No...we're NOT married!

Gorgeous sunset on our first day of motorbiking...on the road to the Thai village, Mai Chau.

After 6 weeks in SE Asia, I think I've finally found the place where there are no fellow tourists. Ever since leaving Hanoi, we have not seen any other western tourists at all!! Unheard of, really. Currently, I am hanging out at a packed internet cafe (3000 dong/hr = US$0.20) that is around the corner from our hotel...we're the only guests at this "Beer Factory Hotel", named for its proximity to the Bia Hoi plant (the cheapest I've seen is 1500 dong/glass...that's US$0.10!!). It's so funny, everywhere we go, the first thing people asks is, are you married? Ha ha, why don't the 3-pages that the lonely planet dedicates to Vietnamese phrases include "No...we're NOT married"??! Here's the other conversation I've had a billion times:

Local "Where you from?"
Me "I'm from Canada!"
Local "But you, I think you same same (insert name of SE asian country) girl"
Me "Oh no, I was born in Hong Kong, and now I live in Canada!"
Local "ahh...." (This is either an 'ahh' I understand, or 'ahh' with a goofy smile that tells you they don't really understand english. Travelling is awesome.)

Motorbiking is seriously the most awesome way to see the countryside!! Life along the road in Vietnam is amazing...beautiful rice paddy fields, long winding roads, and the little Vietnamese children are the most adorable kids ever!! Many still wear the traditional hill tribe clothes and they all carry brightly coloured, hand-woven shoulder bags. After only 3 days practice, Romain is getting pretty good on the Minsk! LOL, the 3rd gear on the bike is absolute crap though! It is so ridiculous. There are 12% grade roads here!!! (the road sign says so...no...i didn't bring surveying equipment along...) I think we're only making 30km/hr on average. crazy.


Farming in the rice fields of rural Vietnam...

We left Hanoi at about 3pm, and arrived in the Lac village (Thai minority) near the city of Mai Chau at about 7pm. What a harrowing experience on the back of a motorbike! But Romain assures me that driving here is safer than France. His reasoning is that since there are no real rules of the road here, people drive very cautiously and even with close encounters, drivers stay in control. LOL, that may be true...but the biggest problem we've had so far are the stupid stray dogs!! They seem to walk towards the sound of the horn. UGH!

In the Lac village, we stayed in a traditional Thai house on stilts, made out of bamboo. Just like Vietnamese everywhere, the locals here got up at about 6am and started cutting their wood to make furniture, washing up, daily chores...but we managed to delay breakfast until 11am. So yesterday, we spent about 5 hours on the road, stopping at the city of Moc Chau for lunch before arriving in Son La at around 6pm. Finding good food has been pretty hard! You're basically stuck with either COM (rice) or PHO (rice noodles). I always have my eye out for SINH TO (fruit shakes)...watermelon, mango, papaya...they're all delicious! KEM (ice cream) is lovely too...all the asian flavours...taro, red bean...even durian. awesome. The people out here in the NW are very friendly and always invite us to sit at their table, even if just to make hand gesture conversations.

The cutest kids ever! The guy on the left even wanted to give us 2000 dong for luck! But we really couldn't accept. :)





Today, we left Son La for Dien Bien Phu. The sceneary was aboslutely spectacular. We stopped SO often for photos!! LOL, it took over 6 hours to cover 140km...but bear in mind, the divided highway ended and we embarked on the narrow country road that allows a motorbike to just barely pass a large truck. Ha ha, the wide oncoming truck made driving straight through a large puddle inevitable...but thankfully, my pants dried quickly! We also had a close encounter with a friendly mob...of about 50 little children! They were really excited after I showed them the photos I was taking on the digicam. SO CUTE!!! Cattle also graze in really precarious positions on the mountains! Small boys, about 7 or 8, sit on top of a bull and lead the herd to new feeding grounds. The locals also smoke tobacco from really long pipes...I think it is tobacco...but who knows!

gorgeous countryside that just doesn't end...