Home » Vietnam » LZ - Sapa - April 13th 2005

These are entries from my travel journal from www.travelbog.org.
They are descriptions/stories of my trip from Hanoi, Vietnam to Phi Phi Island, Thailand from April 2005 to May 2005.

LZ - Sapa - April 13th 2005

Lt.col.lewin
2006-01-02 03:40:44

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stranger, in a foreign country, where I can't speak the language, down an unsafe road, without any way to communicate to the outside world in case of emergency, while on a poorly designed, weak-engined, chinese motorbike. Actually, that just ran through my head now...I thought absolutely nothing of it at the time. Off we went down a very long descent through what looked like a scene from Lord of the Rings. Towering mountains all surrounded us as we glided down several hundred switchbacks with our engines turned off and the wind in our faces. Occasionally, a large truck come flying up the hill or around one of those death turns. It wasn't much of a hassle to get over to the side, but in some places I could see it being a bit tough due to the large number of loose rocks. After about 15 minutes of smooth sailing, we approached an interesting situation. A smaller, lighter truck was coming up at us. This wasn't unusual, but he was hauling ass as he approached and didn’t slow down. Typically, they will slow down a bit as they lay on their obnoxious sounding horns. So, what happened next is something I will always remember. Disaster struck as I had gradually veered off to the right “shoulder” (the place where there were many loose rocks). I broke the first rule of riding a bike and or skiing, which is to never look straight down in front of you. At this moment, all I saw was a skinny, feeble, front tire being no match for the large, jagged, loose rocks scattered about. In a split second, Vu and I were airborne and in another, sitting up in a haze of confusion. My first thought was, "is she ok?" I’ve never fallen off a motorbike and I’ve always been cautious when I had a passenger because my life was in their hands. For a second, I thought all was well when I saw Vu sit up, but then those hopes vanished in a matter of seconds when she gradually leaned to her side clutching her knee. “Oh god, please let this little girl, who trusted me ...