[Vietnam]
I heard there was this incredible single lane paved road that wound its way around Vietnam’s highest mountain – Fan Si Pan – and headed toward the Laos border. There was a place in Sapa that rented Russian motorcycles, and so I set out. It was empty road winding through jungle and mountains in perfect weather – and I found myself thinking that this was one of the greatest senses of freedom that I’d ever had in my whole life. It was stunning.
Yet how precarious that freedom. At about 3 hours I was cruising along, going gently downhill through a huge open valley of Himalayan proportions, the engine off, coasting. My hat blew off. I stopped, turned the bike on, went back to get it. I was going really slowly, leaned down to scoop the hat off the road, lost control (at a very slow speed) and found myself slowly drifting into a ditch on the side of the road. I was absolutely in the middle of nowhere, and couldn’t turn the bike back on. I’d screwed something up. I couldn’t get it out of the ditch.
For about an hour and a half I sat there, bummed at this turn of events. No traffic at all. I tried everything. Well, I finally figured how to start it, and drove an obviously messed up machine in 2nd gear all the way back. My fingers were crossed the whole time.