon, and it's been…. exhausting! After finishing last week's ride through the positively serene mountains, the last two days have been stood in stark contrast. In an effort to follow the coastal route, I decided to stick to the AH1 'freeway,' which roughly follows the country's east coast with the China Sea. This is one of Vietnam's only north-south throughways, and it is slammed with traffic - tour buses, trucks, cars, bikes, scooters and every other variety of transport that people have managed to cobble together. As is standard in Vietnam, larger vehicles rule the road, while everyone else must fend for themselves. With so much traffic, it makes it a positively exhausting experience to ride a moto even a relatively modest distance like 100km. While it is convenient at the end of the day to take a quick 3-5km jaunt to the beach, the stress of the road is simply not worth it! Tomorrow we've decided to head west into the more mountainous and rural roads of the countryside. The less traveled "Ho Chi Minh Highway" curves through the mountains and small villages, and promises to be much more scenic and relaxing.
My 6 day rental of the Honda Baja 250 ended late last week, leaving me back in Hanoi with no wheels. I'd have to choose what i'd like to ride for the next leg of the journey to Siagon, and economics were starting to sneak into the equation. The Baja was fun, but costs 4 times as much to rent as the more frugal Honda Win 110. After seeing this little powerhouse of a mini-bike throughout the countryside of Vietnam, I decided to take the plunge and get a one-way rental to Ho Chi Minh City. Flamingo travel offers an easy package: for $150USD you can ride the little bike all the way down the country, drop it off, and they handle shipping it back. It's certainly easy! At first I was fairly concerned that the Win would have trouble carrying both Josh and I and all of our gear, but I was rather surprised at it's resilience - this little moto has clearly been built to handle the beating that a typical Vietnamese owner is sure to throw at it. It turns out its not a Honda at all, but instead a Vietnamese company called Sujet which builds a fairly decent copy. Somehow they have been able to engineer somewhat of a miracle: a motorcycle with incredibly poor build quality, and unbelievable reliability! Everything on the bike wiggles, or moves. The clutch is squishy, the breaks are mushy, the suspension bottoms out on almost every bump and pothole on the road - and yet it just keeps going, and going and going! As much as I want to hate it, this piece-of-crap motorcycle is actually growing on me. It's like an ugly street dog that follows you home one day, but is then so loyal and friendly that you can't imagine life without it.
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Bizarre, over-the-top public art can be seen
throughout Vietnam, in weird places |
Traveling in Vietnam has been my first experience in a Communist country, and it's been quite an eye opening experience. Capitalism is clearly alive and well after being semi-sanctioned in the mid-1980's. Almost every street frontage, corner and sidewalk is being utilized by someone to sell something. People are very industrious, and fill almost every niche of the market with something to be sold. Yet, the country is still technically organized by Communism. This is most commonly manifested in is school and government buildings, and some infrastructure projects like road expansions. It's all very hodgepodge and non-organic, as though a city planner was working in Siagon while designing a new development that he had never visited. A great example is the town we're in tonight. Cua Lo is a coastal tourism town, and like so many government-developed places in Vietnam, it's "all dressed up with nowhere to go." Cua Lo is laid out in a series of grand, Parisian-style boulevards, 4 lanes wide, and stretching the entire length of the town. Red
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Another example of elaborate, Communist
public art - this is one of many huge displays
made of fake potted flowers |
and yellow flags with the sickle and hammer fly on every light post. Cheesy LED illuminated street decorations are everywhere - all bearing the communist insignia. There's lines of 5 story government-run hotels. At the center of town, very near the beach is and bizarre, enormous Stalin-esque piece of public street art. All of this infrastructure could support tens of thousands of residents and tourists, and yet - it's EMPTY. The hotels are like ghost towns, the restaurants are vacant, and this is Saturday night! You see this type of government sponsored development all over the country, and yet they fail to address the things that actually matter - like a good highway system, or utilities like power, sewer and water. The one main north-south highway is a joke - ranging from beautiful, freshly-paved four late boulevards in the government-developed towns, to pot-holed gravel roads out in the country. The electrical and telecommunication network throughout the country looks like a rats-nest of tangled wires strung through telephone poles, trees, and bamboo posts. It's bizarre to me that THESE are the things that people use heavily all the time. The freeway is PACKED, and yet the government seems to ignore investment in these critical elements of the country, while they're off building some mega-business complex that no-one will use.
Josh has provided quite a bit of enlightenment into the Communist party, and its officially sanctioned corruption. Misbehavior by officials is so commonplace, that it's come to be expected by both politicians and the public alike. Folks often make strange references: "Oh yea, they used the corruption money to build the new temple and pagoda." WHAT? The police force is particularly fascinating to me. In most countries, law enforcement is in place to uphold the law of the land and keep people safe. It's become very clear to me that that is NOT the case here. The police force is used almost entirely to collect 'corruption money' for the government. They actually have a monthly quota: $2,500 USD per officer per month! Officers routinely wander around Hanoi, approaching vendors while mentioning under their breath "You should really get these chairs and tables off the sidewalk." Believe it or not, this is to be understood as "my partner will come by in half and hour, please have 2,000,000 Dong ready, and we won't do anything about the chairs." Folks have become so accustomed to this that it's almost like a tax, and vendors expect it! As Josh explained this to me, I could feel my jaw hit the floor! How are people not absolutely LIVID with their officials!?
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Typical Vietnamese Traffic Cop -
(This is not my photo) |
The conversation about police continued into something a little more relevant to me: traffic cops. These officers dress is a very formal beige military-style uniform. Long pleated pants, and a long sleeve, button-up collared shirt. The shirt's have many insignias, and lapels on the shoulder, its all very 'Russian Bad Cop' from a James Bond movie. The traffic cops stand on the side of the road, usually with no vehicle and point a white baton at passing cars and trucks. When you've been 'pointed,' you are to pull over immediately and be subjected to a series of questions, and verification of your documents. There's no rhyme or reason to who gets pulled over, they pick anyone. What's particularly astonishing is that there does not seem to be any official ticketing or review procedure. Instead, the officer simply tells you whats wrong, and how much you owe. Oh by the way, you owe that money NOW - cash in hand to the officer! There's no paperwork, no notice, no review procedure, it's purely corrupt bribery, plain and simple. Putting all this in context, I remembered back to a conversation i'd had with Liam a the youth hostel in Hanoi - "Just drive past them, they won't chase you!" It makes sense now: the cops are there to make money, not uphold the law. They could give a damn if you speed, they only care if they think they can squeeze $10 out of you.
UPDATE: I was pulled over on Tuesday, May 7th - See Tomorrow's post for details.
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Extraordinary countryside
on the Ho Chi Minh Road |
I'm loving my time on the road, and i'm looking forward to the more scenic beach towns of
central Vietnam. More to come, stay tuned!
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