The Training Bro

I am still in training. I am also exhausted from long hours and irregular sleep.

Training seems like it will never end. I started nearly three weeks ago and I still have about a week left to go before the company considers me to be sufficiently trained. I figure that, at this point, I am about 93% ready to be pushed out of the nest.

"Best coffee on the Interstate"

I am slowly getting the hang of it. I have finally learned to downshift, I no longer stall the fully-loaded truck while going up steep grades, I have finally learned how to slide my tandems forward and backwards without injuring myself, I have a better idea of adjusting loads (so the truck won’t be overweight at highway scales) and I am getting used to the idea of infrequent opportunities with which to bathe. And even though I am often stinky, I have my very own "truckers" coffee mug.

However, I am still wrestling with the Qualcomm unit.

Inside each truck lives a device that looks sort of like an institutional, ruggedly-built, beige plastic laptop computer. This what we call "the Qualcomm"; it monitors everything. The machine makes a sound like a hawk in distress whenever a new message comes in. Through it, we keep in constant contact with the Driver Manager and receive daily "helpful" missives from the Safety Department (messages that usually border on the bloody-obvious).

This balky device is our main tool for conveying information back and forth to and from the company. They use it to tell us where we are to go, precisely which routes to take, where to get an emergency repair done and where we should go to fill up with fuel. In return, we use it to let them know when we have arrived at a shipper, when we have departed a shipper with a fully loaded truck or when we have broken down on the side of the road and the entire truck is now on fire. The possibilities are endless.

The Qualcomm device is also used to maintain the all-important D.O.T. log.

The days of paper logs, the system where a driver uses a ballpoint pen to write in a book (and, just maybe, keep a second copy showing fewer driving hours) are just about over. Most companies already use electronic "logbooks" and the company that I work for is on-board and up to date. By 2014 or so, electronic logs will be mandatory in all big trucks nationwide anyway. This forthcoming mandate has seriously impacted any thoughts that I ever might have had about popping a handful of little, white pills and running a illicit load of Coors through the south.

Which brings me to Hours of Service.

For a moron like myself, one who never did really well at basic arithmetic during elementary school, correctly understanding my own H.O.S. is mind-numbingly confusing and difficult. The gist of it is that I have 14 hours (total) a day to work with, and, out of those 14, I can legally drive 11 hours.

But, if I am inefficient with my time, I can also fritter away hours from my 14 which subtracts valuable driving time from my 11 and that makes me very sad. I can allegedly work up to 70 hours in a week, but I must be in the sleeper berth for a goodly portion of that time though I must be off duty for another period (but not during the same period), though that doesn’t stop me from simultaneously working on other vital stuff, but not driving, whereupon I must take a 34-hour “reset”, which makes perfect sense, unless I am working on an 8-2 split or if I am doing a required recap, (AKA rolling your hours) at which point I curl up into the fetal position and sob quietly on the floor right next to the steering wheel.

Thankfully, the Qualcomm keeps track of available hours for me.

My life now largely consists of getting up before dawn, climbing down out of the upper bunk, putting on my shoes, climbing down backwards out of the truck and scampering to the restroom before I wet myself. After that, I return to the truck, change my H.O.S. status on the Qualcomm thingie from "sleeper" to "off duty", then go about finding some substandard coffee for my new coffee mug. One I am sufficiently caffeinated, I change my status to "on duty", do the morning pretrip inspection, climb back in, change the Qualcomm to "driving" and then try to drive somewhere without running into anything along the way.

Meanwhile, my trainer prompts me to remember all the things that I have neglected to remember. Some day, I actually will get it. I am not all that worried though, because if these guys can learn it, then so will I.

And at the very least, I have a new coffee mug.

We swap trailers just about every day, and occasionally we get one that has had an awkward repair.

All trucks are grey in the dark

At 4:00 am it was still pretty dark outside.

I parked my car, grabbed my duffel bag and went looking for my trainer's truck. All trucks are grey in the dark. I was in the right place, but I couldn't find my trainer and I couldn't find his truck. 

The right place was a dirt lot that filled with identical trucks. I finally located my trainer, climbed aboard his truck and stowed my duffel. This would be my home for the next three weeks. I would sleep in the cramped, top bunk. Bathing, decent coffee and speaking with anybody who shared my liberal politics would become a thing of the past.

It is now the end of that first week.

Once I had climbed up and into that Freightliner tractor, I would begin the real part of my education. Up until then, this whole truck driving thing had all been sort of theoretical. Now, that shit was real.

My company-supplied trainer has trained many before me; he is knowledgeable, patient and is quite the chatterbox. For the first two days, I rode in the passenger seat, listened and soaked up gobs of information, (most of it too boringly truck-specific to bother you with) but I would not be allowed to drive the truck.

When it was still quite dark out, we drove out of that dirt lot in Woodland down I-5, over to I-80 and eventually made it to Milpitas with a load; somebody else's load that was embarrassingly late. The load was so late that the consignee refused us, so we dropped off the entire trailer, still sealed, at one of our company's yards nearby in Lathrop and swapped it for an empty. Then, we drove somewhere else and picked up a load of ketchup and took that replacement trailer all the way up to Everett,WA.

After that, we went here, there and everywhere, picking up and dropping off all sorts of things; new pallets, giant paper rolls, hardware and garden supplies, boxes of paper towels. Nothing really all that special. Just stuff. Anything and everything. Drop off a trailer with stuff, swap it for an empty one. The destinations soon ran together. There were no wasted minutes, there was no time to relax. Sometimes we had to wait for people with forklifts to unload us, but mostly we just swapped full trailers for empty ones and were on our way. I didn't just sit, I helped to do stuff: raising and lowering landing gear, doing pre-trip and post-trip inspections, thumping on tires with a mallet, hooking up and detaching the air supplies and its "pigtail" electrical hookup. But no actual driving.

After a couple of days, my head was about filled with stuff.  (I keep learning gobs of stuff and the memorization never seems to end. I am naturally curious and I like to learn stuff, but come on! Enough already!)

On the third day, my trainer suddenly announced that I would be driving from then on. He would sit over in the passenger seat. I would drive.

Although I had driven a similar, newish Freightliner truck for a few short minutes during my orientation, I had never really driven one, never taken one beyond eighth gear. This new truck sported a 13-speed transmission, and now I needed to learn how to use its "half-gears", whatever the hell those were.

Also, I had never driven a loaded truck; in school I had only pulled empty trailers. That was about to change.

For that matter, I had never driven a loaded truck up and down a real hill of any importance. That changed too.

Lessons on everything continued, plenty of mistakes were made. I made slight improvements. Very, very slight improvements. I also made plenty of mistakes: I missed gears, I grinded gears, I took forever to back up to loading docks, I asked lotsa really dumb questions. But I continued to improve. After awhile, I made fewer stupid errors, though I still have a long way to go. And I will invent new mistakes to make.

As I write this, I am sitting in Gilroy, California, having driven down from Kalama, Washington, around Oregon and Washington for awhile and down I-5, past Ashland, up steep grades over the Siskiyous and down the other side, down through the Sacramento Valley to the Bay Area, down past San Jose to Gilroy, where I finally had a chance to write some of this stuff down, and where I finally got a chance to pee.

If you carrot all, you'll eat healthy.

The next two days of orientation at the trucking company were fairly similar.

There was the same bulbous instructor guiding us through various segments of the things that we needed to know. There was a parade of  representatives from various departments (Employee Benefits, Safety, Compliance, etc.) telling us what they did, what their concerns were and what they really wanted us to do now that we knew what their concerns were. They showed us how their GPS-enabled software knows exactly where you are at all times, how fast you're going, what gear you're in and how much fuel you're using. Kinda scary, actually.

During our breaks, I drank 35¢ diet Cokes and eavesdropped on sophomoric discussions of which caliber of handgun provides the most stopping power and how much some of my group despised the current President. Sadly, no discussions about Public Radio or this week's edition of the New Yorker.

To liven things up, our group was shown several videos illustrating how we would get into trouble, lose our jobs and kill scores of innocent school children if we did certain things that we all are now pretty convinced that we should never do. One of the better videos focused on driver health, or, more specifically, the lack thereof. Regular exercise (going on refreshing walks around truck stop parking lots is in my future), stretching exercises (up against the side of a Peterbilt) as well as the dangers of relying upon a diet based solely upon fast food.

In that video, a rich actor (playing the part of a underpaid truck driver) reached into the cab's cubbyhole for a Red Delicious apple whilst driving. Meanwhile, the voice-over actor recommended eating lean meats, whole grains and keeping a steady supply of fresh apples readily available for snacking upon, as well as some baby carrots. The class was quite amused the notion of eating baby carrots. I think that they were amused by the whole concept of vegetables, an unfamiliar food group.

After briefly touching upon the healthy trucker lifestyle concept, we were whisked away to the "mixed-message lunch". Lunch that day was held at the Hometown Buffet, a destination sadly overlooked in the "healthy lifestyle" video that we had just watched. Once there, everyone piled their plates high with hot food items that are illegal pretty much everywhere except in the southern United States. I avoided the chicken-fried steak with fetid Country Gravy and sat away from the others, all by myself, so that I would not have to discuss the merits of magnum over regular ammunition. On our last day, we went to an execrable Chinese restaurant that had pretty much the same menu as the Hometown Buffet, but with some Fortune Cookies for a bit of that Asian je ne sais quoi. There were no baby carrots.

We also got to tour through the company's office buildings, thereby disrupting folks who were just trying to get their work done. We got to interrupt the work of all sorts of nicely-dressed people sitting comfortably at their cubicles, staring at computer screens; the sort of of job I once had, back in another life. In addition to bothering the nice office people, we got to tour through where really big trucks get repaired after newbies like ourselves run into things.

The bulbous man issued us some supplies. We all received about a pallet's worth of manuals, rules and instructions, some trailer seals, a padlock and a mysterious steel tool that apparently is used for turning on lawn sprinklers. We also got issued a ComData card, some blank checks, a baseball cap with the company logo and a nifty lanyard sporting a nifty photo ID badge, the photo badge that signifies my employment.


Next week, I go out on the road with my trainer. I'm bringing apples.

What have I gotten myself into?

One day, I was somehow passing my DMV test and had become a licensed driver. The next day, May Trucking called and invited me up to "orientation", which I thought was just a fancy term for "interview".

The deal was that they would put me aboard a Greyhound bus and bring me up to their HQ outside of Salem, Oregon. Once there, they would put me up in a hotel, feed me for a few days and see if they liked the cut of my hijab. If they didn't, I figured that I would be shamed,  thrown back onto the Greyhound and, with my tail between my legs, forced to explain to everyone why I was such a loser (or looser, as so many people seemed to spell it nowadays). Instead of taking the bus, I opted to drive my own car up to Oregon; they promised to pay me back for my gas.

"It's a long way, about 500 miles", I whined to myself as I was driving up I-5.  I stopped whining when I realized that, from now on, I would be doing that every day. Fortunately, the driver's seats in Semi-trucks are designed for long trips, evidently the seats in my 1994 Camry are not.

I wondered what my classmates would be like once I got there. This could be really cool; it could be like when I was a college freshman: people that I met there would become my bestest friends, my BFFs, my friends for life! Or, (and far more likely) the people I met there would simply eschew me, look at me aghast, treat me like the misfit, loner and outcast that I always have been.

Being a Berkeley native and being brought up inside that strange fishbowl during that strange period long ago put me at odds with the rest of contemporary society. Even nowadays (with our polarized country), I feel as though I really don't fit in anywhere. This new career may be my best chance for me just to stay outside. I tossed and turned all night, worrying myself into a tizzy about the possibility of failing, especially of failing the skills test.

The next morning, I helped myself to the motel's free continental breakfast. I ate a healthy breakfast: raisin bran with skim milk, a piece of fruit and a hard-boiled egg. At about 7:30 am, a company van came to the motel to pick up all the people going to orientation. There was a crowd of people already outside, all waiting for the van. But they were not my people at all: dressed up in stereotypical trucker garb, ball caps, Carhartt jackets and all wearing Bluetooth earpieces, these were "Super Truckers". Certainly, these were not my fellow "ERD's" or "Entry Level Drivers"; they must all be experienced drivers who were attending orientation just in order to learn the company culture before they go back out on the road.

Where were my people? The newbies, still wet behind the ears from trade school? The ones with pierced ears, sporting expensive, bright red hi-top sneakers listening to that hippity-hop music with over-sized earphones? None of those people were around. Maybe they overslept?

I drove myself the six miles to school, parked in the lot and asked to be directed to "Orientation". Once inside, I found myself  right back with the same guys straight out of Central Casting, the ones who seemed to be auditioning for a part in the next installment of the Smoky & the Bandit series. I took a seat and simply waited to be curtly redirected to the correct classroom. Although it was still before 8:00 am, everybody in the room already had a folder of important papers except for me. I started fiddling with my smart phone, still waiting to be told that I was in the wrong location.

A man came in and told me to follow him out to the parking lot.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I haven't shown my paperwork to anyone yet", I told him. He replied that I was indeed in the right place, that the paperwork could wait and that we were going out for a road test. I told him about all of the "real truckers" that were in the room and he told me that out of the 10 people there, only one was an experienced driver; the rest were newly-minted graduate newbies like myself. And as for the extreme trucker garb, well, they apparently wanted to make a good first impression. With my fleece jacket, designer glasses and Merrell boots, I looked like I was there to attend an Audubon Society luncheon.

We walked out through a gravel parking lot, it was filled with enormous semi-trucks and trailers. These were not the ratty old school trucks that I had trained on, these were the real thing: shiny trucks built fairly recently, fancy models that had actual working lights and gauges. 

We did a light 'once over', not really a proper pre-trip inspection, just to make sure that the fifth wheel release bar was secure, we both climbed inside and I was instructed to drive back through the lot, out the gate and onto I-5. The tractor had a 13 speed transmission, one that I had never seen before. It shifted like a dream, assuming your dreams include double-clutching. I drove the prescribed loop, took my turns correctly, check my mirrors often, downshifted well enough and returned to the yard without embarrassing myself too badly. I had passed the road test.
 
Next, I was again snatched out of orientation by a different fella and driven to the back of the lot where there was an obstacle course set up with old truck tires and other nuisances. 

This was the "skills test" part of the orientation. I knew only a couple of things about it: that it was extremely difficult and that failing it would send me home that day. The skills that one had to show seem fairly easy as described: just do a prescribed right turn starting from a fairly shitty beginning (trailer positioning already tweaked so that it would be hard to recover), a straight-line backing (easy-peasy) and then a 45 degree alley dock. All stuff that I had trained on.

Of course, I had not trained on doing them with a 53 foot trailer or with my career at stake. 

The good part is that here, "pull-ups" were not penalized. (The DMV docks you a point each time you do a pull-up). Oh, and there was this little matter of a horse-shoe shaped portion that one needed to negotiate without hitting anything. Would have been a cinch, had I been driving a Smart Car, but I was not. Instead, I was driving a vehicle that was approximately the size of New Hampshire. Again, I took it slowly and somehow I passed the skills test. 

Back to the classroom and do some more paperwork, then went somewhere to correctly pee into a special cup. I passed again. At about noon, someone delivered about a million bad pizzas from Pizza Hut so we all ate pizza for lunch, thereby cancelling out my healthy breakfast.

After gorging on bad pizza, most of the others were sent off to get their DOT physicals done. That would take up the rest of the day. Since I had mine done just recently, I was excused to go back to the hotel. 

Once back at the hotel, I studied up for the nap test.

Squeeze me and I'll pass another one.

Well, thank God, that's over.

After I graduated from Trucker school, I had two long weeks to just sit on my hands and wait for the DMV driving test. I know how to sit on my hands. Quite good at that, actually.

I also used the time off to study for my endorsements. Endorsements are the certifications needed so that one can transport or do additional things, such as drive a truck around packed to the gills with explosives.

The HazMat endorsement is the hardest one to study for; it has some fairly straight-forward rules to memorize mixed in with a whole passel of oblique minutia. It is, to put it mildly, an absolutely boring mind-fuck.

When it became clear that I could procrastinate no longer, I drove my sorry ass down to the nearest DMV office and tried my best to concentrate on correctly answering the questions while a nearby, unattended toddler screamed. Despite my firm belief in imminent doom, I passed three tests that day and received my endorsements. Phew!

The following Monday, I went back down to the Trucker school in Stockton for some much-needed refreshing of my skills. (It is normal for the graduates to come back to practice just before the test)

It was pretty clear that, in only two weeks, I had forgotten quite a bit. I had forgotten the correct sequence of how to do a "Brake test". I had forgotten enough names of parts that I wouldn't be able to properly do my "Pre-Trip" but, most importantly, I had forgotten how to do a 90 degree alley dock.

Clearly, I sucked.

I was going to fail. I was going to humiliate myself in front of my friends, family, my girlfriend and my fellow students. If you don't do the brake test in front of the DMV examiner perfectly, you fail, you don't pass go and you won't get to proceed with the rest of the test. Big-time fail if you blow the first part. And failing was not an option. I didn't even have an escape plan if I failed.

I took the bull by the tail and faced the situation. It was either that, or fail.


On Monday, I reviewed both the "Pre-Trip" and the bizarre parameters of the brake test. On Tuesday, I spent five hours doing nothing but driving a semi-truck though the "alley dock" and parallel parking routines. On Wednesday, I went to the DMV.in Modesto to actually take my test.


I was nervous and absolutely tongue-tied during the Pre-Trip portion of the test. There are over a hundred individual truck-thingies to identify correctly and I just couldn't even get the words out. It was as if I had a terrycloth dish towel shoved down my throat.

Thankfully, it got better after that. I did fine during my driving and during the "rodeo skills". I didn't hit any curbs or run over any elderly pedestrians. I did, however, take three (cough-cough) pull-ups during my Alley Dock (which is quite shameful and costs you points) but, luckily, I nailed my parallel parking test.


My final score won't ever qualify me for the Trucker Olympics, but I passed.

I passed. I passed. I passed!!!!

School days, school days....

School is over, for now, anyway.

I have just finished my fast-paced, four-week, 160-hour, remarkably-costly (and incredibly stressful) term at the Western Pacific Truck School in Stockton. I have a spiffy diploma (suitable for framing), a major financial burden and permanent diesel oil stains on my clothing to show for it.

There was no cap and gown ceremony. Instead, they handed each of us a packet of Mail Pouch chewing tobacco and then announced our graduation over the CB radio. (OK, I lied. Actually, they shook our hands and gave us each a ceramic coffee cup emblazoned with the school’s logo in blue. (In effect, a $4,500 coffee cup)

I learned a lot in four weeks. I now can double-clutch a semi truck while driving down busy city streets, can accurately name off over a hundred parts on a tractor-trailer and know more than anyone in my neighborhood about air brake system failure.

What I still don’t have in my hands is an actual Class “A” license. The DMV office in Modesto cancelled my test appointment with no explanation. I have been rescheduled for April 17^th, which is (at this time of writing) over two very long weeks away. I am quite frightened that I will forget all of the nuances of air and spring brake systems as well as the 90 degree alley docking maneuver (a skill that I never really fully mastered) before my appointment next month.

A separation between graduation dates and the DMV testing date is fairly common, and the school handles this problem by bringing the student back to the campus for a short refresher course (at no charge) a few days prior.

The time away from school will give me a chance to study up on some additional “endorsements” that I should have in order to make myself more marketable as an applicant. I will study “Double and Triples” (additional trailers), “Tankers” and “Haz Mat” (hazardous materials) in my time off before the test. I have study papers, some surreptitiously-obtained DMV test copies and (wouldn’t you know it) there’s even an app for that.

That future DMV test is my main worry. It is a far more rigorous test than the one someone would take just to drive a car. The first part is “pass-fail” and involves accurately showing off your knowledge of obscure air gauge readings. Get one answer wrong and they “fail” you; you cannot proceed. Ashamed and humiliated, you will be told to return 45 days later, presumably after you have remembered the subtle nuances involving an “applied” brake test and a “governor cut out” air pressure readings. If one can perform the brake test to the examiner’s satisfaction, then one is allowed to show off their knowledge in other areas.

The toughest part has to do with demonstrating low-speed skills; being able to back a tractor-trailer perfectly straight down the length of a football field (without knocking over any orange cones) over might seem impossible, but that is actually the easy part. Being able to perfectly parallel park a tractor trailer and do a 90 degree alley dock is enough to send big, burly men into tears. I hope that I don’t fail the test (as many others from our school have done recently). Students that are absolutely crestfallen and must now explain to their friends and families what happened.

Once I get the license, I will get to audition at a real trucking company and, even then, I will only get hired if I can also pass all of their tests at a form of “trucker boot camp”.  (Think: Army basic training but with fewer guns) And if I manage to make it through there, they will send me out on the road with a “trainer”.

That is where my real education will start.

I attended SXSW in my pajamas

Rather than wait for the Journalists, DJs and Record Companies
(ie: the "gatekeepers") to decide what I am going to listen to this year,
I decided to check it out by myself. I cannot afford to go to SXSW in
Austin and schmooze, so I brought SXSW to me.

You can easily download a torrent that includes (what is hopefully) the best
tune from each of the SXSW performers and then decide for yourself.

The advantage is that one doesn't get "influenced" as much (by the incestuous
nature of The Industry), but the bad part is that one has to sift
through some pretty awful, derivative bands (many of which,
it seems, like U2 an awful lot) and doing so takes hours if you intend to
sample every tune.

Out of 739 songs, I liked 104 well enough to save onto my iPod. I have
found some very nice stuff, and that will probably lead to me buying their
CDs.

If nothing else, it is a reminder of how much great talent there is
out there but how little of it any of us will every hear. It also
proves that quite a few people like "Counting Crows" enough to imitate their
incessant whining.

http://player.sxsw.com/torrents/SXSW_2007_Showcasing_Artists-Release_1.torrent

How Lao Cai can a man be?

For many years, Vietnam had two-tier pricing. Foreigners were charged more for train and airline tickets and there was just no getting around it. This practice was eliminated a few years ago. However, buying items in the market is a different story. Paul Thoreux, in one of his many wonderful books, cited the old Chinese saying "You can always fool a foreigner". That saying holds true for Vietnam. I am often being charged double or triple the going price simply because I don't know any better.

When I have gone shopping with my friend Tin (in Hue) or Ha (here in HCMC), they have periodically come to my defense and dressed down a merchant who was ripping me off. There are several methods of handling the problem of being overcharged, amongst them is waiting until you know the real value of the item by watching all of the other tourists get snookered first. But how do you value a piece of artwork? It has no intrinsic value, it is worth only what someone will pay for it. Is that embroidered piece worth 200,000 dong? I have no idea. Sure, I know the "standard" bargaining techniques (start at 50% and be prepared to walk away) but who amongst us knows for sure?

Besides the conundrum of buying items with no fixed price, the small merchants simply cannot help themselves from getting in the way. If a shiny bit or bob catches your eye, the next thing you know someone is pulling out everything from the display and telling you the name for it in English ("You buy bracelet?"), just in case you were from Mars and had never before seen a piece of Chinese-made costume jewelry. This ham-fisted sales technique invariably has the effect of ruining my concentration and sending me scurrying from the shop.

Because I like to shop in peace, I often find myself in modern supermarkets. Clearly-marked fixed prices, decent lighting and always low prices appeal to me. I have stocked up on spices and kitchen tools in Saigon and Hanoi and have spent hours doing so. The bar-code scanner at checkout doesn't ever try to fool a foreigner.

Travelers in SE Asia are always on their guard. We have to be, as wandering peddlers are continually thrusting all sorts of useless treasures into your face, especially when you are trying to eat your breakfast or update your journal. (The last part does not apply to me. If I were to ever update a journal, then my crappy writing would surely reflect it).

Having someone interrupt your morning coffee in hopes of shining your sandals (do Tevas even need shining?) gets old after awhile, so pardon the fuck out of me if I appear a bit cranky. I know that you are just trying to survive on less money per year than I spend on shampoo in a week, but I don't need an anodized aluminum LED flashlight right now, I need my coffee.

And just when you are starting to mistrust everyone, you are astonished to find lovely bits of kindness and courtesy where you least expect it. People running up to you to return something that you have dropped. People proudly offering you food samples. People going out of their way to help guide the dumb foreigner, expecting nothing in return and smiling in gratitude just for the opportunity to help. Just like anywhere, most people are good people.

In Sapa, I had to argue with the hotel desk clerk because upon checkout he was going to charge me 50% less than I owed. He hadn't added up the bill correctly and wanted to charge me more than $30 too little. (There is no way in hell a trained manager can stomach that sort of mistake). The owner of the cafe where I frequented wanted my opinions on his new menu. I made him raise the liquor prices for the good imported Irish whiskey. ($2.05 was far too little.)

Just like every place in the world, there are both good and bad people. In the smaller towns where few foreigners (from the land of the jumbo) dare to tread, I was constantly pestered about my size. After I calmed down, I chalked it up to hillbillies being hillbillies no matter where you are. More often than not, I found courtesy and kindness in Vietnam of a kind mostly unknown where I am from. I love Vietnam.

Tomorrow, I start the long journey back. I encourage all of you to put Vietnam on your "short list" of places to visit. I also encourage you to check out some random snapshots that I took during my stay here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeehrlich/sets/72157594458315626/

Hmong and stay awhile

Up here in Sapa it is over 3,000 feet in elevation.

It's a good thing that I brought my North Face goosedown jacket with me. I have been wearing it nonstop for days now. The concept of bringing a down jacket to SE Asia is a new one on me. In most of the SE Asia, one wears shorts, a t-shirt and sandals and applys plenty of deodorant. Not up here. I am in the mountains near Mt. Fanispan, the highest peak in Vietnam.

The roads were finally dry enough yesterday for a motorcycle ride. Once again, the available rental Minsks were in such disrepair that I settled for a nearly new 100 cc Honda Wave instead. I hired the services of Ngyuh (the adorable little sister of my hotel man) to be my guide.

She has her own Honda and knows the road, I merely followed. Riding here is a "not to be missed" experience for a motorcyclist, the roads are twisty and the scenery terrific. There is the little matter of the mist and fog though. We would ride up through the fog to where I could barely see her taillight, then back down out of it again and again. All day long there were views to die for. And if I hadn't been paying attention to the road, I would have.

I am particularly interested in the crops grown 'round these parts. Not at all what you would expect. I mean there are the usual cruciferous vegetables, but also I spotted cardoons, sweet potato and the one that really blew my mind: long stemmed roses. They are grown here for the Hanoi market.

The plan was to visit a market with a specific ethnic tribe who lives near a valley a couple of mountain passes away. We stopped now and then because road construction or because an errant water buffalo was blocking our way. The distance was about 40 kilometers in the scrotum-shrivelling cold but it was a lot warmer down below in the valley. The market proved not to be all that interesting, after all. We retreated to a nearby cafe to have a bowl of duck pho and a couple glasses of green tea to warm up and then we rode back to Sapa. But not before buying some trinkets.

The hill tribe women in these parts are distinctly different in dress and language but they all share one attribute: they have many trinkets for sale. They are very persistant saleswomen. This time I ended up with a couple of hand-tooled bracelets. The day before it was some embroidered tat. The day before that it was some batiked something or other. Different tribes, different rinkets.

Back to Sapa, turn in the bike and drop in at my "local", the "Viet Emotion Cafe" to warm up. In just a few days, I have become a trusted regular. It has decent food, decent music, good coffee and a much-appreciated brick fireplace. The owner also offers free advice about the area and tours. His English is perfect. I am hooked on their breakfast omelettes that contain local sapa mushrooms. The other night I had goose sauteed with springs of local mint. Last night I had grilled wild boar with mushrooms and chili. It came on a sizzling cast iron platter, as if I had ordered fajitas. Dinner is washed down with dry red wine from Dalat.

Put Sapa on your "short list" of places to visit.

I don't like to minsk words

The train from Hanoi to Lao Cai follows the Red River up to the Chinese border. My soft sleeper was comfy and I slept through most of the clickety-clack trip.

Lao Cai has nothing much going for it, it is a dull border town with only recently built, unusually shabby buildings. The whole town was constructed in or after 1979, not for a lack of history, but because the Chinese flattened the entire town during a fit of pique. There's a lesson to be learned from this: don't piss off the Red Army.

Most everyone arriving to Lao Cai immediately climbs into a shuttle van for the last leg up to Sa Pa. The only exception would be myself, who confused and confounded all the shuttle touts by plopping my butt down on the train station steps and refusing to move until all the shuttles had departed.

I was on a mission to be an independent traveler, rent a Minsk motorbike and travel around the back roads sharing solidarity and gathering insights with the colorful local hill tribes and to be "one with the people". (A Minsk is a Belarussian, 175 cc, 2-stroke workhorse of a machine. This would be sorta like turning up at Hertz and asking to rent a Studebaker.)

Finding a Minsk was no problem. I was offered one for $7.00 a day from the local pho cafe and Minsk rental emporium. Within minutes, a gentlemen turned up with a Minsk for my approval. The sad old bike was knackered even beyond my standards, so I had him adjust the front brake before I would take it for a spin around the car park. The bike ran OK, but the other issue was the weather: Lao Cai is fairly high up and the weather closely resembled Scotland's worst. I decided that it was far too slippy and slidey for me to risk riding on unfamiliar roads sans helmet and common sense. I declined the rental.

Turning from proud traveler into an impotent tourist, I tagged along on a day tour to visit a Sunday market where the "Flower Hmong" congregate. Even though I lost my traveler stripes, I had a blast, took heaps of photos and amused the Hmong with my girth.

After the tour, I hitched a ride up to Sa Pa (elevation 1600 metres) where it is very cold, very damp and completely fogged in. No matter, as the Pinochio (sic) Hotel, is looking after me very well for $8.00 a night. My balcony suite has a wonderful view of the mountains, or is supposed to anyway, for I cannot see more than 50 metres.

Air travel can be very hannoying

I have been staying in Ho Chi Minh City with my friends Jason and Ha. They live in a very nice gated community designed and built for expats. It even has a pool.

Anyway, I got a lot of errands done in HCMC thanks to my pal Ha.

She found me a tailor to make up some of my signature shirts, found an optician to grind some new lenses for me to read with, found someone to repair and sew buttons on some of my tattered clothes, coached me on my pronunciation and bargained for things on my behalf. Ha loves having something to do, I don't think that a 'life of leisure' suits her very well. (On the other hand, I could use a life of leisure suits, but only if I had shoes to match.) She is also trying to play "matchmaker" for me, but that is another story for another time.

Jason is pretty self-reliant and is a man of few words. He is also at work all day. With me around she had someone to fuss over and chat endlessly with. She is also scary smart: Jason is a very lucky man.

It was time to move on, and I took a taxi to the airport for a flight up to Hanoi. The Saigon airport is normal, modern and efficient. Now if only Vietnamese passengers had a clue about the concept of air travel. "Really people, there is no need to push and shove, this is not the city bus!"

The Vietnam Airways plane was a new Boeing 777-200 piloted by a Russian pilot named Vladimir who has a big mustache. Lunch was your choice of pan-friend noodles with pork or an assortment of dim sum. I chose the dim sum. I have said this before but must say it again: Vietnam Airways is one of the best airlines in the world and I highly recommend that you choose them for your next flight to Danang or Hue.

Upon arrival, I grabbed my bag (13.5 kilos, just in case you are keeping track) and headed out to the taxi rank. The first metered taxi had no actual meter and once I realized this I threw a hissy fit. The driver was offering a flat rate of $10.00 into the city, but feeling that I was being scammed, I demanded to be let out. Into another taxi, this time with an actual meter.

I should have stayed put. The metered fare ended up costing a couple of dollars more than the flat rate would have been. Really: sometimes I can be such a schmuck.

My tiny, grimy, cheap-ass hotel room wasn't ready, which gave me plenty of time to be overcharged for a train ticket up to Lao Cai. I gladly overpaid as I was still smarting from being a schmuck.

Morning came early for me, mostly from jetlag, but also thanks to the People's Loudspeakers playing wake-up music and reading news and announcements. I do not speak a lot of Vietnamese, but am certain that the announcer mentioned something about "arresting all fat foreigners who wear loud shirts".

What's a pho man supposed to do?

Just trying to think straight after a 22 hour flight and having my time zones turned completely upside down.

I have already been here for three nights and haven't had any actual Vietnamese food at all.

What's a pho man supposed to do?

Now, the first night doesn't even count, as I arrived past midnight. The second night we went out for yakitori and sushi. Last night it was Indian food.

To maintain my no Vietnamese food streak, yesterday I searched out dim sum for lunch. Not so easy to find. This is Saigon, not Hong Kong.

First, I looked in the phone book Yellow Pages. They had listings for dog meat restaurants and KFC, but there were no listings for Chinese restaurants.

The solution was to take a taxi into Chinatown and then bother Chinese-looking strangers until we were pointed in the right direction. It helped that I had my pal Ha Trang along. Ha had nothing better to do than to help me find steamed pork dumplings.

We eventually found just the right place hidden away on the fourth floor in a down-on-its-heels mall. Once inside, it looked like any typical banquet restaurant that you might find in Oakland Chinatown.

I ordered enough dim sum for four, each dish costing slightly over $1.00 They paced the arrival of the dishes, but I snapped a photo of the first round. This shot could have been taken anywhere, so you will just have to trust me that the above photo is what the first part of our meal looked like.

I will be sure to let you know when I have an actual adventure.

Preparing to leap

Only a few days to go before this year's trip. Not surprisingly, I am stressing. You would think that I would have figured out this "pre-travel preparation" thing by now, but I haven't.

Got the passport last week, the Vietnam visa today. Tix are in order. Bills are sorta paid. I may want to pack shortly. Then again, why take care of it in advance? Let's wait until the "day of" to pack.

Tet a tet

Hanoi is not a small city at all, it is huge.

There must be two motorbikes for every person. Half of them are parked on the sidewalk annoyingly blocking my way and the other half seem to be careening along the streets carrying a weeks' shopping and the entire family. At first, it was a novelty to see a family of four riding a Honda 110, now it rarely raises an eyebrow. Thankfully, most people wear helmets. The young children riding on the handlebars don't, but at least the adults do. Most of the time.

Of course, motorbike traffic congestion is legendary in Vietnam and it has been made even more intense by the mad rush to stock up on seasonal treats and Tet supplies for the New Years' celebrations.

The markets were jammed, there were long queues getting into bakeries and supermarkets, the constant "meep-meeping" of the motorbike horns reached new levels. Things eventually winded down.

As afternoon approached, the metal shutters on storefronts started coming down; more and more places were closed for the holiday. At about 8:00 pm, I wandered down to the Vietnam Airlines office to inquire about an airport shuttle. The streets were nearly empty. Whereas before crossing the street was literally a matter of praying that I did not die under the wheels of a careening 100cc scooter, I suddenly had all the streets to myself.

Dinner was a toasted Danish salami and French Camembert sandwich on a nice baguette and washed down with an Orangina. I came back to my lovely $12 a night hotel and watched a movie on HBO. When it was over, I turned out the lights at about 10:00 and fell asleep.

Until midnight.

At exactly midnight, New Years was celebrated with a loud series of explosions, sky rockets, firecrackers and festive music blaring out of the People's loudspeakers that are present upon every utility pole in the city. Seemingly, all leftover U.S. Army ordnance was detonated within the space of a few minutes. Much hilarity ensued.

And then suddenly, as if by some secret signal, it went very quiet and everyone went to bed.

Glass half empty or glass half full?

Before I visited Vietnam last year, I researched stuff on the internet, so much that I got blisters on my fingers.

What I read on the Lonely Planet Thorntree and elsewhere gave me cause for concern. Many (not just some) people who had returned were complaining about, seemingly, everything in Vietnam. The people, the food, the prices, the cleanliness.

At the same time, others were distinctly on the other side of the happiness fence. They wrote of lovely people, wonderful food and overall great experiences.

This year, on the train ride from Hue up to Hanoi, I hung around with a couple of backpackers in hopes of sharing good times, but they did nothing but whinge. They whinged about every possible thing.

Once we arrived in Hanoi, we checked into a very nice hotel. (separate rooms, of course) The next morning, they were still whinging. I ditched them so that they would not harsh my mellow.

I mean, in life you make your own movie and all, but what the fuck is up with the whingers?

Why is it that some people have a swell time and others do not?

What gives?

Towel boy

Not long after I puffed out my chest and proclaimed with absolute certanty to my travel buddies that it was not necessary to pay $25 for a new-fandangled synthetic travel towel, (since, after all, even the grodyest guesthouse provides them) I booked myself onto a tourist traveler cruise to Halong Bay.

The travel agent gave us a list of things to bring along for the cruise. And on that list, it specified that I bring a towel. A towel that I did not have.

I managed to convince the grotty hotel that I am staying in to lend one to me, that I was not going to steal it, that I was, after all, checking back in within 48 hours. I felt humilated having to ask to borrow a towel
(but not nearly as humiliated as my weener became after I went swimming in the cold water of Halong Bay).

Yesterday, I went towel shopping.

I put on my beige Ernest Hemingway outfit (with matching pith helmet) and then hacked my way through the forest vines with a machete until I came to the "Big C" hypermarket located in the outskirts of Hanoi.

Towels are about 80 cents each. I chose a mauve one.

Halong has this been goin' on?

Hanoi is supposed to be much mellower than Saigon, but I haven't noticed much of a difference. It is still a city of incessant horn-honking.

It is also quite chilly up here. I constantly need (but do not have) a fleece jacket. This is a new one on me, I have always traveled in the south where it is much too warm. When I would type, I would often end my sentence with a perspiration.

I am staying in Hanoi's "Old Quarter" which is where everyone with round eyes stays. The streets are small, the buildings are old, crumbling and charming.

The last couple of days I have been playing tourist. I signed up for an overnight cruise of Halong Bay. For a rediculously small sum, one gets to sail the waters of Halong Bay, eat and sleep aboard a luxury junk. http://www.halong-bay.com/

Halong Bay is one of those places which you must see before you die, so put it upon your 'short-list' of vacation destinations. The tour options are roughly similar; some more luxurious than others, but all are basically the same. I chose a middle-range tour ($55) which included a guide, air-conditioned transportation, four meals, and a shared room (with private bath) aboard a spiffy purpose-made junk. Also, swimming opportunities.

How many times in your life will you get the opportunity to jump off of a boat into Halong Bay? I dived in a few times much to the amusement of the crew, who were likely betting their paychecks upon the outcome.

Fortunately, they did not need to call "Marine Mammal Rescue" for me.

Hurry up and Hue

The main mood in Vietnam right now is of anxiety, anticipation and last minute shopping.

To an Westerner, it smells of the week just before Christmas: everyone is running around stocking up on festive stuff: brightly colored gift baskets, seasonal foods, loads of treats in red packaging, large, potted kumquat trees and flowering peaches. There are special banners, displays and promotions on every possible space, from public buildings to Coca-Cola cans.

Vietnam Airlines took me from Saigon up to Hue. The flight is a little over an hour; Hue is about halfway up the country. It was supposed to have been an all-night train ride, but there were no train seats to be had, being so close to Tet and all. For about $10 more, I caught a flight. Vietnam Airlines is a wonderful airline, by the way. World class. Highly recommended. (They will be adding SFO and LAX soon)

We arrived in to rain, rain that continued through the night. The entire population was bedecked in plastic ponchos. It looked like the entire country had been taken over by Smurfs.

The crappy weather didn't matter to me, I was just there to see my buddy Tin, who I had met last year.

The next morning I met up with Tin and spent the time catching up, pondering life and trying to stay out of the rain. We talked at length, gave each other earnest, personal advice, and, just like last year, I neglected to see any of Hue's sights. We did do a chore though: he helped me to get a train ticket from Hue up to Hanoi. A "soft sleeper", upper bunk. The fare for a "soft sleeper" ticket on the all night train up to Hanoi is about $30.

That afternoon, we sat outside the station in a sidewalk cafe drinking high octane Vietnamese coffee and smoking Vietnamese filter tips. We were in no hurry, the train was unusually late due to the holiday crunch. We chatted until my train was called for boarding. We ran through puddles with my luggage, found the right carriage and I climbed aboard. Tin shook my hand and made me promise to call him soon.

I found my compartment, found a conductor to verify that I was in the right place, but promptly got scolded and was literally pushed off the train by an angry man in a green uniform. I had boarded the wrong train, the earlier SE2 instead of the train that I had a ticket for, the SE4. I wasn't the only one who had screwed up, the ticket checkers along the way had let me pass through by mistake.

I walked back to the car park with my tail between my legs. Tin was still there, drinking coffee and smoking White Horse cigarettes. He was horrified when he saw me, but once I told him what had happened, he was mortified for making such a mistake and losing face.

It gave me a chance to drink more strong coffee and chat, so it wasn't all that bad.
The train eventually showed up, a mere hour and a half late. This time, I got on the correct train, found the correct carriage and a friendly conductor pointed out the location of my bunk.

I was convinced I was going to get thrown off of this train as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeehrlich/

Sweltering in Saigon

The Mekong Express bus took me from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in air-conditioned comfort and with a bare minimum of delay. We were processed out of Cambodia and into Vietnam quickly, all things considered. The Viet Customs dudes seemed more efficient and snarled less than last year.

A uniformed stewardess from the bus takes care of pretty much everything for you; you leave your hotel at 0745 and arrive in HCMC at precisely 1300. The fare is supposed to be $12.00, but one pays the hotel an extra few bucks for dealing with the ticketing hassle. Well worth it, in my opinion. A tasty snack (a croissant and a chicken sandwich plus a bottle of water) is included. Cold wet wipes are handed out and the on-board TV shows bad Khmer karaoke. The bus drops you right in the backpacker district.

I got off the bus, had a quick meal of pho, then got into a taxi and went to my expat pal's house on the edge of town. Said pal lives in a new, gated expat luxury compound with hardwood floors and all mod cons. Feeling out of sorts in regards to time zones, I napped.

While he was at work the next day, I did a little bootleg-DVD shopping at the big mall in town and then returned to the safety of air conditioned comfort until the jet-lag monster hit me. One can have all sorts of plans for siteseeing lined up and then you hit the wall of sleep. Must sleep NOW. (It has been a week and I am almost over it, in another week I will have to attempt to revert back to Pacific time)

On Sunday, said pal and I went on an organized tour of the Mekong Delta. I am not a tour sort of fellow, but I have learned to recognize that being stubborn lets me see little, stubborness which turns into shame and regret. I rationalize it: I cannot be an itinerant traveler all the time, sometimes I must be a Contiki bus bunny.

The day-long tour of the Mekong included an airconditioned bus, boat rides, a tour guide, a decent lunch, some good photo ops and, as an added bonus, a collection of delightfully fawn-like Australian high school girls to flirt with. All this for US$7.00

Motodop or Motodope? You Decide.

Those who believe in intelligent design have never met my motodop.

I suppose that I could rent a small motorbike to get around Phnom Penh, but then I would have to negotiate the streets around here.

Motorbike rental is very cheap, it comes in at under $10 a day for a Honda 100 or similar. Just go over to "Lucky! Lucky!" (the market leader in scooter rental) and they will hand you a key to a shiny Chinese-made Honda step-thru motorcycle.

However, I am terrified of the prospect of riding here though; traffic rules are vague and largely ignored. Red lights and stop signs are mainly decorative. I didn't bring along my crash helmet and there is no helmet in the country big enough that would fit my 7 3/4" (62-63 cm) head. (Of course, I would be the one in a hundred that would actually wear a helmet, most here do not even own one)

Rather than negotiate the streets on my own, I hire the services of a trained professional: a "motodop". These moto taxi drivers sit in groups on every street corner; they beckon any fat foreigner who dares to walk anywhere on his own. Phnom Penh is not a large city, rides around town rarely exceed 2000 reil, or fifty cents. Even at that paltry sum, I am overpaying; call it a "stupid tourist tax".

One would think that, what with the fairly predictable destinations of the fat farang, the taxi drivers would be pretty good at getting their fares to their destinations quickly and efficiently.

One would be wrong.

The streets here are numbered and fairly straightforward with easily visible street numbers and addresses. This makes no difference at all. One rarely gets to the destination without a detour or two.

The game is played thusly. A foreigner exits a building and a handful of motodops beckon and in unison, say "Taxi, Sir?"

As there is serious competition, the bolder ones walk right over and get into your personal space, even if you insist upon walking. They then offer all sorts of suggestions and diversions, some that would make a sailor blush.

As a reasonably intelligent individual, I have come prepared with a business card from my destination. All business cards here are the same: they are made of durable plastic and have the name and address in both English and Khmer, with a fairly straightforward map on the back of the card.

The group of drivers inspect the card, huddle amongst themselves and proclaim that of course they do, in fact, know where the destination is, that they have been there many times and that they would be deeply honored to bring you there.

So you plop your butt onto the back of some strangers (now seriously overloaded) Honda bike and toodle off in the wrong direction, down the wrong side of the street with nothing but oncoming traffic aiming straight at you.

This is somewhat disconcerting, especially when nobody is yielding an inch, least of which are the enormous, shiny new Japanese-made SUVs with blacked out windows sporting NGO plates, driven by some asshole and paid for by your charity dollars.

Several blocks and a few U-turns later, the Motodop concedes defeat and pulls over curbside to consult with a new group of bored Motodops, all of whom consult the business card and map again and have vastly different ideas of which direction we should have been going in the first place.

It is said that you get what you pay for. The Phnom Penh Motodop is the exception to this rule.