Wait Just a Ho Chi Minute!

Ho Chi Minh Highway, Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was an ingenious supply line that the North Vietnamese devised to safely ferry war materials from one end of the country to another. The trail covers over 1500km of vertiginous landscape, snaking up and around jagged peaks between dips into dense jungle. To think that human beings, flesh and blood human beings, carried heavy artillery over this mountainous terrain for such great distances truly boggles the mind.

Today, portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail have become the Ho Chi Mihn Highway, an equally daunting drive across a narrow stretch of broken tarmac spiraling through this same terrain. And what spectacular terrain it is. The mountains along the west edge of Vietnam are like nothing I have ever seen. Imagine, if you will, the scope of the Rocky Mountains combined with the striking sheared rock faces that embody Yosemite National Park. Sounds nice, right? Now drop a verdant jungle on top for a little extra pizazz, and maybe a few cloudscapes for some nice framing. My brain nearly exploded trying to take in the grandeur.

The road itself resembles more of an overdeveloped sidewalk as opposed to a highway, lined with small concrete posts every few yards--an unlikely impediment when hurtling off a curve into the infinite abyss. After some serious consideration, I settled on the best possible way to experience the thrill of the ride. Trekky had served me well but she would need a major upgrade to handle this type of challenge. So I traded her 21 gears of human powered pedals for 125cc of thrust, I swapped her modest braking power for stop-on-a-dime disk brakes, and I traded her ass-chafing seat for a comfortable saddle of relaxed leather. I was fairly certain that the Honda Master motorcycle I purchased, even second-hand, would tackle the curves with aplomb.

With the face shield up the wind whipped across my face, nicely cooling the inside of my helmet. It was way too hot for cycling anyway. I relaxed my body in a slight recline as I negotiated each curve, every peak and trough, each narrow straightaway. Very few people live in this part of the country. Even less could be found zipping along this hidden road. The screeching, belching trucks of the highway were no where to be found. The road was mine and mine alone. I raced around Eden with a smile on my face, leaving nothing but a whisper of my happiness in the wind behind me.