Throwing a little too much caution to the wind, I rented a motorbike for a 3-day road trip through the lowlands, mountains, villages and the western city of Kon Tum. Everywhere I went, I met genuinely friendly and wonderfully curious people. The smiles and waves were endless. From backroads to main highways the scenery varied from rice paddies to cassava farms, to alpine forests and river valleys. I even found the old US combat air strip at Phuong Hoang near Duk To. The Champa temples at My Son were sublime; tourists are ferried to the site in old US Marine Corps jeeps. I did use up all of my nine lives though: the traffic here can be horrendously chaotic and it is always the largest vehicles that win. I was forced off the road a number of times; having to drive in the rain and the dark didn't help. Time to launder my karma.
