Motorbike Migraine

For the second time in less than a month, I found myself sitting on a greasy, twelve-inch stool on a street corner in Danang on a Friday night.  It's not that I am developing an affinity for exhaust fumes or studying rush hour traffic patterns in the city.  No, once again, it was a motorbike malfunction that gave me another opportunity for an up-close and personal view of another aspect of Vietnamese culture.

My bike stalled at an intersection not five minutes after I had left the English school for the evening (with visions of a Friday night out in Hoi An dancing in my head).  First I pushed the bike to the curb and spent five minutes trying to gently restart the beast.  Eventually the man crouched on the sidewalk next to me, watching my efforts with fascination, suggested (I think) that it was out of gas.  Despite the fact that the gauge said the tank was half-full, I pushed the bike to the nearest fuel dispenser just down the block (not wanting to appear an air-head if the fix was as simple as refueling).

The gas pumper, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ho Chi Minh himself, kindly pumped me one liter of gas, practiced his English for a minute and scolded the crowd of onlookers (my interpretation once again) at the makeshift roadside beer garden/restaurant directly behind his gas pump.  I thanked Uncle Ho, hopped on my bike and prayed it would come to life at last.  It coughed and sputtered.  I smiled sheepishly at my friend, and he said, "Just wait two minutes."  I figured this was some kind of motorbike wisdom that I did not possess by virtue of my aversion to motorbikes in general.  So I waited - sitting patiently and trying to ignore the banter about my age in the background.  After two minutes, I tried again.  Dead in the water.

This is when the literal and figurative "pissing contest" began. The white, tank-top clad men with their rolling Buddha bellies hanging generously low began the procession to see who was "man" enough to start my bike.  It was not exactly a team effort.  Buddha #1 would stand up from his tiny stool, wobble over to the vacant lot (did I mention the beer), pee in the grass, and then unsteadily stride over to rescue the damsel in distress.  When his efforts proved fruitless (despite all of the advice being dispensed from the sidelines), another Buddha would stand up, pee and then make his way over.  This carried on for no fewer than eight different men before I decided to call a halt to the festivities.  I thanked them for their efforts, pushed the bike a bit further down the street and called Ha back in Hoi An.

"Just wait thirty minutes," was her response.  "Mai's son will come."  What could I do?  My Friday night was disintegrating before my eyes, and I was stuck with this crowd of hecklers for another thirty minutes.  I began the wait, glancing at my watch every few minutes.  Eventually Ho Chi Minh brought over a greasy stool, and I took up my familiar Friday night position at the curb.  That's when Uncle Ho asked me to pop the seat on my bike.  He unscrewed the gas cap and proceeded to seal his lips around it and started exhaling deeply into the tank.  I wondered for a minute if I was in the presence of some kind of "motorbike whisperer."  I was mesmerized.  He resurfaced, turned the key and ...nothing.  The spell was broken.  I was back to being stuck by the side of the road.  Ho Chi Minh had a black ring of gasoline and grime around his mouth (and God knows what kind of fumes in his lungs).

Various men in various states of inebriation tottered over and offered to drive me back to Hoi An on their bikes.  I waited and waited.  After about 60 minutes, a man pulled up on a bike and motioned for me to get on the broken bike.  I figured this must be Mai's son (who I had never met before), since he seemed to know that I was stranded there.  I explained that the bike was dead (in sign-language). He tried to start it, failed and told me to get on the broken bike. I eventually figured out that he wanted to push me with his motorbike back to Hoi An (30 km).  Umm...no.  That was all I could muster for my knight in shining armor (?).  No.  I don't love riding a motorbike under my own power - never mind being controlled by someone else's foot at someone else's speed in the dark with no working lights. Call me ungrateful, but I was ready to take a cab and ditch the bike.  After the third emphatic "no" my knight took off without another word to me. 

Bewildered, I decided it was time to call Ha back and get the story.  I pulled out my phone and discovered it was out of minutes.  At this point one of the guys from the roadside bar had convinced me that he could fix the bike in less than thirty minutes, so he had begun to pull it apart.  I walked down the street in search of a place to buy phone credits.  While waiting for the credits, my phone rang. Someone on the other end spoke English and said, "Where are you?  We are coming to help you."  I repeated the address and went back to my now disassembled bike.

Two teenagers (well pierced and tattooed) pulled up on a bike and reprimanded the guy pulling the bike apart.  They put it back together.  One got on the broken bike.  The other said, "Hop on my bike."  Now, I had just finished teaching where I must follow my favorite dress code, so I was sporting a knee length, black skirt in which I could barely walk - never mind straddle a motorbike.  Given the options, I hiked up the offending attire and "hopped on." They pushed the broken bike to a nearby alleyway and locked it up.  Then, once again, I heard "hop on."  Now I was the third person on the bike, skirt hiked up ridiculously high, straddling two teenagers I didn't know, shooting off into the darkness.  I tried to look on the bright side...at least they seemed sober, and we were headed in the general direction of Hoi An. I started to relax (as much as you can relax when perched uncomfortably on the back of a motorbike with small plastic parts digging into your backside as you try not to fly off the seat at every bump and turn in the road).

That's when we ran out of gas.  Deserted road, two teenagers, me in my "dress shoes," gas stations closed because of the late hour, walking and pushing a motorbike...this Friday night was shaping up fabulously.  It took about a mile of walking in the dark to find a roadside gas guy who pumped us a liter of gas.  We stopped in another few miles to fill up at a real station.  By this time I had hopped on and off the bike four times in this ridiculous skirt.  I just wanted to be home. Miraculously I did finally make it.  At 10 p.m. (three hours after my class finished), I was unceremoniously dumped at Ha's restaurant.  Apparently one of the tattooed teens was Mai's son, which left me wondering who, exactly, that man was who had wanted to push me back to Hoi An.

I chalked it all up to another cultural adventure courtesy of the motorbike and went to bed.  Never again will I curse AAA for being ten minutes longer than anticipated as I sit in my safe little car on the side of the road listening to the radio.  Perspective my friends...travel provides much needed perspective from time to time.  And I have had more than my share of perspective expanding experiences courtesy of the motorbike.  Travel on...