Xin chao. I'm typing this in somewhat of an uncomfortable position - on the roof of the house. My poor back. Anyway, for the first time in what feels like months, I've done some actual travelling. One of my life-time goals, a motorbike road trip. Well, half of one at least. My and two of my room mates, Chimene and Shannon, chucked our bikes on the train, early Saturday morning, and went up to Mui Ne. The train was freezing and they stole all our fuel before we were allowed to put our bikes on at the station. Lucky me, I only had a little in the tank anyway. Not so lucky for my room mates, who both had full tanks of premium fuel.

I'd been to Mui Ne twice already, the lazy and quiet beachside resort-town that it is. It's a small area, but stretched out along the beach for such a long distance that getting from one side to the other can be a bit of an adventure.

We wasted no time, as soon as we'd checked in and had lunch, it was off to the dragonfruit farms. Not really all that interesting, but it was fun to get lost while in the little maze of dirt tracks in the dragonfruit paddies. We sure got some suprised looks, a trio of foreigners on motorbikes tearing up the dirt tracks (which were actually the farmer's driveways), dodging cows, mud puddles and sickle-wielding Vietnamese farm girls.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, it was overcast and drizzling almost the whole day. Which for this place is quite bizzare. We had prepared for a sunny and hot ride back to the city, with gloves, loose clothes and sunnies. On the way back it became a real problem, with visibility reduced to just a few meters and the windchill from our wet clothes made it not a very pleasant experience. I've never been so cold in Vietnam, my teeth were actually chattering. We had to stop about halfway, at a roadside 'cafe' in the middle of nowhere. We waited for over an hour, trying to get dry and warm while paying card games. Before long, we had attracted quite an audience, who were not used to having foreigners in their area.

We left late in the afternoon with about 3 hours remaining. Back on the highway, flying past chugging tractors, water-buffalo carts, packs of laughing school kids on bicycles. while keeping careful distance from the rattle-trap buses, dirty lorries (which are quite intimidating to say the least, blasting their deafening horns while roaring past) and the speeding BMWs of rich business peoples and officials. The highway is an interesting place, you get a good feel of what this country is about when you cruise along it.

Or so I was thinking, until a pack of unwary chickens decided to take a wander out onto the highway. It was kind of unsettling yet sickly fascinating to watch a chicken being run over by a motorbike at about 60km/h. I'd say at least 2 got hit - Shannon ran over the neck of one, splatting blood everywhere; a Vietnamese driver behind her ran over the wing of another (it didn't die), which I narrowly avoided. If she had tried to swerve out of the way, she almost certainly wold have crashed, probably taking out me and the other guy as well. I was boxed in by a truck and the guard-rail, so I had no where to go but forward. It's times like that when you realise why Vietnamese roads have such a deadly reputation. Shannon has vowed to never eat chicken again....for a month.

An hour or so after the chicken incident, when the sun had gone down, the rains came back. This time it really was impossible to see anything. I was following the red lights in front of me, which I was hoping was the back of my room mate's bikes. It's bizzare driving in a situation like that, with only one point of reference. They could have gone over a cliff, and I would have followed, none the wiser. We were like three blind mice. I literally couldn't see anything except for the tail lights of the bikes ahead.

Obviously that didn't last for long. We found a roadside food place and stopped for dinner. Thankfully the rain stopped while we were eating and didn't come back. We arrived home at around 9.30pm, about 10 hours after we left Mui Ne. This is supposed to be a 4-5 hour journey. Well done, guys.

Stay tuned, next weekend we're daytripping to Tay Ninh, home of the Cao Dai religion.....cult, sect, whatever. More fun and games to be had.