Yesterday on the motorbikes was so much fun that we decided to stay for another night and explore the North of the island. To get to the North you need to pass through town over a floating bridge that is on the back of a boat. When we were trying to cross the bridge it was turned sideways as it does six times a day to let other boats passed. We joined the line of other people waiting for the bridge to open back up.
Once we got through town we stopped at a restaurant recommended by the Australian guy. It is called Sakura and is run by a woman who worked with the American's during the war and has impeccable English. More importantly the food was really cheap and delicious. Every morning the woman goes to the market to get fresh everything. We were only able to finish half of our food. As the fat little piggies that we were we got back on our bikes and continued further North.
We found a secluded beach without anyone around. I was going to tan my bum but I was afraid that the glow would be so bright that boats would crash into the shore so instead I played in the waves like a little kid for ages.
We headed back to town around 5pm when everyone was returning from work and it was a mad house with people and motorbikes everywhere. There were by far more people around than I have ever tried to navigate around on a motorbike and getting through everything was exhausting. I kept thinking someone was going to run over my toes as it was a lot of stop and start traffic and my feet were just sitting there waiting to get squished. We made it safely through the traffic without a scratch or a bump into anyone. We actually pulled over and did a High-five.
Unfortunately, earlier in the day when I was parking my bike on a hill it slipped off the kickstand and fell down. There was some minor scratching on some metal bits, nothing was broken and it didn't look that noticeable. When I returned the bike to my hotel, the bike was quickly swarmed by about eight Vietnamese women who work at the hotel, pointing and talking to each other. I walked over and the women got really animated pointing and giving me dirty looks. The main receptionist at the hotel, the only one who can speak English, came over to me and asked about the scratches. Apparently the bikes the hotel rents out are not actually rental bikes but bikes owned by various staff members to get extra income. They kept telling me that I needed to pay to get the bike fixed and I asked them if they were going to replace any parts to which the answer was no, they wanted money. I went round and round with them about how much if anything I should give them. The problem was that the hotel had my passport which I needed back, so we had to agree to something. After several rounds of negotiation I agreed to give them $10.
Check out the rest of today's pictures in the slideshow below:
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