Around the World in 80 Girls: The Epic 3 Year Trip of a Backpacking Casanova (13 page)

At
the end of the second day we stopped in a native village where I met some other easy riders. One of them was a Dutch girl with beautiful red hair and two others were oversized fat American sisters. I met them a couple more times on my trip. Most easy riders take the same routes, but Eddy liked to get off the beaten track as much as possible.

The
houses in the village were built on stilts to avoid flooding and tigers. After eating and drinking together I went to sleep and in the morning I was woken by a family of hogs sleeping under the house. I could see the mother pig and all her little ones through the large cracks in the wooden floor.

When
I opened the door in the morning there was a giant elephant staring at me, his trunk just half a meter away from my face. It shocked me because I was still half asleep. I got my camera but the elephant had already started moving away.

After
breakfast we got on the bike again. My bum was getting sore from sitting on the bike all day. We visited a mushroom farm and there were lots of animals around – dogs, ducks, chickens, rabbits, even a big scorpion and a giant python snake which I both held and took pictures with. We saw a lot of nature that day and visited a noodle factory and a brick factory. It seems that all the heavy labor jobs are done by women. The only man in the brick factory was a guy driving a bulldozer. The women are short and skinny but strong as a horse.

The
only guy I saw working hard was a guy breaking rocks in the hot sun.  I’m guessing he fought the law and the law won? He earned even less than Nga, back in Nha Trang. The guy was breaking rocks with a hammer all month for the amount of money an average American family spends taking their kids to McDonalds. I’m not preaching socialism here but sometimes you have to take a moment and realize how good we have it our western countries.

The
day after we rode almost all day to go see two waterfalls, one big one and one giant one. They were spectacular. At night we stopped in a small town and I told Eddy that my back and ass were sore from all that sitting on a bike. He said there was a massage parlor close by the hotel we were staying.. We went there together. I jumped on the massage bed and a gorgeous short girl walked in. She must have been about five feet tall, had a beautiful face and sexy slim body. She had quite a special way of massaging, mainly stretching the limbs. She was pretty strong. When she was done I had her walk on my back, just like you see in the gangster movies sometimes. It felt great.

This was really the agricultural countryside, so i
n the days after I went to a glue plantation, a rubber plantation, a black pepper plantation. I even cut rice in the field with some local family. The children would catch rats in the field and they’d be on the dinner plates at night. It’s a different world out there. You hardly see any cars because everyone is driving motor scooters, yet I didn’t see any accidents with people getting hurt; in fact, the only accident I saw was a guy losing his unbelievably huge load of bananas. Quite a sight. The whole street was covered with them.

We
later visited a small village where the village elder was this super happy short man. He kept laughing and cheering because of my height. He gave a long musical demonstration on his bamboo drums, which was boring but I acted as if I was enthusiastic so I wouldn’t hurt his feelings and come off like some spoiled foreigner.

As we were leaving, o
ur motor broke down and Eddy made some phone calls. He said that someone would pick us and the motor up. My western brain was thinking about a pickup truck but instead a guy on another motorbike came and pushed our motor with his foot for a few kilometers through the city we were in. No, seriously. Repairs took a few hours and we moved on. I took pictures of several war monuments and with an old (Russian) tank. After this we visited “Hamburger Hill”, a famous battle zone were many soldiers on both sides died for a small piece of land. There’s a very good movie about it with the same title.

What makes
Vietnam beautiful is not just the amazing natural scenery but mostly the friendliness of the people in the rural areas. People were always waving and taking pictures with me and children were always cheering or running behind the bike.

The
sixth day of my trip we rode to the Marble Mountains, where there are several Buddhist temples and pagodas in the mountains. I flirted a bit with a Vietnamese tourist girl and took many pictures with a school class full of teenage girls who visited the mountains. Even after visiting every country in Asia, I still say that Vietnam is the country with the best-looking girls, with have great legs and cute faces – although the Philippines is a close second.

Eddy
wanted to return to Nha Trang a day earlier than planned, and had found a new customer for the ride back. I didn’t mind giving up my place, because my body was very sore after sitting on the back of a motorbike for seven days. So I said goodbye to Eddy and took the bus from Hue to the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone. It was a tour bus and I hate those buses full of fat holidaymakers, but I didn’t mind this time because it rained a lot that day, and given the choice between a comfy bus stuffed with fat holidaymakers and riding on a motorbike through an endless downpour, I’ll take the option with the roof.

The
tour included many bunkers and a few museums. It ended with the Vinc Moc Vietcong tunnels. The tunnels were deep underground and all the work was done by women since most guys and boys were fighting the US. They dug out six hundred tons of sand using nothing but shovels and buckets. Did I mention that Vietnamese women are though? A whole village of some three hundred people lived underground for about eight years. Seventeen babies were born underground and all of them survived. The US army never found the tunnels.

A
fter the tour I was dropped off at some restaurant where I had to wait three hours to get picked up by the bus to Hanoi. While waiting I spoke to an Iranian/American guy who was pretty cool for a guy in his forties. Anyone who reads this who ends up in Vietnam, I definitely recommend taking an easy-rider motor tour through the Vietnamese countryside. It was one of the highlights of my three-year trip.

Vietnam – Hanoi

I spent about a week in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. I didn’t end up doing much there, because I had some bad luck –I ate some bad food and spent more time sitting on the toilet than going out. Hanoi does have some backpacker hostels but I found a room with bathroom for only about twelve dollars. It wasn’t much but at least the Wi-Fi worked. The city has a few attractions but most visitors just stay one night and then go on to Ha Long Bay from there.

One
day I went to a large indoor market to try and find some souvenirs. It was clear that not many tourists visited that place because I got lots of stares and people waving at me. It was hard to find something I liked. The clothing was too small. I’m not a giant guy but I’m tall especially compared to the very short and skinny Vietnamese, so most clothes didn’t fit me. It’s too bad that most people there only spoke a few words of English because there were some cute girls around.

A
rickshaw driver took me all over town and dropped me off at a few museums. The traffic is insane in Hanoi, with thousands and thousands of motorbikes and people on the streets from dusk to dawn. I visited an old fortress tower from French colonial times and the military museum next door. The museum was quite interesting and had lots of exhibits. There were a few pieces of artillery and airplanes outside. Like I’ve said, I’m kind of a fan of military stuff and history so I visit museums and battlefields all over the world. I still dream of visiting Volgograd in Russia, formerly known as Stalingrad and site of a massive battlefield and turning point in the European Second World War. It was the fiercest battle ever fought in history. It was from here on that the Nazis would lose the war. Why do I bring Russia up? Well…

Darya, from Vladivostok, had given me
the email address of one of her Russian girlfriends who was in Hanoi. We exchanged phone numbers and met up for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant.

We
met at a square close to my hotel in the tourist area. Polina was a nice-looking girl but nothing special, I would rate her at a 6.5.She was late, of course, as most girls always are. She had a motorbike and I hopped on, grabbed her around her waist and we drove off. She had a skinny waist, so far so good. We talked for a while and I had a noodle dinner which my stomach didn’t mind (for the moment). We said goodbye and agreed to meet again for a night out.

Polina
and three of her Russian girlfriends, who were all studying in Hanoi for some reason I’m still not clear on, invited me for a night out. None of the girls was particularly hot but all were bangable and we went to a club on a boat. I walked in with four white girls on my arm and heads turned. Some girls walked up to me after a while and started asking why I was there with so many girls. Then I took two of the blonde Russian girls, went to a hotel and fucked their brains out all night……

I
wish I could tell a story like that but the night didn’t go like this at all. After some dancing it was clear to me that the cutest of Russian girls didn’t like me in that way. I decided to aim my love arrow at the other three. Surely one would bite. It didn’t go anywhere; a Vietnamese ex-boyfriend of Polina’s showed up and did a bit of (passive) cock blocking. Although it was an ex boyfriend, the vodka must have had her juices flowing because she was all over him. The other two girls showed little romantic interest. Our group changed venues and we ended up in another club. We met some other tourists and they tagged along. I think one of the girls liked one of the drunken guys and started dancing with him. Due to a lot of vodka, I don’t remember the whole night, but one thing I know for sure:

I
went home alone and feeling miserable. I know I can’t win them all but I’d already had three Russian girls before. What I should have done was build some attraction and see if one of them was interested, if not use them as pawns to pick up other (Vietnamese) girls. I already had massive pre-selection built up in the room by showing up with four girls.

The
next day Polina texted me to go out again but my stomach was even more fucked up from the boozing the night before and I turned her down after initially saying yes. This must have pissed her off because I didn’t hear from her again. I couldn’t care less because I was about to see my Russian girlfriend from Vladivostok again in Bangkok. We had been emailing a lot since we met for the second time in Suifenhe.

I
had a near accident when I almost fell of the back of a motorbike on the way to the bus station to go to the airport.

Thailand – Holiday with Julia.

The last of my BETA days is how I can best describe my vacation with Julia, the girl I met in Vladivostok. Although this took place in December 2009, it seems like a lifetime ago. In less than a month I would turn into a totally different person, but for the moment I was still a beta guy with some improved social skills thanks to travelling, socializing with people along the way and “getting lucky” with a few girls.

I
had to wait two hours at the Bangkok Airport before Julia arrived. I was actually a bit nervous when meeting her because I had no idea how she would respond to seeing me again after three months. Well, she was in tears when she first saw me. We were totally ripped off when taking a taxi to the hotel I booked online. Luckily the hotel room was not too bad; we hurried into the shower and had a bang fest afterwards. Things hadn’t changed much since China. I don’t remember us coming out of the room that day. The next day was the 5
th
of December, a holiday both in my home country and in Thailand. In Thailand it’s the King’s birthday – a man worshiped by all Thai people. Insulting the King of Thailand is punished severely and could mean jail time in a country where you never want to visit the prisons. I would take a five-year sentence in Holland over a one-year sentence in Thailand. In Holland you can leave jail an educated man; in Thailand you most likely walk out a train wreck with irreparable mental damage.

We
had some dinner and walked around the world-famous Khao San Road, saw some temples such as the Emerald Buddha, outside which we got fooled into a tuk tuk and did the souvenir route for twenty Baht. We didn’t actually buy stuff but ended up at a travel agency and booked the rest of our trip there. The first travel agency we went was too tricky and expensive but the second one was more trustworthy, and we booked a 21-day holiday there. I remember us paying around a thousand US$ for twenty-one nights in 3- or 4-star hotel rooms, all transport all over Thailand including trains, minivans, hotel pickups, boats and even airplanes. Julia and I split the bill so I only paid about five hundred dollars for luxury hotels and not having to worry about anything. I was no longer a backpacker but transformed into a full-blown tourist.

Julia
had never traveled outside Russia and was a backpacking newbie, so she didn’t mind either. I don’t think we could have gotten it much cheaper if travelling on our own. It saved a lot of hassle and trouble this way. The total price was less than fifty dollar a day and Thailand is not as cheap as some people think. Forget the backpacker stories of living on five or six dollars a day. They are total bullshit. The cheapest, crappiest, roach-infested room I later found on Khao San Road was hundred-eighty Baht, which is about five dollars. Maybe if you live in a remote village it’s possible, but I still highly doubt it for a foreigner.