Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Motorbikes and Trust

One of my colleagues just posted a video of him riding around on a motorbike in Chiang Mai, Thailand and it had me reminiscing about a time I was riding motor bikes in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It also made me think of how I blindly trust so many people, but when you travel abroad it is exactly those crazy situations you put yourself in that are often the most rewarding, and make for the best stories! Lord knows I have millions of those, so I’ll take a break from serious entries and retell a fun story from Vietnam.

My friend Carolyn and I decided to couch surf our way through Vietnam last March and our first host in Ho Chi Minh was a Sri Lankan man. He was an amazing host, and we had a great time staying with him. In the mornings he arose early and headed off to work, or was just coming home from the clubs…either way we rarely saw him in the mornings. We took our time in the mornings and gathered our plan for the day on where we were going to go, and what sites we were going to visit and what delicious new fruits we wanted to try that day.

This particular morning his cook had made us breakfast and we were discussing how we wanted to get to the market. Having both traveled throughout Asia, and lived in Japan we weren’t too concerned on the logistics of where we were going. The cook noticed us looking at maps; she didn’t speak much English, and told us in a few methods of conversing, (sign language, pointing, limited words…) that if we waited for her to finish she’d give us a ride on her motorbike. After living in a country where the dominant language is not your own, you get rather used to conversing without words, so this wasn’t as hard for us as it would be for first time tourists.

Carolyn and I are both rather adventurous travelers so we thought this would be fun. We started to ride down the elevator to the parking garage and it dawned on us that there would be three of us on a bike. Now for those of you, who have traveled in Asia, you KNOW there can be MANY people and animals on a motorbike…but we were a tad nervous.
This picture is from the internet, but you get my point.


We hopped on the bike and she put on a helmet, and so did Carolyn. But for some reason I'm pretty sure I did not have one…but hey, it’s Vietnam they do this all the time…right? The three of us rode out of the parking garage on her bike, which was actually rather scary and not at all comfortable.

We get to the top of the parking ramp, and she motions for us to get off, so we oblige and get off the motorbike. Now we are standing in a parking lot, and she is on the phone. Okay, now what, we thought.

***Now, let me interject some points you need to realize. 1) Carolyn and I do not have the phone number of our host. 2) I have an iPhone so on occasion I could get Wi-Fi to message him on the couch-surfing site, but that was about it. 3) I have our hosts address, Carolyn does not. 4) Neither one of us are positive where we are going. And 5) We do not have an emergency plan for what we should do if we get separated, keeping in mind at this time Carolyn has NO contact information on her whatsoever. ***

Back to the story, a man on a second motorbike pulls into the parking lot and the cook motions for Carolyn to get on his bike. We both look at each other and shrug, in the “let’s see what happens next” kind of way. I hop back onto the bike with the cook, and we’re off.

Our drivers stay pretty even with each other so we’re close to each other. Then we get on the highway…going AGAINST the traffic. If I have ever been close to death it was during this time. This is when your faith and prayer life is strengthened, in those moments, of oh dear God, PLEASE don’t let me die here. That terrifying act only lasted for a few minutes, but as I’m sure Carolyn would agree, a few minutes too long.


We are then off again, it’s at this point Carolyn’s driver gets way far ahead of us and I realize… I cannot see Carolyn…I do not know who this woman is, or where I am going, Carolyn is lost. I’m sure the same thoughts are going through her head. But what can you do? You’re along for the ride, quite literally. I tried to enjoy the rest of the ride on my first motor bike in Vietnam; riding on motorbikes is really quite exhilarating. But I am also thinking, I’m not wearing a helmet, I still cannot see Carolyn, and I don’t know where we are going.

Needless to say, I am a bit too trusting. I trusted this woman and that man were taking us where they said they were. I trusted that she was a safe driver and I wasn’t going to die. I trusted all the other crazy drivers not to hit us.

I trusted that God was watching us and keeping us safe. I was trusting a lot of things at the same time. And as most of my stories end, everything worked out perfectly. We both arrived around the same time at the designated location, we were both alive. We thanked our drivers and then discussed how we should probably have a meeting plan if that situation should happen again.


2 comments:

  1. And then we bought a bag or two of delicious rambutan.. or was it mangosteen?

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  2. I think it was mangosteen if my memory serves me correctly. For those of you who do not know what that is: http://moacdc.thaiembdc.org/thaiproduce/images/august2010_mangosteen.jpg

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