Motorbikes, etc.

So, it's been a few days; apologies for that. I've been trying to get into a nice, little routine here and adjust accordingly.

Lucky for me, there are actually vegetarian options/restaurants. Michael, his friend Lan and her son, Rum, and I went to dinner at a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, where everything was safe for a picky person like me. There were monks dining, including a little boy who sat with an elder, the child's head shaved and he wore traditional brown garb. His feet just grazed the floor, and he kept looking over at our table while we ate.

Afterward, Rum invited to take me around on his motorbike. There are probably 1,482,048,381 bikes on the road, with say, 3 cars. Everyone and their mother (literally) drives a motorbike (Vespa, etc.), bicycle, or a hybrid bicycle-Vespa-motor-thingy that has pedals and a little engine.

People drive here as if they are part of some hive mind. The flow of traffic is symbiotic, with the exception of people randomly swerving, and honking. Everyone is honking. Cars, bikes, hell, if people had the ability to honk their mouths loud enough to be heard, the entirety of the roads' drivers would be beeping like angry birds.

I perched myself on the elongated seat, I grabbed onto Rum's shoulder as we took off. My other hand had a death grip on the metal bar behind me. The ill-fitting helmet rattled on my head, the lose strap hitting me against the chin. I felt if I would lean too far to one side or another, I would certainly be kissing the asphalt in a matter of nanoseconds. But, Rum knew it all. Like some choreographed dance, we zipped through the nighttime streets of Nha Trang, riding on the tails of cars and bikes, getting within an eyelash's distance from other bikers, while the drivers honked and the neon lights cast a bright glow over the city. I downgraded my "Death Grip 1.0" to its beta-version and almost felt daring enough to take my hands off and put them on my knees like other passengers. I did not, however.

(A sidenote: have you ever tried doing imaginary brake while on the backseat of an old Honda motorbike, while your knees are threatening to graze the road and you're approaching a stopped car at increasing speeds? No? Alright. But, it was an awesome enough ride that I would totally buy a bike if I had the expendable cash to do so.)

Aside from motorcycle craziness, things have been rather low-key. I haven't started work yet; that's something for another day to write about. For now, I've been meeting with other folks, vainly trying to get some Vietnamese under my belt and learning words for fruits I have no idea what the hell they are, and exploring around the town. I'm trying to keep up a daily routine of running/walking on the beach, and so far, the third day proves successful. I'm getting trained in the arts of dodging street vendors and making myself look fiercely unapproachable, and becoming a pro at crossing busy streets in the midst of early-morning traffic.

Oh, and I got lost the other day. Really, really lost and I luckily ended up finding a taxi in a very rundown part of town where I almost became a melted puddle on the broken roads. But, that's no surprise. That happens to me wherever I travel, so really, wandering 3 or 4 or 5 miles in 80-degree weather with 50% humidity wearing all black (idiot) without water (doubly idiot) and no map (was I dropped on my head as a child?) shouldn't come as a surprise to me anymore.

Hit me up if you want my Skype and MSN. I'm always up to chatting with people back at home. That is, if I don't get lost again and can't find my way home to a computer. Or if I don't get creamed by a family of five on a Vespa built-for-one..