We started the day in a motorcycle dealership. We were rested and well, but Ruby had a hole in her gas tank which needed to be repaired and on Vietnam time that took until noon. But we got it done, paid the bill and we were off, blazing down the highway once again headed for Phong Nha.
Everything was going so smoothly. We rode fast, weaving past rice fields and through valleys making great time on our way until we reached the mountains. The last time my bike broke down was on a hill, and these hills just outside Phong Nha proved to be just as difficult. I sputtered along as well as I could for a while before Richard Nixon (which is the name of my bike if I haven't mentioned that already) coughed out its last breath on the side of the ridge in the middle of nowhere with not a soul in sight.
I pumped at the kick start to no avail and resigned myself to wheeling it as far as I could while Ruby rode ahead to find help or gasoline or whatever it was that I needed to make the last 30 kilometers to Phong Nha. That was the last I saw of her for a few hours. I rode down the hills in neutral when I could, but spent most of the time pushing that hunk of metal up the scorching hills of the Vietnam countryside.
After about an hour, a group of locals pulled up on motorbikes and began shouting in Vietnamese. They tried their best to get it started but nothing seemed to work. They shouted and laughed and pointed at the stars and stripes on one of my bags, trying desperately to cross the language barrier that would prove to be the ultimate challenge of our brief relationship.
Finally, they tied my bike to the back of a scooter and began towing me to the next town. We arrived in a dusty street lined with huts under the shadow of mountains where Ruby was waiting. They pulled me to a garage and by the time I stepped off my bike there were at least ten Vietnamese locals shouting at me, pointing at different parts of the bike, and trying their best to figure out what had happened. They unstrapped my bags and pulled my bike into the garage before I could resist and I quickly called our friends in Hanoi to try to scrap together some semblance of guidance. Fleur and Hop told us to get out of that garage and head to a garage in Phong Nha, which was a mere 15 kilometers away. They gave the locals directions to the garage and we got a tow into town for a scammer's price of 300,000 dong (about $15).
When we arrived in Phong Nha, the tower (and his friends who followed him) stopped short of the destination and demanded an additional 700,000 dong (about $40) which was a ludicrous demand given the eight kilometers we had to travel. A waitress at a nearby restaurant joined the commotion. Two kids playing "Gangnam Style" on a cell phone ran circles around us. Another Vietnamese girl approached us and tried to help us make sense of the situation. I was on the phone with the Australian who owned the hotel we were trying to reach trying desperately to figure out where we were and where we were supposed to go while chaos escalated around me.
In the end, we found a local point of interest, a small dive called "Jungle Bar" and waited for the Australian to pick us up while the scammers waited for their extra payment, which I had no intention of delivering. When they positioned their bikes around us, blocking us to the curb, I made a fake phone call to the tourist police and they scattered, leaving Ruby and I alone at the bar to try to make sense of what the hell had just happened to us.
The Australian was drunk when he pulled his roofless Jeep to the curb, but the mere sight of him almost made me cry. He spoke English. He was here to help us. He was taking us to a bed.
He ordered a beer which he hid under his hat next to the stickshift as he drove us to the Phong Nha Farm Stay. And here I am, sitting at a table, surrounded by Westerners for the first time since I left Hanoi. I ate a cheeseburger for dinner and it was simultaneously the worst and best burger I have ever had in my life.
All is well in the jungle. I'm fucking going to sleep.
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