Beginning of something great, part5 (the last prologue)

As Im writing this post I’m sitting on a morning bus to Saigon which is btw the first time in Vietnam that I use a bus and I have to say: “No Sir, I don’t like this”. Me being 185 cm tall and Vietnamese being hobbits compared to me means that I do not, I repeat, I do not have enough head-, or legroom in this bus. Now some of you question why bus? What happened to the bike? Well I’m gonna tell everything that has happened after my arrival to Da Lat and for me it has been an epic “ride”. 

"You dig my hat?!?!?" or "Respect my authoritaah!"

I know, I should't eat mushrooms. I just could't resist that one

There was a group of people witnessing my arrival, Slater, Chrissy B and Rachel. With these people we were the Wolfpack Riders for couple of days. For that I needed a rental bike since my own bike was being uncooperative somewhere up in the mountains. Luckily Kha (the owner of the hostel) had a nice proper size 125cc Honda I could use instead of a scooter.

With the Wolfpack Riders I also spent my new years eve in Da Lat and what a memorable night that was. Rachel and Chrissy had found a bar called Saigon Nite. It was dodgy, rugged but quiet and has got a pool table and the sweetest owner you’ll ever meet. And the drinks, oh my, they were not the best ones when it comes to the taste but boy were they strong. Just the way I prefer ‘em. So we ended up spending my first night in Da Lat in Saigon Nite and promised to be back the next day to celebrate the new years eve. As a background I have to tell that Saigon Nite used to be really lively bar back in the days but now it’s mostly empty and there fore I wanted to keep our word and go back there. 

Me and the owner of the Saigon Nite.

Two huge smiles in this picture! Don't know
which one is better though... The lady in the
picture is Rachel from the Wolfpack Riders.

I’m so glad we went there. Firstly, there was no one else there. The door was closed and we had to bang the door to get the owners attention. You should have seen the grin on the owners face when he saw us. He had been clearly waiting for us. First he put on Abba’s Happy New Year and then it was time to light up the sparklers and in Vietnam you do it indoors, of course. Then the owner pulled out some cans of “silly string” and kept on spraying it on us. Then it was confetti time and as a final blow he had prepared some sandwiches for us. Oh man, we had some fun that night. 

Only problem we had that night, well not us but Slater, was the fact that he’s a vegetarian. That is obviously not a problem itself but the “No meet, chicken sandwich” made his stomach a little bit funny. Here in Vietnam that they don’t always consider chicken to be meat. 

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới =happy new year in Vietnamese
Slater on the right. 

Btw, do you remember the guy who was vomiting on himself in Hoi An on christmas eve I told you about earlier?

We were having the family dinner at Wolfpack (all you can eat Vietnamese buffet dinner for 3USD) and me, Chrissy B and Slater started telling each other how we spent xmas. 

Me: “I was in Hoi An and went to Why Not bar”

Rachel: “Me and Chrissy were there also but didn’t stay that long”

Me: “Did you see the guy who was vomiting on himself and was lying unconsciously in front of the toilet door?”

At that moment I looked Chrissy B and saw him feeling a little bit awkward and at the same time I remembered seeing him lying in front of that door. 

Me: “Dude, it was you?!?!?!”

We never spoke about the incident since =) World is small when traveling. 

BBQ evening at the Wolfpack hostel

Yammy!

“Oooon theee fiiiiifthhhh dayyyy oooof chriiiismaaasss….” <—South Park joke. 

Five days after my arrival I was ready to go rescue my bike if it still was there. Slater promised to be my rescue buddy and so we rented a scooter and headed to the mountains and what a rescue mission it  was. The scooter really struggled with two guys on it. We needed to make a couple of stops just to let the engine cool down a bit. It really wasn’t certain that we can even reach my bike with the scooter but we did.

With the pictures taken from the place I managed to find the correct spot and with enjoyment me and my bike met again. 

This is where I hid my bike and found it still in tact. Picture taken
on the rescue mission

I guess I didn’t have any plan how to rescue the bike so the “plan” kind of evolved on the site. I started pushing the bike and Slater drove to find a garage and some help. After a while a Vietnamese on a scooter pulled over and there we were once again. Me pointing the problem with a finger and Vietnamese guy shaking one’s head but the difference was that this guy had some tools. He tried to take of couple of links to shorten the chain but had to give up after a while. Next thing to do was obviously towing. Well the guy wanted to go to opposite direction than me so first I needed to convince him that we needed to go towards Da Lat. After a couple of kilometres of towing I saw Slater coming with two Vietnamese guy towards us. I thanked the original guy for towing me and changed the towing bungees to the other bike. Once we got to the garage and I started pointing the problem I found that now I didn’t have chain at all anymore. “So that was the crackling noise during the towing.” Back to find the chain. 

Someone had already picked up the chain so I had to return to the garage empty handed. I think the “owner” was smiling now that I “had to” buy a new chain from his shop. There was something wrong with the place and with the people there and I was smelling a hustle. They already charged 150k Dongs (6€) for the tow instead of the 100K (4€) which was the deal they made with Slater and now they wanted 300k Dongs for the new chain. I know that we are talking about small amounts of money compared to the prices in Europe but I knew that here that would have been a robbery during day time. I declined from the offer and told Slater that were gonna do the business somewhere else. On the next place a 14 year old boy fixed my bike with a new chain for 120k Dongs. His father inspected the quality of the work and gave me the thumbs up.  I was good to go and my old not so trusty “Sprocket Rocket” was once again ready to go. 

And finally to the epic part or not: Theres just too much text so you will have to wait for the next entry! <--cliffhanger!

I hiked to the highest peak around Da Lat.