Mechanised Mayhem

It all started with the trousers shop.  "Let's go to the trousers shop" he said, "it'll be fun" he said.
En route to said trousers shop, following Alex on my "trusty" scooter steed, I rounded a corner and had to brake suddenly to avoid being impaled by a moto-cart driver transporting long lengths of metallic pipe.  It was at this time that my scooter decided that enough is enough and conked out dead, mid road.
No matter how I tried, the darn thing was dead and just wouldn't start, so I was left with the only option; to push the stupid thing all the way back home.  Luckily it wasn't very far.

I called Chi at the cafe where I rented the scooter from and explained the situation.  She agreed to send someone out to look at it and see what the problem was.
I waited in the doorway for what seemed to be about an hour until the "mechanic" arrived on a large white scooter.  He told me that we were going to swap scooters and he would take mine back to the cafe to look at it properly.  Good luck with that I thought.
He then proceeded to lift the scooter up by the back end and bang it on the ground over and over again quite hard, followed by slapping his hand over the open fuel hatch repeatedly.  He then started the scooter and rode off on it.  I guess that guy knows his scooters.

I eventually get my scooter back and it is in working order, no explanation was given as to what the problem was though.  Now for the epic journey.
Myself, Alex and his Vietnamese friend Nhat had planned to ride the 108kms to the coastal town of Vung Tau, but the recent events surrounding my scooter did not fill me with confidence.

To start the journey off on a wonderful note, I only had one hour sleep before leaving the next morning due to having a coffee too late in the evening, so I was amazingly tired.  Then we had to alter our route because of semi urgent petrol requirements, meaning it would take longer to ride down there, but also meaning that the traffic would be absolutely insane.  I had never seen anything like it.  Sections of jam packed road works, gravel, sand, debris, erratic and seemingly stupid scooter drivers.  Huge trucks and lorries would lumber out from side streets and driveways and simply barge into the stream of traffic without hesitation, blocking the swarming throng of scooters in their tracks.  As soon as the back of the truck had pulled out far enough, the scooter pack adapted like water and started flowing through the gap.  What an experience.

Upon arriving in Vung Tau and entering the lobby of our hotel, the woman who owned the place gasped in shock when she saw how filthy I was.  My face was covered in smears or grey and black soot; my white shorts were grey and my arms and legs were blanketed in grime too.  Hooray for traffic pollution!

After settling in, we went to one of the beaches to check it out.  We searched for a spot to sit among the thousands of other people there and went for the ocean.  Being the only two white people on the beach, we drew the attention of everyone around us.  From the shore, all the way out to chest height, people were staring at us; it was quite an odd sensation.

You can see Jesus on the hill to the left.

After the beach, we rode off to visit the giant statue of Jesus on top of a hill, a la Rio.  We had to climb up a lot of stairs to get to Jesus and they were pretty steep.

When we finally got up there, we climbed inside Jesus from his behind and all the way up onto his arms.  It was a pretty spectacular view and well worth the effort.

Click to enlarge!

On the way back down, it seemed our timing in climbing up was pretty good as the internal stairs were packed full of people waiting and it was a tight squeeze trying to get back down.

Dinner!

The next morning we rode to where we thought a market would be, parked our scooters and walked.  The entire place was empty apart from some half erected amusement rides and a lone shop selling giant carved wooden furniture.

Bring me Ned Stark's head.

On the way back to our scooters, Nhat suddenly mentions, "Oh I know why this place is closed... it is because of H1N1 virus".

Swine flu, wonderful.

Where the market was...

There being not much else to see in Vung Tau, we returned to the hotel to get our belongings ready for the arduous return trip.  This time though, we were taking a different route and using a ferry to cross the river; it was pretty interesting riding with a swarm of scooters on to a ferry.

The rest of the ride home was pretty straight forward.  We stopped at a plantation forest for some rest in hammocks and iced coffee, but the rest is history.