I was a bit nervous, five days on the back of a bike, five days in the heat and dust of the central highlands and border country of Vietnam, the only white man to be seen. I now know when I look back at my travels, past, present and any to come this will be a highlight I will always remember as one of the best experiences I had. No organised tour, no tourist experience could ever give me the smells, sights, tastes and exposure to the local people I got over these five days. My pilot for the five days was Phuong a very safe, knowledgable driver and guide, we went to so many places I will try to make a list of the cottage businesses we visited - tofu making, silk weaving and garment making, coffee plantation, rice wine making, brick factory, rice paper making, rubber tree plantation and processing, cashew nut preparation, tea processing plant, weasel coffee production!.....every place we went there were workers with smiling faces ready to have a chat and a laugh with Phuong and show me what and how they do what they do, so much which I assume is mechanised in Europe is done by hand and volume of labour, it was all a bit of a revelation for me. Then there were the landmarks to visit and see - waterfalls, elephant riding, floating village, noisy frogs, beautiful sunsets, lakes, massive dam, Kings country residences, massive chinese run aluminium processing factories, Ede tribe villages, shrines, tapioca drying along the roads and then the factory where it is processed, views from the top of the highlands where everything was below us, US war bunkers used as defence for army bases, relics of the bases and runways, bomb craters, jungle everywhere, HCM trail, Cu Chi tunnels where I shot a AK47 with live rounds! some time we would stop to take it all in and other times it would be experienced as we went along. Then there was the actual journey - the dust, the wind and rain, the penetrating sun, the stops for local food and drink (green tea with everything!) and a rest in a hammock after lunch (fell asleep twice) the coconut and sugar cane juice, meeting Phuong's relatives along the way, the hotels we stayed at, the stroll into each town for dinner and the most exciting riding into Saigon on the last day through the manic and congested traffic through gaps between traffic that appeared not to be there and pavement short cuts! I would recommend this and Phuong to anyone who wants to see the real Vietnam. As I write this and remember it all it seems amazing to have cramed so much into such a short space of time, but we did and it was brilliant! Now for some slower pace in Saigon for a few days.