Thursday, January 15, 2009

Have You Eaten a Cobra?
















Yes, this type. I kid you not.


No more Honda STX1300A. Goodbye my vICE.
I have sold it in the process of getting my new bike. I am now riding a temporary bike--a Honda Wave.

How does it feel? From riding a huge 1,300cc Honda Pan European to a bike with 1,200cc less.

I am currently in Viet Cong territory--Vietnam, Hanoi, a place where Honda Waves and the likes are flourishing. What interesting adventure am I having here?


















Hanoi--The most chaotic traffic on earth!
If you think Bangkok traffic is bad, come Hanoi.




Back to Basics: The Wave Experience

The Wave is a loaner bike from Looi's Motor to me. I sold my vICE to Looi's but my new bike is still a couple of weeks away. Mr Lee loaned the Wave to me to ride around.

I must say switching from the mighty transformer-like Pan to the Wave is like switching from being Superman back to Clark Kent.

With the Pan, I feel like king of the road. With a 1,300cc V4, I could overtake any 4-wheel on the road without batting an eye. I ride on the right fastest lane almost all the time.

















My time with Wave. But still wearing my Carber flip-up helmet.


With the Wave, I feel like the tortoise on the road. To overtake any car, I have twist the right hand grip 360 degrees to squeeze every available horsepower out. I ride on the extreme most left space on the extreme most left lane on the road.

Every other vehicle on the road is faster than me. The honda Super4s riders all look like speed gods to me. The malaysian wave riders that speed past you at a hair's width used to be an anoyance to me; now they look like Rossi to me.


From adopting a leg-wide warrior stance to ride the Pan due to it's humungous 29 litre tank and 1,300cc engine, I now adopt the same familiar cute puppy-begging position on the Wave.

From needing only one finger's effort to brake the Pan to a stop, I now need strength from all my fingers plus foot brake to stop a Wave in a hurry. Even that is not enough. Sometimes, I stick out my foot to help in braking like Flintstone.



Wave Reflections

But here are the positive sides:


















I laugh when I fuel up my Wave. A full tank Wave top-up hardly cost SGD $5. A full STX topup empties my piggy bank at $40 over. No wonder the petrol cash register girls always verify with me twice if I am paying for the correct pump whenever I rode the STX because how can bike refuel cost so much.


Another strange feeling I have when riding a Wave is that inspite of all it's humbleness, I feel...happy, satisfied, contented.

I think maybe it is because the Wave is so basic and simple that I actually feel privileged and happy that it can move at all and it's taking me places.

I think it is like normally, when we buy a Coke outside, we need the Coke to be very chilled to fully enjoy the soft drink and quench our thirst in the hot weather here. But when we are serving in the army (national service), we get so thirsty and are so deprived, even plain tap water feels so good and delicious to me. In army, a chance to shelter from the hot sun under a shady tree is a great relief; these days, we need nothing short of air-conditioning.


Valentine's Day coming. Let me tell you another secret. I also discovered that riding a Wave with your loved one behind is a great bonding experience. Need to hook that girl that you fancy? Want to rejuvenate the love in your long-time girlfriend/wife? Ride a Wave together!


Now, I am starting to understand more does not always mean more happiness. Less in life can be more happiness. Maybe that's why the poor in the poor countries invariably look happier than the rich people.























The happy me on a simple bike.





Hanoi, Vietnam

I am now in Vietnam for work. This is the land where the Vietcongs defeated the mighty American military not so long ago. And yes, the people here are still quite little and petite, guys and girls.

But Vietnam has prospered since relaxing on it's communism. Hanoi (in north vietnam), is a busy bustling place. The streets are so busy with traffic. There is a unique phenomenon here.
There is constant honk sounding all over on the street. Everybody is sounding their honk at somebody every 3 seconds.

No traffic rules (or they don't follow). Eg: No such thing as minor road traffic give way to major road. Just go towards each other. See who stops first and give way. It is a bit like the congested motorbike lanes in the old woodlands custom. No wonder it takes me 5 min to cross from one side to the other side of the street. I think I can't teach them my HOV safety riding techniques because they would then never be able to go anywhere.


Eat Snake


For dinner, my Hanoi colleagues brought me and my russian colleague to eat snake. Literally.


















The restaurant has many bottles of these...





The waiter came. We said, "One cobra please."





The live cobra before my dinner.






Preparing our food.











Blood and heart (still pumping).



We eventually drank and ate the cobra. I rather like the drink: cobra blood mixed with alcohol.
I passed on the heart. The russian put it into his drink and drank it.

















You can cook it in many waves. Steamed.



















Grilled. I like this style best. Taste kind of like tepanyaki chicken.


We survived eating a poisonous cobra without any side-effects.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You look like ah-beng on the wave..defintely not chio-kang..then there re those legs...uuurggh...

Anonymous said...

goodness.. i will never eat a cobra! so scary...

Ninjapura said...

eerr... can ask... how is the paper work to ride bike into vietnam? just bring log card can?

Chris said...

Hey Endless... hahha i also had the opportunity to ride (and crash) on a wave while working for pizza hut... its looks may be small but its fast!! Hahahhaa!