Grand Motocross Rally: Part II

We resume the adventures of the Pale Posse as they depart Ha Tinh.  All five gingerly remount their trusty motorbikes, shifting uncomfortably in the seat as their tailbone burns, and looking down the long, lonesome corridor of Highway 6 West.

If Part I of “A Vietnam Adventure” was akin to getting thrown in the fire, Part II forces the player to work on the more technical aspects of riding a motorbike.  And if you think this fine tuning should have come before the absurd difficulties of yesterday?  Well, you’re probably right.  But it’s a game.  It doesn’t work that way.

Level VI: The Mountain Roads

This is what you’ve been waiting for.  Well-paved, nearly empty roads winding through the mountains of Central Vietnam, lazy roads that climb up hills, cut through small villages, and flank pristine rivers.  And not a cobblestone, fire, husker or crane to be seen.  Though the school-kids and farm animals do remain, they aren’t going anywhere (can we lump them all together?  Is there much difference?  If there is one that I can see, it’s that farm animals are quieter and more predictable).  Through this level of the game, you get to sit back on your seat a little, give that bike a bit more gas, and start leaning into the turns.  You get to really learn your bike and get comfortable on it, and become one vehicle on the road rather than a person sitting on a bike. 

A smile starts to form on Suzy’s face, one that went missing for the better part of the day before, and the laughable ordeals of the day before become distant memories.  The gang even stops on a high mountain pass to share drinks and fruit, and remark at how easily the kilometers are chipping away.  While the gang only rode 75 kilometers on day 1, they are shooting for around 200 on day 2, and the pleasant and productive morning makes the number seem manageable.  The only difficult part through this section is resisting the urge to count down the distance, as every kilometer is marked by another red and white milekilometer-post giving the distance to Son La, your stop for the evening.  Watching the posts is like watching the clock tick minutes: it’s distracting and makes everything else slow down.  It’s quite hard not to, though.  But all in all, a great morning: the whole gang is in good spirits and feels like they are getting the hang of it.

Propaganda machine: bus with speakers and man with banners

Lillie really wished this had said Bun Cha

Level VII: The Flats

We wouldn’t want players/riders getting bored would we?  We can’t have our band of misfits just cruising down the road, not a care in the world, admiring the scenery and enjoying each other’s company?  That would be too easy. 

Scene 1: Ol’ Reb blows the first tire just after the drink-stop at the top of the hill.  Predictably, Mick and Big Hopper are way ahead at this point, driving fast enough to slightly scare themselves at every turn.  Suzy is not far behind, so Ol’ Reb must send Lumpy to catch up and tell the rest of the gang to come back.  After some fancy riding, Lumpy must corral the rest of the group and return for Ol’ Reb and make sure she is on two wheels.  In a fantastic and in-character display of resourcefulness, by the time the gang gets about halfway back, Ol’ Reb has already found someone to change her tube, had it changed, and is back on the road.  The rest of the gang is dumbfounded, but pleased to continue on.

Mom, striking a pose

I told Reba this goat's mom would never care for it again.  She's still not speaking to me

Scene 2: Mick blows the next tire.  Actually, to be more specific, Mick ran out of gas in a bizarre attempt to push/assess the limits of the gas gauge on his bike, apparently the one dial on the thing that remains reasonably accurate.  Anyone who knows the Pale Posse, however, will quickly realize that this inherent need to push the boundaries of gasoline fumes is directly passed from Big Hopper; this trait accompanies others, such as a love of Carolina basketball and a distrust of green vegetables, which were inevitably passed from father to son.  Mick could no more pass up the reluctance to fill up the gas tank or ask directions from strangers than he could pass up the red hair and gangly limbs, all were part of a package deal, a grouping of traits that would come to cause great anxiety on the innocent female parties in the gang.  After finding gas (not so hard in Vietnam, pretty much everyone who lives on the highways sells gas on the side), Mick pulls out only to find his tire is flat.  He limps down the highway, gang in tow, looking for the ubiquitous Xe May signs promising motorbike repairs.  It is your job at this point, dear Suzy, to keep the gang together and in good spirits as the time gained by the efficient morning quickly disappears through tiny, invisible holes in tire-tubes.       

The gang soon finds a man promising to make the repairs, who jacks up the crippled motorbike, takes one look at the flat, and promptly disappears on his own bike.  The gang looks at each other confused.  The “garage” is a carport-like area beside a little market.  Two women attend the market, and several children run around the area.  The oldest runs to the side of the store and yells for someone to awaken, someone we later presume to be her half-intoxicated brother.  Half-intoxicated brother (as he will hereafter be known) comes and makes a big show of gathering/rattling tools, inspecting the motorbike, ordering around sober sister, and looking important.  After a few minutes, he stands up and nods at us as if to say, “yes, your tire is flat, it needs changing.”

He then proceeds to try and take the front wheel off of the bike (unsuccessful) take the outer tire off of the rim so he can pull the tube out (also unsuccessful) and disconnect the front brake cable (likewise, a failure).  He seemed angry at the tools, angry at the tire, and angry at the gang for putting him in the situation.  The entire gang, at this point, is pretty anxious because:

a)      Half-intoxicated brother seems angry and frustrated, and, he is half-intoxicated.

b)      The bike, which proves difficult to handle with a flat, is now in many, many pieces and is sure as hell not going anywhere.

c)       Half-intoxicated brother has pieces of the bike strewn throughout the workplace and the gang is sure that he has no idea how to reassemble it, much less fix it.

d)      We are in the middle of nowhere, roughly halfway in between Ha Tinh and Son La. 

Enter totally-drunk father, who rides up on his motorbike right as half-drunk brother is vehemently declaring his loathing for Mick’s bike and tire.  The gang feels strange about being comforted by the arrival of a very intoxicated man to repair the bike, but comfort they do feel.  Even drunk father must be better than incompetent brother, right? (Ol’ Reb surmises later that he left for a beer or five before returning to fix the bike, which, judging from his smell, is a reasonable guess).

On the scale of uncomfortable situations: if a “1” is sitting in a bus seat while an older (but Not elderly, I’m not completely heartless) person stands next to you, a “5” is seeing your parents make out, and a “10” is seeing your parents make out while your grandmother is in the room, I would say that watching that bike get fixed was a solid 7.5.  Picture this: totally-drunk father and half-drunk brother, tools and nuts/washers/bolts everywhere, the entire front assembly of the bike in pieces.  The brake detached, the axel out, and stuck in the middle of nowhere.  Watching him switch out the tube and then reassemble the bike, hoping the brake was attached properly, hoping like hell he got the axel back in and the wheel would not fall off.  Hawkishly searching the room for any spare, forgotten pieces.  It was horrible, and it was the only option.  Let me just say, those first few minutes on the bike were a little scary, but the damn thing ran perfectly all the way back to Hanoi.

Level VIII: The Road into Son La

Scene 1: Suzy must gather the gang and head back out on Highway 6, hoping to make up some time and make it to Son La before dark.  In order to do it, Suzy must make the next great leap in Vietnamese mountain-motorbiking: passing the many trucks on the windy mountain roads with little/no idea what lies on the other side of the curve.  This, to the uninitiated, may seem like some insane kamikaze mission—and it might be—but it’s what everyone does, unless you want to sit behind some slow moving, exhaust exhaling pile of metal going about 20 km/h up the mountain.  The best thing to do, obviously, is keep your speed and distance, and whip around them when you get some stretch of road resembling a straightaway.  Clearly, this opportunity is not always quick to pass.  Sometimes, you get right up behind the truck and just hope for a good moment.  And sometimes, you have to go on faith, downshift, hit the gas, and hug the side of the truck, hoping nothing pops up right as you commit to passing.  And sometimes, someone will pop up right at the wrong moment.  Fortunately, most Vietnamese drivers are accustomed to this, and will pull off onto the shoulder to give you room.  It is a vital part of driving on Highway 6, but one that will take some time for Suzy to get accustomed to.  Once you leap this hurdle, however, the road is all yours.  

Little kids on big bikes: A Vietnam Tradition

I thought Caroline and Chris would like the "German" look of this one.  Whether or not he ever ended up in a bowl of Pho.

Night falls.

Scene 2:  Entering Son La at night.  You scoff, but driving a motorbike at night proves more difficult than a car.  The dust and smog mix with the lights to form a smoke-like haze, and other light tend to blind you just a bit more.  Most importantly, imperfections and debris in the road itself are almost inconsequential to a car, but for a motorbike?  Locating them is essential.  The sun dipped below the horizon about 12 kilometers out, and the gang forms a single file line in the far right lane and cruises in together.  The trick here is to keep the whole gang together, and then find a beer spot in town for the rest of the gang while Mick and Ol’ Reb spend an hour finding a place to stay.  Because you don’t want to pay $14.50 for a room when you can find a perfectly good one for $12.75.  Once this task is complete, you can all pack up the bikes for the night and go find something really soft to sit on.

For dinner, I’m suggesting one of those familiar spots with the wok of boiling water in the middle of the table.  Then, take everything they bring you—noodles, herbs, and huge legs of duck—and throw them in the pot for a few minutes before digging in.  And don’t forget the rice whiskey.  

When rice whiskey is offered, you accept

Lillie feeding Reba: more common than you might think

And give yourself a pat on the back: you made it to Son La, and tomorrow?  The wonderful world of Sapa, with wine and pillows and a day of rest.

You can almost taste it…     

Grand Motocross Rally: A Vietnam Adventure

This is my big idea, my money-maker.  It’s a video game, about motorbiking through Vietnam.  Bear with me, ridiculous as it sounds, and imagine if you can.

Background:

Let’s call our main character Suzy, just to pick a name randomly out of the air.  Suzy is going to go on a motorbike rally.  She is very excited, but nervous, and she needs training because she has never been on a motorbike before (except for one minor wreck in Poland, and, hypothetically of course, some very entertaining pictures taken with one in college, but that bike never moved, so that definitely doesn’t count).  So, we find our main character Suzy newly arrived in Hanoi.  Suzy’s biker gang, who may or may not be evil, is trying to reach Sapa, which is the finish line.  If you make it to Sapa, in addition to having the joy of defeating the game, you get magically transported to a luxurious hotel with a real bed, pillows, hot shower, and a nice Italian dinner with red wine.  Suzy likes these things, so she is going to try very hard to make it to magical, wonderful Sapa.  Unfortunately, the ambiguously evil biker gang she is with keeps putting her in difficult situations that she must ride her motorbike out of.  She is not sure of all of this, but she is very wonderful and selfless and won’t leave the rest of the gang behind (because they would surely die or turn all evil without her) even though they keep dragging her into impossible situations for no good reason.  Everybody loves Suzy, as will you, the player, even as you feel bad because of the loser gang she has fallen in with.

Training:

Every good video game starts with a bit of training before you really get going.  However, my video game will have very little training because the real thing is better, and, well, I’m impatient.  And if you haven’t trained a lot before, or played many video games in the past, or done much motorbiking, well, good luck.  I sincerely wish you the best.  (In other words, Suzy/Player 1 is starting from a difficult spot).

What it entails:

Training is brief and to the point.  The most useful friend/biker gangmember in the game that Suzy has is Ol’ Reb.  Ol’ Reb proves herself, over the course of the game, to be slightly more empathetic and useful than the other, more heartless riders.  The game starts when Suzy retrieves her trusty bike from the shop in Hanoi.  Hanoi’s streets in the old quarter are utterly chaotic, and obviously the bike store is right in the middle of the chaos.  Luckily for Suzy, Ol’ Reb finds a side street, where she teaches Suzy the most basic points of riding a motorbike.  Even though Suzy is about to go on a big adventure, the rest of the gang doesn’t care.  They figure, selfishly, that she can learn once the game really gets going.  Mainly because they are impatient, and also because they are inconsiderate, and also for dramatic effect.  It is a game, after all.

Level I: Escape from Hanoi:

Scene 1: Once Suzy is finished with her brief and unsatisfactory training, you/she must pilot her way out of the old quarter, onto the beltway, and out of Hanoi, armed only with a vague map and the broken-English instructions of the shop manager.  The memory of the instructions fades quickly, and the map has been abused for a week so it is torn and wet.  And there is only one.  Two other, more immediate obstacles present themselves.  One, the gang leader, Big Hopper, is very excited and decides to take off on his own.  This leaves the quite inadequate Crazy-Legs Mick to try and lead the way.  In this first test, you must gather the remaining group, including Ol’ Reb and Lumpy, find Big Hopper and make it to the gas station before running out of gas, which you surely will soon.

Scene 2: After finding the petrol, unloading the bikes and filling them with gas (the gas tank is under the seat, thus, every time you fill up, which is fairly regularly given the size of the tank, you must untie, take off, and then retie the bags), Suzy must again gather the gang and head up the on-ramp and onto the beltway.  The gang makes the first of many terrible decisions here, by letting Mick lead the way.  This decision will be disastrous many times over.  Once up the ramp and on the highway, you must make sure the gang stays together, while piloting your bike (which you have ridden for a grand total of 10 minutes) through the madness of the overflowing 6 lane highway out of town.  Aside from the many other motorbikes, most of whom are apparently insane, you must avoid the cars, trucks, and buses while attempting to see through the grit/smog/haze/dust of the highway.  Sound fun?

Level II: Cobblestone Corners

Scene 1: In a mind-numbingly stupid design flaw, Cobblestone Corners (which, due to its near-impossible difficulty, clearly should have been one of the last levels of the game) is Level II.  On a related note, following another terrible decision, Crazy-Legs Mick leads the gang into certain cobblestoned doom.  Somehow, when confronted with a bridge over a creek, Mick inexplicably mistakes the creek with the mighty Red River, an oversight akin to confusing a paper airplane with a 747.  Thus, the gang misses the turn and finds itself in a very small town with even smaller roads.  Compounding the problem and bringing into question his very sanity, Mick leads the group into an alley almost too narrow for the handlebars of the motorbike (and certainly too narrow to turn around in).  Thus, after about 30 minutes on a bike, Suzy must successfully navigate the alleyway with its narrow walls and bumpy roads, and the main street of town, with its large market clogging the already narrow streets.  Making turns in the town are nearly impossible, and driving motorbikes at a slow speed is exceedingly difficult, even for more seasoned riders.  Suzy may or may not fall once in the alley while attempting to absorb the large bumps of the cobblestones and broken concrete, and again once in the town while attempting to turn on to the main street clogged with people.  This moment is the first of roughly 437 times that Suzy will question what the hell she is doing on a motorbike she just learned to drive, in a country on the other side of the planet, and hanging out with crazy people.

Scene 2: This is a short scene.  After making it through the small town with minor injuries and a broken mirror, Suzy must put her foot down and insist that Mick and Big Hopper ask for directions instead of continuing to rely on the inadequate map and their laughably inept “sense of direction.”  They apparently believe if they stand over the map discussing it for long enough, the route west will materialize before them in some sort of epiphany.  Making matters worse, Mick has discovered the compass on his phone, which works roughly half of the time, so we find him constantly waving his phone through the air to “calibrate” it, and then looking at it dutifully, frowning seriously and saying, “Oh this must be the right way.”  Extra, bonus points awarded for finding directions and the way out of town without becoming angry, indignant, or belittling Mick or Big Hopper, which would be way too easy.

Level III: Highway 32: The Open Road

I’m not sure what happened, but when Suzy finds directions, the route brings you to a fairly reasonable highway whisking you out of the Hanoi outskirts.  Less congested than other highways, not too dusty, and fairly wide, the road affords a nice respite from the cruel realities that Mick and Big Hopper find with remarkable ease.  Suzy closes her eyes (figuratively, of course, she is on a motorbike) and enjoys it, knowing that it won’t last long.

Dad, looking righteous.  Note the half-naked lady decal.  He was horrified, but we made him take this one anyway.  Obviously.

Level IV: Back on Backroads

Scene 1: After a solid hour enjoying the relative quiet of QL 32, the gang passes through Son Tay, over the river, and hops off on QL 317, a backroad that runs along the river.  Mainly because the highway was too easy and the experience on backroads so far has been so wonderful.  The road starts off reasonably enough, paved two lanes, running along the river.  You begin to see some of the scenery that made you agree to this ridiculous trip in the first place.  Green rice paddies flanking the river, peasants in those awesome cone hats, mountains in the distance.  You’re feeling good, the wind is in your hair helmet, the sun is on your face.  Hey, you could get used to this, you think to yourself.  But this is a game, the cruel gang will soon remind you, this is supposed to be challenging and dramatic!

Scene 2: A.K.A. (you knew it wasn’t going to be this easy for long).  The shift starts innocently enough: several dirt stretches interrupting the smooth, easy asphalt you’ve been enjoying.  Then, as the kilometers tick off on the odometer in front of you (actually, along with the speedometer, it doesn’t work, but whatever) you start to notice that the scene is changing a bit, and now it seems that asphalt stretches are interrupting the dirt road more than vice-versa.  This revelation is slightly troubling, since the dirt gets into your ears, nose, mouth, clothing and especially your eyes, so you have to go a little slower, turns must be made wider, but no big deal, right?  You keep plugging away, proud of yourself for being so adaptable, and getting accustomed to the dirt.  You are almost comfortable, a pro at this.

The dirt begins!

Scene 3: Road construction begins.  Again, the beginnings are minor adjustments.  Small detours, the road narrowing to one lane, lots of orange signs.  Fortunately, amidst all of the construction signs and machinery, you see nary a person actually doing any work, so this makes you feel comfortable and at home.  As you proceed, however, the road becomes more difficult.  The stretches of dirt road are interrupted by stretches of large rocks.  Unfortunately, as anyone who has ridden a bicycle on rocks can tell you, two wheeled vehicles are not meant for rocks.  It is very difficult, and you must keep a straight path, a constant speed, and a careful balance to keep the bike upright.  Good luck through these stretches.  On the bright side, the rocks make the dirt seem very manageable in comparison.

Scene 4: The road continues to worsen.  The first part of this scene finds a road that is one-half completed and paved, but sits roughly 3 feet higher than the uncompleted section.  Your options: continue along the dirt and rocky section, or ride the motorbike up onto the completed section via the large sacks of rice that form ramps every 100 meters or so.  The ride on the paved part is nice, but, being narrow, you must slip the bike through some narrow openings right beside the three foot drop.  Which makes you kind of anxious.  Also dotting the road are trucks and other various machinery, that you must slip by in order to not breathe their dust, fumes, and dirt.  If you pass this part of the level, you have a wonderful surprise waiting. 

This guy was unfazed by the narrow, dirt roads

Scene 5: The crane.  Every good video game has a bad guy you must defeat at the end of a level (think the dragon-kings on Super Mario Brothers).  On this level, you must defeat the crane.  When you come to the end of the construction, you find a crane blocking the entire road save a small sliver of daylight on the far left side.  The crane is apparently being operated by a drunk man: it stops, starts, raises, lowers, and spins with no discernible pattern whatsoever.  You must position yourself right by the opening, and watch the crane, trying to find the perfect time to drive by it without being decapitated.  The driver does not care, and pays no mind to the many bikers trying to pass.  Even though he is paid by the hour, he knows when he finishes the small section of road in front of him the rocks will be gone, and he can go to the bar for Beer Hanoi.  Which he likes very much.  Once you get your gang and the bikes past the crane, you defeat Level IV and, aside from the abject hatred you feel for the gang who led you into this predicament, you are proud and happy.

Level V: The Obstacle Course

Level V is the last of Part I.  Once you defeat the crane, you must pass through the obstacle course before retiring for the night.  The obstacle course is the road into Ha Tinh, a small vacation town beside a large lake that is more or less deserted in this, the off-season.  Ha Tinh is also where you will pick up Highway 6 to the west, the road you will motor down for a big part of the trip.  The evil gang (there is nothing ambiguous about the evil anymore) will also allow you to get off of your bike, which they haven’t done for most of the day.

The road through the obstacle course is about 1.5 lanes wide, and mostly paved.  The first enemies you must defeat are the rice huskers.  These are set up about every 100 meters.  They are filled with rice, which is deposited in the buckets inside them, while the husks are blown out by a jet of air and into the road.  I have no idea why the husks have to be blown into the road rather than beside it, but they are.  After the huskers, you must make your way past the husk fires.  Again, every 100 meters or so the husks are gathered into a pile and burned.  Thus, every 100 meters you are confronted with a blast of heat and a thick, hot plume of smoke, and must decide whether to:

a)      Close your eyes, which is never a good idea on a motorbike, or

b)      Keep your eyes open and feel the deep, fiery, painful burn.  Likewise, terrible idea.

c)       Curse the people that made you play this stupid game in the first place.

In addition to the huskers, the fires and the occasional swath of gravel or dirt, you must also avoid several groups to avoid crashing.  The first group is schoolkids.  Every so often, you will attempt to pass a very large group of schoolchildren, some on bikes, some on foot, but inevitably occupying the vast majority of the road.  One would think that they would move over for motorbikes, but they don’t.  They are also difficult to see when passing through the flying husks and the smoke.  You must not hit them, not because of any moral obligation, but because you would surely crash.  The second group is farm animals.  You must avoid the cattle, who are very often plodding down the middle of the road.  It is also best to avoid the pigs, and generally both cattle and pigs will have people shepherding them along.  The final group is chickens and ducks.  You will most probably decide early on that you will make no effort whatsoever to avoid the chickens and ducks.  I won’t blame you a bit.  Also along the way are several markets, which generally contain all of the obstacles in one place, along with stalls of various sorts creeping off of the shoulder and onto the road, thus narrowing the road even more.  Hey, it’s a game, it’s not supposed to be easy.

Gassing up 5 bikes: Not as easy as it sounds

If you make it through the obstacle course, you will find yourself in Ha Tinh, where you have convinced the gang to take mercy and stop for the evening.  You find a hotel that appears pretty nice but very empty due to the off-season.  You don’t care, you are just happy not to be sitting on a motorbike.  Unfortunately, the only thing the restaurant serves at this time of year and this time of night is omelets.  You eat two, along with the rest of the gang (you didn’t think you were getting pampered yet, did you? you’re not in Sapa!)

The only excitement comes when Crazy-Legs Mick, Lumpy, and Ol’ Reb go to the store for provisions.  In another monumentally stupid decision, they decide to all three ride one bike to the store (just like the Asians do!)  They make it there, but to no one’s surprise, once loaded down with bags, Mick pilots the shaky bike into the road and fails to take control when the weight begins shifting dangerously.  They all go down, including a poor pair of Vietnamese motorbikers who are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Everyone is relatively unscathed, except a glove-box type accessory on Mick’s bike, which is shattered.  And his pride.  That also, shattered.  And his feet, which are cut up.  Somehow Lumpy and Ol’ Reb (who both bailed) come out without a scratch.  The whole incident seems very unnecessary since they have passed every level for the day, the bikes were already parked, and the store was only across the street.  But, as we have learned, they are unintelligent, they make bad decisions, and we need dramatic moments.  For the game, of course.  They return to the hotel for omelets and beer, and sanitize the story so Suzy doesn’t worry too much.  Just another day on a motorbike in Vietnam.

But worry she will, because tomorrow?  It’s back on the bikes…