10 Reasons Why One Needs a Motorbike in Vietnam

Vietnam is filled with "two wheels" army. Not French. Not American. Not Vietnamese this time.
They occupy all the space in the town. Every single piece of it. No, I am not talking about the roads. That's too obvious. They are occupying sidewalks. Shop corners. Restaurants, living rooms and kitchens. But most importantly - your mind.
When you think of it, there are number of reasons why you desperately need one in Vietnam:

1. because your neighbour happened to live 2 meters away from you and you two like to drink tea together on Saturday mornings.
2. because you feel cosy in your living room when you park all three of them in the little gap between the sofa and the TV.
3. because you practise for the world record of how many people can fit on one motorbike.
4. because hysteric beeping in the streets sounds like Vivaldi to your ears.
5. because you feel like Vivaldi yourself and see that all the others enjoy your "beeping composition" (the others refer to the local people mainly).
6. because you cannot stand the silence
7. because in case you are tired, you just stop at the most noisy street corner and take a cat nap on a nicely sun-heated leather seat of your two wheels shiny friend.
8. because buying bus tickets for fifty ducks or 200 kg weighting pig would be simply not affordable.
9. because your favourite English phrase is - motorbike sir? - regardless if you talk to man or to women.
10. because if you do not have one, very soon you will lose the battle for the sidewalk. Do not forget that pedestrians are the ones of the lowest social status in this society.

Did I convince you?

Volunteer with us

It did not take me too long to notice that Cambodia is probably the "heaven" of voluntary work. Everything starting from farming and ending up with the most popular one - teaching English - is open for anyone of passing by travellers who are tired of constant moving and thirsting for some time off the road.

These voluntary work possibilities will be told about in shallow guest houses, red on Internet forums, but most important - you can actually see it yourself. I experienced this one of my first days in Takeo province while pedalling my bike trough the sleepy village. All the children on the side road were shouting to me: "Hello! What's your name?! Where you go?!"

It took just a second to show my reaction (without even saying a word) and usually it was just about enough for them to come closer and continue our one way conversation: "Can I go with you? I want to speak English".

In a few minutes I was confused with all the names of their teachers. All the Jackies and Joes. Tims and Toms. Roses and Roberts. And believe me, they would be delighted to name all of them. If you ask, even in an alphabetic order.

After the name game, they will ask you if you are a volunteer.

Well, my Friend, even if you have been proudly thinking about yourself doing all this - pedalling to the villages in the heat of 35 degrees and in your own sweat just to teach Englih - this moment you would wish to answer negatively. Just to prove yourself being different. Not one of the crowds.

But you are exactly like the others. Like one of these Jackies. One of the crowds. One in the crowds. The crowd.

Oh no, my Friend, not the one in front of it.

Cambodian children

It took me some time to write again. After leaving Laos, I lived in my memories and refused to see the reality. But the reality started to knock on my door so intensively, that here I am in Cambodia.
It has been a couple of days that I have been volunteering in one orphanage. To tell the truth, I lost my battle.
Yes, I lost it in three days. Not more, not less.

There I felt like one of many. Without a face. Without a colour. Like a clear ghost which appears and disappears without being noticed.

And there I was just one of many who comes and leaves. The Zoo. Accommodated not with tigers, not with lions. No elephants or monkeys. Only people. Though kept not in cages, but in their destiny.

And when you ask their names, these little prisoners of destiny do not look at you while answering. They know it very well - in a week or two this ghost will be gone.

So here I am. I lost my battle and I leave.

With a feeling of quilt for taking part in the Zoo's creation.

Laos PDR or Please don't rush

When one crosses Laos border, he or she can see a big sign welcoming to Laos People Democratic Republic.
At the same moment one enters Laos time zone, where 5 minutes extends to a half an hour. Where today is tomorrow and tomorrow might not come as planned. Actually there is no plan for tomorrow. I wonder why they even keep the word for it?

Your bus never leaves on time or it might not leave at all. No complain is worth to make. There is no time here.

In this timeless zone you work every day building a house, planting rice, gardening or running a restaurant.  Since you can remember yourself. And you sing while working. Dirty hands and clear mind. Without any thoughts to become an officer or to work in the parliament. Or in an embassy in Jamaica.

Well, my Friend, you are lucky to be born and raised in Laos, where ones mental health and inner happiness is more important than any education or a career.

No need to drive the newest Mercedes. Or to become a successful businessman first year after your graduation. Or to go to Jamaica.

The place where you are is the best place. Because you are there.

And remember, the cure for unhappiness is happiness whatever the others might say.

In the Jungle?

Before  I entered Laos, I had a very different picture of this country in my head.
Undiscovered. Wast and secret. Jungle. Full of dangers and warm people. Who are still pure and smiling.
And yes, my Friend, they do smile every time they overcharge me at the market.

I do smile as well. Every time I realize how wrong my picture was.
I expected to be one of the first explorers in this secret jungle. Like a pioneer. Or a monk in a pagan country.
I will be honest, I felt challenged by the Mother Nature. By jungle. Wild animals. Snakes and tigers. Indeed, very dramatic.

However, it feels slightly different when I sit in the restaurant in a Lao town surrounded by hundred of teenagers prepared to take the same challenge. Same motivated and brave. Just a bit more relaxed... with a bottle of beer. Or two.

And then I start thinking: are we all pioneers or Laos is not a jungle any longer?

I would like to believe this is the first case (the West is taking the challenge), but most likely I am wrong...

Why are you so smart and beautiful?

Sometimes you do not realise how different people can be. Different faces, hair and skin. Different colour. They speak different languages and do not understand each other. They smile different. They use other movements to brush their teeth. Or they do not brush them.

It is amazing how these differences make people act.

I was told, my Friend, that I am White People.
I was told that white people are smart.

When we visited a school in the north of Thailand, the first question these children asked me was:

Why are you so beautiful and smart?

And I, my Friend, could not answer.

Firstly, the colour of my skin does not have any correlation with my beauty or cleverness, I believe. And I hope. Otherwise I was one of the "lucky" to be born where I was born.
Secondly, how do you know? I did not have any T-shirt saying "I am smart and beautiful". I did not solve any math case in front of them. Not physics or chemistry either. Yes, I wear glasses, but just because I can see very bad. Not an advantage at all, when you think about it.

All I could answer to their question was that I am neither smart or beautiful. I could not say more. My cleverness probably left me for a short holiday, only beauty stayed. Beautiful, but stupid - very stereotypical girl, right?

But if you ask me this question again, now I know what to answer.

I am exactly the same as you are. Not worse, not better. I sweat when it is hot and I freeze when it is cold. I have two hands, two legs, hair on my head despite they are wavy.

The Sound and Smell of Blue

this island made me lose my identity. I cannot tell exactly what it was, but most probably the combination of blue deep water, clouds reaching mountains and muezzins from the nearby mosques.

or maybe I was simply not careful enough and lost it last night watching crabs in the beach.

could be soya as well... now when I get it with every meal... Did you know, that soya makes your brain function very slow? Slower than a snail can move. And at some stage it gets so slow, that it cannot become slower. Then all the aliens point at you and give you hundreds of new names. Mostly animal names.
And then you are not able to separate between your left and right hand, but you are able to lose your identity. Without any difficulties, just with some black spots in your memory.

This is why every time I eat soya, I always think - which hand is the spoon in - left or right?

Does not sound like me?

You are right, my Friend, it was not a soya bean what took my identity away.
I gave it away.
Actually I took a big scissors and cut it off. All my identity, all my hair.
It was long and wavy. Yes, my Friend, it was.

And if you ask me why, I can answer - I do not need it here.
The sound and smell of blue make me feel balanced.

And balanced, my Friend, means when you can sit under a palm tree whole day with that smell of blue and breath. Without any feeling of guilt. Or of time.
Without any identity.