Motorcycle Backpacking in Vietnam Part 2: Da Lat to Kham Duc
I previously wrote about our trip from HCMC to Da Lat here. Lets continue north with the coolest fucking road trip of all time….
I previously wrote about our trip from HCMC to Da Lat here. Lets continue north with the coolest fucking road trip of all time….
Previously I wrote about the process of buying a motorcycle in Saigon (here), but in the next few posts I’ll lay out our route: from Saigon to Hanoi. Our route took us through the mountains, the jungle, and along the beach. We rode a total of 2,415 km (about 1,500 miles), broken into 14 rides. Maintenance on the bike during the ride totaled about $16, and we had to bribe one cop about $10. Overall it was one of the best experiences of my life, and I think everyone should do it.
Ho Chi Minh City, or as it was known before 1975: Saigon is the jam. I really fucking love this place. It’s one of the only true 24 hour cities in the world. Seriously, New York definitely sleeps compared to HCMC. The day we arrived we were exhausted, but agreed to meet a friend for dinner and a quick drink. I planned on being sound asleep by 10 pm. Flash forward hours, and many beers, later, and I’m sitting in a cafe in the center of the city staring at my watch in disbelief. It’s 6am? How the fuck did that happen? The traffic never let up, the street vendors never went home, the bars never closed, and all of the restaurants were still open. Consider my mind blown.
Travel Drunk Note: Today’s guest post on Italy comes from our friend Shane at NationalRVParks.com. If you are travelling, or recently returned from a trip and have a cool story, email us.
In Turkey your beer options are pretty limited. The most common and most popular beer is Efes. It comes in the light and dark varieties, but I prefer the light. In most areas you’ll pay about $3 for a half liter, but it’s quite a bit cheaper in the store. The other beer is Marmara, which I think is a little better in terms of flavor, and costs about the same. There is also a Tuborg brewery in Turkey, but why not drink a Turkish beer?
The Pamukkale travertine pools are a strange formation caused by thermal springs that have been going forever. The mineral composition of the water creates white travertine pools. It looks like someone sprayed the whole hillside with liquid marble, and then dug out little pools. Even Cleopatra came to bath here, so it’s only natural that we follow. We went to the pools as a day trip from Selcok, and we had plenty of time to see everything. It’s not the most exciting place, but it’s different, and you should go if you’re close by. The funniest part was watching the Eastern European tourists sprawled out taking sexy pics, even though they weren’t even in the same time zone as sexy.
We had a group of four, so we rented a car i Istanbul for about $40 a day, and drove south to Selcok (pronounced sel-chouk). Selcok is a small town located just outside of the ancient Roman city of Ephesus. The ruins here represent one of the best preserved Roman cities anywhere in the world. It’s pretty cool. There are two amphitheatres, marble-paved streets, the old library, and a ton of other ruins. Definitely worth the half day it takes to walk through the ruins.
Really, it’s no body’s business but the Turks. Boom! Didn’t see that joke coming, did you? Istanbul is a pretty great place to spend some time. It’s got it all: one part Europe, one part Asia; the best of the new, and some amazing history.
Flying from Egypt to Turkey we were stuck with a 4 hour layover in Dubai. Luckily, Dubai has a great metro system that connects the airport to the rest of the city. We hoped on and went straight to the tallest building in the world. It’s really tall. It’s also located next to the largest mall in the world, which was nice since it was a billion degrees outside.
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