Motorbikes, tunnels and an uncle

I conquered a major fear of mine this past weekend and rode a motorbike again. For those of you who might remember, I was in an accident a few months ago and landed up in a cast for a full month. Being in a cast is never fun, let alone when you live in a city where it's difficult to walk around as it is and your bedroom is on the fourth floor of your house. So I've been weary of driving ever since I was a hop-a-long and had not yet climbed on a motorbike until this weekend.

My uncle was in town for business and we actually sat down and spoke for the first time in a few years. It's amazing how quickly time can pass and, before you know it, it's been 4 years and a lot of maturing before you speak to a person again. We decided to drive out to the Cu Chi tunnels, located 2 hours away from Ho Chi Minh City. After an hour of driving along the same road in the city, it dawned on me how huge HCMC actually is. We tend to stick to our neighborhood and those surrounding us but it becomes clear that you live in a sprawling metropolis of 12 million or so people when you're actually trying to get out of it.

We drove along highway where the Vietnamese actually wear helmets, displaying the first signs of being concerned for their skulls that I've seen. And we turned off the highway onto smaller country roads and wound our way through rice fields and country homes.

Once at the tunnels, we crawled through the claustrophobic caves and listened to the good-natured attitude of our Vietnamese tour guide who fought with the Americans and has no gripes for either side of the troops. And then I mounted the bike for the first time in months and off we went, back through country roads. We stopped several times for sugarcane juice in hammocks and later cold beer before we returned to the heat and smog of the endless stretch of city.