Easy Rider (Part 2)

Part of the pleasure of having no schedule is having the ability to change that lack of schedule whenever you want. When we returned from the motorbike tour Michael went out drinking with our guides. Upon his return 2 hours (and 5 shared beers later) there was new thought given to the DMZ tour. After discussion we decided to stay another night and spend our Valentine's Day on the backs of motorbikes for 140 miles roundtrip going up and back to the DMZ.
After getting an early start we stopped for "breakfast" about 45 minutes into our journey. Noodle soup seems to be the breakfast of champions here and if you're hungry enough, which I was, you'll eat almost anything (minus rats, dog, the usual suspects). Our meal was prepared in the most local of establishments. This restaurant is one of the many roadside shacks that serves up meals - there are no menus and subsequently no known prices. There also seems to be limited hygienic standards. The pictures that follow depict the "restaurant," the woman in the red pantsuit cooking our soup, and the dog wandering around eating scraps.







This is what almost all restaurants look like here. What you can't see are the many flies and the television in the corner playing Korean soap operas dubbed into Vietnamese with one person reading all the parts. Makes the love scenes very interesting especially as the lines are read with the passion of reporting the 6 o'clock news.

After about 2.5 hours on the bike we made it to the Vinh Moc Tunnels. An entire village built an elaborate system of interconnecting tunnels where they lived for five years during the American War (as they call it here). There are 2.8 kilometers of tunnels open to the public. The tunnels are incredibly sophisticated and even have a conference room that holds up to 300 people. Seventeen babies were born in the tunnels. The little room that Michael is crouching in is a Family Room - each family had one. It's probably about 2 feet wide and 4 feet deep.







Saw this amazing toilet set up on our way back to Hue. The toilet itself is pretty standard (remember, I've been here a while now) but about 1 foot to the left of the stall was the enormous pig and her eight babies, squealing the entire time. Never know what you're going to find when searching for the bathroom.







After a long day of riding around we were just glad to be in one piece. We jumped on our bikes (we did have helmets this time), leaving the water buffalo behind, and headed back to Hue to celebrate Valentine's Day in a more western way - nice French dinner and a glass of wine. Next, off to Hoi An.