I know we've got a couple members on the board living or traveling around SE Asia so I can't help but share what happened to me today in Vietnam. I've spent the last two years living in China and doing a fair amount of travel throughout SE Asia and I've got a new winner on the list of "I can't believe I'm doing this right now" which every traveler over here has.
I just signed a 3 month lease on a home in Hoi An, outside of Da Nang. So I decided to take a trip up to the big city on my shiny, new moped rental to buy some essentials. The bike looks and runs great, everything seems fairly new so I decided to push it a bit. Going down the highway around 90-100/kmh with a breeze. Well something pops, probably a belt. The engine will rev but I'm not going anywhere.
After causing a commotion with the locals who are wondering why in the hell this foreigner is hanging out around some random spot on the highway in the middle of nowhere, I'm finally able to communicate to one of them I need to let the bike shop know where I am. The owner of the bike store is an old lady who shows up about 30 minutes later with a new moped for me to ride. I offer to give her a ride back to her shop but I figure out she's sticking with the broken bike. I'm not really sure what to do, as she's now in the middle of nowhere with a broken moped and it seems to me that she's going to just push it who knows how far back to town. She keeps pointing to the peg that a 2nd rider would rest their feet on, and eventually I realize that she'd like me to help her get the bike back to town by driving the good one and pushing the second bike with my leg while she steers it. My first thought is, you guess it, uh no... no fvcking way. In the end, I just didn't want to leave this lady in a jam like this in the middle of nowhere so, here we go. YOLO
And here I find myself, driving a moped 40/50kmh down the highway and pushing a second moped with my outstretched leg while this old lady rides the broken one and leads the way. At first, I can't stop laughing. What in the world am I doing right now. Several times I have to kick my leg up to avoid it getting smashed between our two bikes. At one point, she takes a phone call. Cars are flying past us. I've got to land my leg on the rider pegs several times as I avoid passing cars, like Jack Swigert from Apollo 13 trying to latch on to the orbiter. The second time she takes a phone call, I said fvck it and take a swig of beer from the can I stashed under the handlebars. About 10km later and what felt like eternity, we make it to the Yamaha shop.
Today, I'm glad to be alive. And that's #1 on my wtf list.
TLDR: Drove a moped 40/50kmh down a highway while pushing a second moped with my leg.
I just signed a 3 month lease on a home in Hoi An, outside of Da Nang. So I decided to take a trip up to the big city on my shiny, new moped rental to buy some essentials. The bike looks and runs great, everything seems fairly new so I decided to push it a bit. Going down the highway around 90-100/kmh with a breeze. Well something pops, probably a belt. The engine will rev but I'm not going anywhere.
After causing a commotion with the locals who are wondering why in the hell this foreigner is hanging out around some random spot on the highway in the middle of nowhere, I'm finally able to communicate to one of them I need to let the bike shop know where I am. The owner of the bike store is an old lady who shows up about 30 minutes later with a new moped for me to ride. I offer to give her a ride back to her shop but I figure out she's sticking with the broken bike. I'm not really sure what to do, as she's now in the middle of nowhere with a broken moped and it seems to me that she's going to just push it who knows how far back to town. She keeps pointing to the peg that a 2nd rider would rest their feet on, and eventually I realize that she'd like me to help her get the bike back to town by driving the good one and pushing the second bike with my leg while she steers it. My first thought is, you guess it, uh no... no fvcking way. In the end, I just didn't want to leave this lady in a jam like this in the middle of nowhere so, here we go. YOLO
And here I find myself, driving a moped 40/50kmh down the highway and pushing a second moped with my outstretched leg while this old lady rides the broken one and leads the way. At first, I can't stop laughing. What in the world am I doing right now. Several times I have to kick my leg up to avoid it getting smashed between our two bikes. At one point, she takes a phone call. Cars are flying past us. I've got to land my leg on the rider pegs several times as I avoid passing cars, like Jack Swigert from Apollo 13 trying to latch on to the orbiter. The second time she takes a phone call, I said fvck it and take a swig of beer from the can I stashed under the handlebars. About 10km later and what felt like eternity, we make it to the Yamaha shop.
Today, I'm glad to be alive. And that's #1 on my wtf list.
TLDR: Drove a moped 40/50kmh down a highway while pushing a second moped with my leg.
