The Mighty One

Responding to his ad in the middle of the night I found my revolutionary-looking friend, Mr.Ulyanov, was staying only a block away. Reticent to jump back into it having only just settled my nerves with a few Hanoi lagers I nevertheless needed to get this important aspect squared away. A motorcycle trip without a motorcycle is just a trip, and jamming into a minibus with the rest of the unwashed backpacking masses seemed like an even worse prospect than being splattered by a rice truck.  Wheels had to be procured despite the pants-shittingly terrifying aspect of Hanoi traffic in the dark.

If love at first sight exists I have yet to experience it. Lust at first sight maybe, but in my experience love is something that takes time. Yet perhaps that only applies to women, because the minute I saw the cherry-red 125cc beauty roll down the dark alley I was smitten.  My petite-morte was to be interrupted by the stark realization that my future sweetheart was in rough shape.  She sported bald tires, a tell-tale scrape from a past drop, and nonexistent brakes. But as with all my past paramours, I was able to look beyond these minor imperfections to the beauty within. I made her mine on the spot, parting with $350 US for the pleasure.

Ecstatic at having finally found my ride I decided to take her around the corner to a mechanic to get the required work done to bring her back into fighting shape. In my haste to feel the wind in my hair I left the hotel with only my wallet. No phone, no map. It was to be a severe error in judgment.

Beginning a wobbly circle of our block I scanned for the words ‘Rua Xe’ on every building.  Finding nothing but undeterred I widened my circle. I was quickly drunk with the feeling of riding through the darkened city.  Hanoi was just coming off the tail end of the Tet Holiday (imagine Christmas, New Years, and Independence Day all rolled into one), and being the capitol it was done up in spectacular style with lights and hammer-and-sickle flags that stretched as far as the eye could see.  Traffic, while still staggering by U.S. standards, had slowed to a minor deluge and I gingerly wedged myself in.  Quickly abandoning any previously held thoughts on Western road etiquette, I happily began to bob, weave, honk, and curse like a local.

Before I knew it I had left the relatively familiar environs of the Old Quarter and found myself riding street after packed street that were entirely foreign to me.

While I had not planned a sightseeing tour, I was still awestruck when blindly coming upon the sights the city has to offer. The massively imposing Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, eerily bathed in sanguine Commie red, housed the late leader’s mummified corpse.

The father of modern Vietnam, Uncle Ho had requested to be cremated and his ashes scattered in his tiny hometown of Kim Lien. Not wanting to part so humbly, the Communist elite instead took a cue from Lenin, having him mummified, sealed in glass, and turned into the most twisted (and visited) attraction in Vietnam. So much for a dying man’s wish when there’s entrance fees to be made.

Passing Hun Tiep lake I came upon the sad remains of ‘Rose 1’ an American B-52 bomber shot down during a run over the north. Her twisted fuselage still resting slightly out of the murky water. Tearing frantically past on a bike doesn’t give much chance for ruminations on war and it’s costs but the quick thought that my countrymen’s remains went down with it in that trash filled lake did not escape me even at 40kph.

A moment later I was ripped from my thoughts when presented with a scene I had already lived a thousand times over but always in the virtual.

The Hanoi flag tower. At over 200 years old it is a beautiful symbol of the city, and a point of intense national pride. It is also the setting for a multiplayer map in the video game ‘Black Ops’, a game that I have played so often late at night that I could probably get a job as a guide sight unseen.

The strange juxtaposition between the real and the virtual made me smile from ear to ear, and unexpectedly feel in my bones that I had made the right choice in coming to this place. It’s silly to think back on, but imagine if the only world experiences you held came from books, movies, and -shudder- video games.

Most people don’t get to travel far from what they know. The responsibilities of life weigh on them too greatly that they can’t break away. So we live our experiences vicariously through whatever mediums we can.  In that moment I felt incredibly lucky. Lucky to have been able to sever the weights that unfortunately leave so many looking back at the end with mild regret. It may have been a silly moment that would have appealed to only the most geeky of nerds (yo), but to me it was a small symbol that the adventure had begun, and that from here on out there would be no reset button or extra lives to rely on.

Pulled back into reality by a near-miss with a city bus I was forced to stop my day-dreams and focus on the very real problem that I was hopelessly lost in a city I didn’t know, and a language I didn’t speak. To top it off I was running out of gas.

Signs, when they existed, did little to help.  Was home on Ly Tai To, Hung Vuong, or Nguyen Dien Chu?  On top of my directional quandary I found myself consumed with a paralyzing Zoolanderish-fear of turning left. The absolute wall of traffic presented at every intersection seemed uncrossable. Yet to my amazement women with three kids fighting in their lap, and a food stall hitched to the back, did it while texting.  The trick I would eventually learn is to give up any sense of self preservation and throw yourself blindly into the fray. Like a rock in a stream the waters would part, but this confidence would only come later.

So it was, right turn after right turn, hoping to run by sheer luck into the one landmark I knew, Hoan Kiem lake.  I assumed that if I made a criss cross of the city I would surely run into the massive body of water at the heart of Hanoi.  My luck, unfortunately, would not be that good.

Fail.

One hour turned to two, and then to three, with still no familiar sights to guide me home. I had told Evan I would be back in minutes, and while he’s not a worrier, he was most likely searching my bag for the death letter to send my parents.

The only working gauge indicated I was about to sputter to an embarrassing stop.  Abandoning any hopes of a quick shot home at this point my new goal became a gas station.  As I would come to find is true of all Vietnamese cities, there are none in the city proper, preferring instead to arrange them on the outskirts. This meant moving even further away from what I felt was the center of town, and home.

Panic had begun to set in, and a cold sweat aided by the near constant drizzle covered me.  Finally, as the last fumes were sputtering away, I glimpsed in the night a glowing sign that would be a welcome sight throughout my travels – PETROLIMEX.

Five liters of ‘Dang Xau’ and 100,000 dong later I was back on my way, but with no direction to speak of.  I weighed my options.  My initial thought was to hail a cab and have them drive empty to Hoan Kiem lake with me tailing it like a shyster lawyer behind an ambulance. I quickly put this out of my mind when confronted with the limits of my Vietnamese and the volume of traffic which would surely make keeping up impossible. So I broke, and going against every stand-up comic’s advice, I asked directions.

The plan was simple enough. Drive until I hit a light, stand up in the massive crowd of motorcyclists, yell ‘Hoan Kiem Lake?!’, and point feverishly in all directions until someone understood my query. It was one of the most ridiculous sights i’m sure, and plenty embarrassing, but I was two hours and 40 kilometers past caring.

While I tended to be gawked at constantly at stoplights (by the few that actually stop), either Northern reservedness or my inability to correctly pronounce the words I needed resulted in painfully few takers.  Those few that did were often countered at the next light by someone pointing confidently in the opposite direction.

So it was, light by light, I slowly inched my way back to the city center.  Twenty street performances later I broke triumphantly through the wall of apartment buildings that surround Hoan Kiem.  From there I was able to recall enough from my time on foot to work my way awkwardly back to the twisted alleys that held our hotel. Reuniting sheepishly with Evan, I was fairly certain he had given me up for dead after the first hour.

Feeling as if I had dodged a seriously stupid bullet I resigned myself to try to be more forward thinking and observant in the future.  While I’ve made plenty of dumb mistakes since, leaving without a map or a phone has not been one of them. However trying to pet two ton tusked mammals is another story all together.

I had been fire baptized in the crucible of Hanoian traffic and had miraculously come out unscathed. In four hours of cold sweat the fear had been rended from my body completely. I felt ready to tackle whatever wickedness the HoChiMinh trail had to offer and ask for more.  I had come home that evening dreading what terrors lay in store on the road, now I could hardly wait. I wanted all of it.

My trusty new companion had performed admirably, darting me about the city, unconcerned with direction.  She just needed a name.  It’s unlucky to have a boat without a name, so I reasoned it to be the same with a motorcycle, and luck was something I felt as vital to our travels as gasoline.

I could think of only one name fitting.   So in honor of one of my heroes who made a similar journey over sixty years ago, I christened her ‘La Poderosa’. The Mighty One.