vacationing on a motorcycle

If I were to describe my journey thus far, you would call me utterly crazy,tell me to stop, return home before I kill myself. So I will begin with an exert from the novel I’ve selected to read on this adventure.

‘You see things  vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observing and its is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone.You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.’ -zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Now I’ll describe one of the most beautiful moments that occurred while riding deep off the beaten track In North Vietnam towards Sapa; Tom a 30 year old Italian chief and traveler who I met sleeping on his bike in Hanoi a few nights before,Thac a friend of mine from Los Angeles,me a crazy British 46 year old, spot in the farm fields below our valley pass five local Hmong boys playing with their pet buffalo. Three of I’m guessing the eight year olds were straddling the majestic creature while the other two played hide and seek with it. We pull over and I perch on a rock above while Tom and Thac descend to the fields below to try and photograph the boys. The boys are shy and run off giggling and laughing as my free riders companions approach. Tom and Thac try to bribe them with candy but they are scared by their strangely looking apparatus. I’m smiling to my self while witnessing this wonderful ballet between the larger and smaller men below against the most stunning back drop. The sun hung low in an afternoon glow between the lushly green limestone formations, glinting shadows across the farm fields. Finally they succeed to coax the boys to come back to their pet water buffalo and my explores set about snapping. It results in a national geographic worthily photo. As Tom and Thac return up the hill to the bikes, I watch the boys making mocking gestures, then a funny good bye to us dance, that off corse I couldn’t resist responding to with my own. Lesson learnt here today; who needs whatsapp when you have dance. We mount back up and off we head, no plan but to see what lies next around the corner. With out a doubt this for sure is how you really see a country.