Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 3

By Mike Huber

It was December 2018, and we were in Da Nang, Vietnam. Our steeds for this trip consisted of two Honda Winner 150cc motorcycles and we were ready to begin our adventure.  My moto had been fully decked out in a colorful light with bells, horns, and streamers.  With our route defined as northernly it was time to fire off this trip. We did this by starting in the wrong direction (south), and the reason for that was Hoi An was close to Da Nang .  There was a full moon festival happening there.  This was something not to be missed.

Arriving in the bustling town of Hoi An late in the day we noticed that the roads had been closed in a perimeter around our Home Stay (Vietnamese version of Airbnb) due to the Full Moon Festival.  The Home Stay was about a quarter mile away from the closest point we could get to. Leaving the bikes outside this perimeter wasn’t an option, nor was walking a quarter mile through the crowds with all our gear.  Having lived in Boston for 16 years and with the mindset of a paratrooper, I shouted over the headset loud enough for Bobbie to hear me over the crowds growing for the festival:  “Follow me! We’ll make this work.”

I clicked the bike into first geat and drove across the bridge to our Home Stay, on the sidewalk, and on the wrong side of the road while honking my favorite pink horn to alert those in our path that we were coming through.  The smile on my face was one that I’ll never forget.  This country was one of less rules and more of making it happen. I loved it! We made it to our Home Stay in time to unpack, catch our breath, and have a well-earned cold Saigon beer before heading out to find some chow.

Once properly hydrated from the Saigon beers, we walked the crowded streets of Hoi An as the glowing red sun began to set.  We gazed over the beautiful Hoi An River. The river was filled with thousands of lanterns on tiny paper boats with candles paying respects to ancestors.  This was a sight to behold.  It was beautiful in every way.  As the night wore on, our grumbling stomachs reminded us it was time to experiment with the Vietnamese cuisine.

Street vendors lined the alleys.  All had interesting dishes ranging from octopus, to frogs that looked like Mr. Olympias (due to their muscles under the vendors’ lights), to the quail that were runner up to the frogs in the bodybuilding contests.  Fried octopus seemed like the best choice. We ordered and sat at tables the same size used in preschool, with bright colors and flimsy plastic chair legs.  The food was DELICIOUS and just what we needed after a successful first day of riding in this wonderful country.

Hoi An was an easy city to love, so it wasn’t a hard decision to extend our stay.  One day entailed a full day of riding to a UNESCO Heritage World Site called My Son Temple.  This is a collection of Hindu temples hidden in the mountains 25 miles west of Hoi An. The site was incredible, with temples half overrun by the jungle, yet still in pristine condition even though some of them are 600 years old.  This location is deep in the jungle and as soon as we dismounted from our bikes we could feel the humidity. We spent much of the day exploring the ruins, with the overwhelming jungle darkness surrounding us.   The ruins were a mystical place that we were fortunate to have stumbled upon.

On our return ride it was time to make food choices again.  Choosing to stop at the first crowded place made sense. We soon discovered an establishment and radioed to each other that this looked acceptable.  Instantly, all eyes were upon us as we sat down in a three-walled, white-paint-chipped open room.  One thing we found in Vietnam wat that when you order food, you don’t always get what you asked for.  Often you get what they have, even though they will nod their head to your request while saying “ya ya ya.”  In this restaurant we kept it simple and ordered pho.

While waiting for our food we slowly drank a Hanoi beer that was warm (but much needed).  We tried to act normal as the locals pointed at us and chuckled. Finally, our food arrived but instead of our requested pho, we received what appeared to be cold water buffalo meat wrapped in a type of Vietnamese lettuce, a dipping sauce of some sort, and a consommé.  Eating with finesse isn’t my strong suit, and that became blatantly obvious. I was having issues making a wrap without having the meat spill out of the lettuce.

As all the patrons continued to stare at us an older lady came over to assist me in the proper way to prepare this dish, since I was clearly incapable of doing so myself.  She began wrapping it tightly with her hands that were blackened with dirt from working in the rice fields earlier and successfully tightly rolled it for me to eat. While she was performing this task other patrons in the restaurant were walking around me to go on the other side of the wall from which I was sitting to use the “facilities.”  With the sound of urine hitting the other side of the wall it was now time to finally eat my lunch. I bit into the wrap and noticed the meat was cold and I instantly thought it was raw and I’d get sick, but I still had to eat it to save face in front of everyone as they watched me chew each bite and swallow it.  The many onlookers gazed upon me as I finished about 60% of the meal while washing it down religiously with Hanoi beer, thinking the alcohol might save me from becoming ill. For the next 12 hours I was in full on hypochondriac mode. I had about six false alarms during this time when I would bolt to the bathroom thinking I was about to have an accident.  In hindsight this is funny, but at the time the threat of possibly having the runs while riding through Vietnam didn’t seem too humorous to me.

Returning to the Home Stay in Hoi An provided me with a bit of relief from my hypochondria and a chance to unwind.  We had ventured out while learning more about the culture, the food, and the people.  It was now time to map our next day’s ride, where we would correct our direction and return to moving north towards epic roads. With our gear fully organized and the bikes prepped, we called it an early night so we would be fresh for the next day.


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If you missed Parts 1 and 2 of the Vietnam ride, here they are:

Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 2

By Mike Huber

As soon as we landed in Da Nang and got our bearings (as best we could with the jet lag, language barrier, and me) the first step was to pick up the motorcycles from Tigit, the motorcycle rental company.  My girlfriend Bobbie and I had reserved two Honda Winner 150cc motorcycles a month prior. I had some reservations about the smaller displacement, but the benefit of these little workhorse bikes was that the parts were so plentiful in the country and they were so easy to work on that if/when we did break down it wouldn’t stall the trip for more than a day or two.  This was an advantage compared to other models that you’d have to order parts and wait 3 or 4 days for even little maintenance issues. In hindsight this was a wise decision as we really beat the hell out of the bikes.

The rental process with Tigit was painless and with the owner giving us his Whatsapp contact number in event of breakdowns or other issues we instantly felt comfortable in this foreign land.  To further ensure our safety we had purchased Sena 10C EVO headsets so we could stay in close contact due to the ever-changing road and traffic conditions.  This purchase proved invaluable over the next three weeks and quite honestly saved our lives more than once. Knowing the road conditions would be challenging, we also opted to bring all our protective gear from home. Once we were all geared up and after a quick comm check with the Senas it was time to ride!

The first destination would be a local beach in Da Nang.  The wind and sun were just what was needed to flush out the jet lag and wooziness from our bodies.

In being true to myself I had to decorate the bike.  I had just recovered from a hip replacement in which I had a walker for a few weeks and decked it out with a bicycle bell, pink horn, pink streamers, and a pink basket.  The nurses loved it and old ladies in their walkers would give me dirty looks as I went about my errands on it (they were clearly jealous).  I had reasons for these decorations, more than just an opportunity to be obnoxious.  The bell was to signal I wanted pain meds, and the horn was for a cold beer.  The streamers….well, they just seemed to tie the entire walker together.  I brought them all to Vietnam to ensure my moto was properly suited to me.  It provided endless entertainment for me and proved to be rather annoying to everyone else.  Whenever I parked the moto, it just took a moment before children, police, or pretty much any local would be ringing the bell or honking the horn.  On more than one occasion, our hosts had us park the bikes inside their houses just so they could get a reprieve from the sounds of these add-ons, which benefitted us from a physical security standpoint.

At the start of this adventure, I felt a strange uneasiness.  This came from notions placed in my head from others telling me about their experience in the Vietnam War.  Feelings of guilt were constantly weighing on my mind as I met the locals and they asked where I was from. I was always extra respectful and humble when I said I was from the United States.  Having travelled much of the world this is always how I present myself, but in Vietnam I did so even more.  After a day or two I began to open up with several Vietnamese people about how I was feeling (I am a pretty open guy anyway so wanted to get this feeling resolved).  They all assured me that the people of Vietnam have long forgotten about the war and there would be absolutely no animosity over that from anyone.  It didn’t take long for me to put those feelings in the rear view mirror.  I began to fully embrace the beautiful people and their culture as I should have from the start.  As we continued to ride through the country this became even more apparent with every stop as the female locals grabbed Bobbie and brought her into their kitchen to pick out our meal, and the men invited me to sit on the stairs with them and smoke tobacco in bamboo pipes.  Sometimes it just takes a day or two to get comfortable with your surroundings.  Vietnam was no different.

I love it when a plan comes together, or doesn’t.  This is an especially great feeling when the plan is to not have a plan, other than a direction to travel in.  For us, this direction was north.  The goal was to hit the Vietnam North Pole, a remote area at the northern tip of Vietnam that bordered with China.  We had seen and read a lot about the ride and roads up there and it seemed one of the most epic adventures a motorcyclist could have. During this journey we wanted a leisurely pace with no pressure to travel if we didn’t feel like moving due to being tired or falling in love with a specific region.  Why rush this wonderful experience without savoring each mile to its maximum?  Our only constraint was to make our flight in Hanoi in three weeks, and this was plenty of time to cover 1,500 miles of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail if we chose to.


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