Traveling by motorbike is unlike anything. Losing your map is even better. When you decide to take another look at the destinations and realize 190 Km is not that far.The beauty of a route being much tougher then expected, especially when fine pavement turns into rock and mud. A 100 cc motorbike turns into a massive metal surf board. You start hitting your back pegs while trying to ride in someones tire tracks from the past. That is how the road was made by four wheeled behemoths which were made for that terrain. Where you travel through villages, there is no recognizable letter or word. A road chosen and paved for warriors. Curves and inclines made to test the abilities of control. Where wiping out and getting back up never felt better. Where once giving up was an option, it is an option no more. The road is unlimited and unforgiving to those who underestimate it. We each get our daily Thai tattoos (ankle on a hot pipe) and it hits us like the best espresso we ever sipped on. You get like a heroin junkie when you see more places that you can go to. You start to fiend more of the dust in your eyes and your mouth just waters at the smell of gasohol 91. The daily grind of the uncertainty. The unpredictable hand of life which opens its fist and reveals its little secrets. Keep pushing the limit. Keep burning those tires forward.

- Bogdan Tiflinsky (Jet Set Zero field producer)

Going up a mountain to give you the low-down… 1 month in.

In the streets of Thailand, the motorbike is king. The pavement rumbles with the roar of a million of tiny engines. Two lane roads yield to the whim of hurried drivers and makes room for four to six lines of traffic. Stoplights are a weakly stated suggestion and lane dividers, although clearly visible, barely seem to exist at all.

When we first got to Bangkok I was enthralled by the massive groups of motorbikes that queued on the shores of every major intersection. “I’m totally joining a bike gang,” I mused.

After arriving in Chiang Mai the prospects of riding motorbikes greatly increased. The streets of Bangkok had been too chaotic and riding in them would have been an almost certain death wish. Plus, there really aren’t any places to rent bikes in Bangkok. In Chiang Mai there’s a bike rental place on every other block. Once outside the city center the roads unfold into long winding stretches and deep banking turns. And thus, in this place, a bike gang is born.
We call ourselves, The Chicken Legs. And in Chiang Mai, if anybody knows anything about anything, it’s that you DON’T mess with The Chicken Legs. Cause, ya know, we’re packin’ Macs an’ stuff. Well, Macbook Pro’s to be more accurate, and the 15” version instead of the 17” version because everybody knows that the 17” version is just TOO big to carry around in a backpack. Anyway, you get the gist, we’re obviously hella tough! Ride on brother! Ride on…

One day.

Wake up. Late morning. Light, cool breeze.

Take a walk. Rent a motor bike for the first time in your life. Lie and say you have ridden before. Take the fuck off on the open road with no direction. Learn you are quite skilled at riding said motor bike.

See live tigers interact with people. Crack the fuck up as they cuddle with the wild animals. Feed koi fish. Take off on said motor bike again. Drive indiscriminately into the Thai jungle with no sound but the music of said jungle.

Share some rice wine with your newly formed motor bike gang – “The Chicken Leg Gang” – and some new awesome friends at a dimly lit outdoor patio. Barefoot – as is the custom.

Get invited to a house warming party for an Italian expat. Revel with men, women, and children from all over the world and learn phrases in three languages, three dialects, and seven accents.

Get in a truck. Drive. See a fucking lone elephant! Scream and point. Witness your camera man eat shit as he practically fractures his coccyx on the asphalt after leaping from the moving vehicle. Witness his awe inspiring recovery as he then bolts to film the elephant. Cherish the 4 second clip he captures.

Take your motor bike to an awesome reggae bar. Meet more people from more places. Dance on benches with beautiful women. Listen to live music.

Drive motor bike back to guesthouse on a lone stretch of dark road, through an alley, past a Buddhist temple, and dismount.

One day.
Best day.

(Version française plus bas)

Except for sleeping, many Vietnamese do everything on the street.
They squat eating on the sidewalk. They nap on their motorbikes. And, at almost every street corner, there’s someone to fix flat tires and fill up empty tanks with gasoline.

Sitting on the street.

(more…)

Back at home in Victoria, BC, I had heard whisperings of this website called www.couchsurfing.org. People told me it was a site where you could backpack to different cities and sleep on people’s couches for the night, or if you weren’t traveling at the moment, you could host travellers on your couch. “Cool idea”, I thought. But I didn’t follow up as I was renting a room in the condo were I was living so I wasn’t really comfortable inviting strangers over to crash on our couch. And the last thing I needed was another “membership” to a social networking site.

Fast forward to Turkey. The rest of the Jet Set Zero cast are active members on the couchsurfing site, using it both to find places to stay and hosting other travellers. Still, I resist. Finally, I’m sucked in because of the great information on local parties and events that it provides – namely, the party that we ourselves are throwing to celebrate Hallowe’en and our Istanbul departure.

What do I find when I join? A well-organized site dedicated to helping travellers find a safe place to crash for the night. There is also the all-important social networking, too – you can arrange (or be invited) to grab a coffee with someone in order to meet new people or get information on something you need to know about. My joining was reluctant but it seemed like time.

Now we’re in Saigon. The couchsurfing network here is awesome, tons of people use it and there are daily posts about getting groups together to go see stuff or questions about how something works in the city (ex. sights, areas to stay, etc.). I liken it to a very social, specific model of Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree, of which I’m a huge fan.

And what has it done for me? Well, when I look back on things, it’s actually done a great deal for me here in the city:

1.) It helped me get my job. I had just started to send out emails to schools looking for work, when I realized that the task of finding a job here was a little more daunting than I had originally realized. So, I put a post on couchsurfing titled “I NEED A JOB!” Immediately, people responded with different ideas. One of those was from a teacher at Cleverlearn Language Centre (where I am now employed), who gave me the name of the HR person to send my resume to directly and also to say that I was a friend of his. That was my foot in the door which got me the interview (which obviously got me the job).

2.) It helped me find my motorbike. I had scoured the tourist strip looking for a motorbike to rent but I knew I could do better price-wise. So, I put up a post about wanting to rent one and a fellow couchsurfer responded that he knew a woman that was renting a brand new one for cheap, and they’d make any minor repairs or adjustments that were needed along the way for free. Met up with this gentleman and now I have my sweet ride for cheap!

3.) It’s helped me widen my social circle. I check out the Saigon group posts fairly regularly, and there is always something going on. I am quite okay with inviting myself along to a potluck dinner or party of someone I’ve never met, in order to meet new people. It’s especially important if you are new to a city and need a way to get started socially.

So thank you, Couchsurfing. You provided me with fellow couchsurfers who were able to hook me up with a job, wheels and friends. Now, it’s up to me to keep the Couchsurfing karma going by providing advice and assistance to others!

We speak of it often, and for good reason. I’ve seen some crazy-ass traffic around the world, but everything else pales in comparison with the chaos found in Saigon.

There’s one rule in Saigon in regards to driving: anything goes. Once you accept this, you’re fine. There are few streetlights and few rules.  Five people to a motorcycle is commonplace. Need to answer your cell phone while maneuvering through hoardes of other riders? No problem. Do whatever you like because no one even notices.

I’ve had countless near-misses and have become so comfortable with the whole thing that I’ve adopted the local habit of riding with flip flops, hitting the sidewalks when the traffic gets heavy, and zipping into the oncoming lane to make the next light.

I created a video for your viewing pleasure of some of the rides we’ve taken:

On Friday night Jen, Kris, and I decided to head to a bar Vascos with our new friend Alex. We’d hoped since there were four of us, we could hop in a taxi and just head on over. The worst possible time to ever think you can hail a cab comes around soccer celebration time. We attempted to hail about 20 cabs in the street, only to be completely ignored. Then we actually managed to hop into three more cabs, only to be refused because “motorbike too crazy”. When we decided to say “screw it” and walk instead, even walking became an extremely tedious task.

So, as a courtesy note to any tourist in Ho Chi Minh City, never, and I mean never, make plans on soccer night that extend beyond a 30 ft radius. If you do, plan for arrival an hour and a half later.