February 4, 2007 by zankbennett.

Bought a ticket to Singapore. Took the 45-min shuttle to airport. Had the time wrong. Missed it by one minute! After nearly having a fit, decided to walk to the airport hotel, about 1 km down a dismal road. They wanted $25 for a disgusting room….back to the old quarter of downtown and to the hostel. By now it was late and I had to call the owner for a room. He was appropriately laughing at my misfortune. Got on the internet and booked another flight….just as the clock passed midnight. That would have been fine, only I didn’t realize it was already the next day….so I booked another plane ticket for the next day. So I go to sleep and the next day make sure to get to the airport nice and early. Only prob was, there was NO flight. Hmmm. Turns out, when the clock passed midnight, I’d bought a ticket for the “next day”. Well, so I get back on the shuttle bus for round two of embarrasment by showing up at the hostel.
Both times, met a bunch of cool people on the shuttle and generally enjoyed myself.
Finally, I’m now at the airport, three hours early. It appears that on my third trip I may just make the flight. Singapore.

Posted in SE Asia | Print | 1 Comment »

February 4, 2007 by zankbennett.

Here are a few random pics to convey the feel of the trip.  It was entirely priceless.  Hopefully these capture a bit of the rush!

On the climb up one fo the first mountain passes.  The stoke was just tremendous!

Along the road. It always felt great to get the helmet off for a few minutes and survey the scenery.

One of those magical pictures.  This little girl had the best look on her face, years beyond her age, and the BG colors were perfect.  The well-known Sunday Market in Bac Ha, Vietnam.

The school children in Sin Ho.  I stopped to look at the map and they just swamped me!  The kid with the black shirt in the middle was hilarious.  I was chasing him up and down the road…he pointed out that I’d stepped in a monsterous pile of water buffalo poop when getting off my bike.  I was chasing him pretending like I was going to wipe it on his trousers.  We had a blast!!! :D  I don’t expect any of the kids had spoken with white people before.

Brandon and I.  Paunch and John.  ;)  Thanks, bud.  Here’s wishing you all the best the world has to offer!

A picture of the limestone walls along the best day of the trip…Brandon had left for Hanoi and I pressed on to make Meo Vac from Ha Giang.  About 18km from Meo Vac, this was the scenery.  Note teh road along the bottom of the picture.  It went like this for another 15km.  The view in the other direction was twice as breathtaking and the reason for the entire trip!  For real.

Posted in Motorbiking Vietnam, SE Asia | Print | 12 Comments »