How To Clean Your Motorbike Helmet

De-stink your insurance hat! 

If you're anything like me, you put this task off regularly (it's easy to forget about and ignore it, honestly), but it's very easy to take care of.

Motorbike helmets are obviously a necessity. However, all that foam and fabric lining collects a lot of bacteria, mold, sweat, hair products, and just general nastiness, so it's necessary to sanitize and un-gross it regularly.

I spend about 2 hours on my bike on a normal workday (uf da, that was physically painful to type). I admit that I'm a sweaty person, and most of that happens above my shoulders, particularly my head - having the sun beat down on the plastic while I'm driving to my far-away workplace doesn't help at all. The foam lining of my motorbike helmets can get preeeeeetty smelly after a month in the tropical sunshine, and if I get rained on and then have to wear it with wet hair, it gets even worse.

There are two ways you can take care of this minor, but inconvenient, task:

Vietnam Motorbike Bingo

Hey all, let's follow up my post about murderbike with a nifty little driving game!

Driving in HCMC is an experience. It can get nutty. There are so many people, everywhere, going all different directions, and everyone's doing everything all at once. You've got to look out for oncoming motorbikes, pedestrians, buses and larger vehicles - it's often overwhelming, and usually tiring, even after 4.5 years. You've got to plan for the unpredictable.

Check out a basic day in this gopro video my cousin shot on his trip for a taste of day-to-day street life. (Thanks CuzBro Chris!!)

These days, however, all this activity is pretty humdrum. Staying engaged while you're driving is crucially important - anything less than being 100% present is dangerous. I try to be observant of the world around me while I'm driving in order to stay sharp... and here are a few of the most striking sights you'll see on the roads of Ho Chi Minh City!

And now, a one-note joke for all you SEAsian Motorbike drivers out there...Just for you, with love from me... HCMC MOTORBIKE BINGO!

Drug Laws in Vietnam

Let's get high on information!

After I saw this painting in a Bui Vien bar (Cyclo?), I realized that this might be an area of interest for some people coming to Vietnam. After all, it's not like drugs don't exist here - just like gay people, Visa, and Coke-Cola, they're everywhere you want to be. Here's the information I've collected on this topic - I hope it's useful... or at least interesting!

I would guess that roughly half to two-thirds of the foreigners I know in Vietnam smoke marijuana at least occasionally, and a fair amount of younger Vietnamese as well. The truth is that drugs are easy to procure here in Saigon... but that doesn't mean they're legal. Far from it, in fact. They are super, duper illegal, and trafficking will net you the death penalty (so... please don't do that).

Current friends who smoke up tend to do so in their own homes and limit their purchases to marijuana. The people I knew that did harder things, like ecstasy or MDMA or cocaine or what-have-you, have all moved away back to their godless, liberal Western countries, so more power to them and I hope they're staying alive and healthy. I've never heard anything about an acquaintance getting caught for drugs, but maybe that was the point (mwahahaha). So, for the reason that I only have sources about marijuana, I'll focus exclusively on weed in HCMC.

Let me be clear:

If you're into heroin or opium, this is not the article or nation for you. You are playing a very dangerous game bringing an appetite for these drugs into the country, and ANYONE carrying even a small amount of heroin is given the death sentence. So, again, please reconsider your life choices if this is your intention, and seek help.

Also, I'm not advocating anyone smoke marijuana. Many people do recreationally, including in America (but who knows what will happen under Trump!). Be safe and discrete. Whatever you do, do NOT take your stash or anyone else's across borders! Do not be a stupid drug user, and you'll have many lovely years of getting high in low-risk, beautiful settings ahead of you.

Click through for rumor, vague laws, innuendo, hearsay, bribes, and the death penalty - everything I've been able to find about drugs in Vietnam!

Saigon Survival: How to Get a Tow Truck for Your Motorbike in HCMC... and How I Know This

D1 in the distance... so close, and yet so far. I had to leave it here for a bit...

Broken down on a highway or rural part of HCMC? I know the feeling.

Boy, do I ever.

Yesterday I had the unfortunate luck to develop a flat tire on my way to Vietnamese lessons (which are going much better than last year, btw!). The number of extenuating circumstances, however, were really just improbably high... 5 hours after it all started, I was finally on my way, my bike repaired.

But how did I get there?

Story time!

And BONUS - scroll to the end for contact information for what might be HCMC's only English-speaking Bike Tow Truck service.

My New Motorbike (For Now)!

Bike, thy name is FLEXIBILITY and ACCESS.

After months of putting it off, it dawned on me at the goat restaurant that I just can't NOT have a motorbike anymore. Getting around is easy without one, but the expenses add up - 2 bucks here, 7 bucks there, a taxi to far off locations, xe oms wherever and whenever you need them... And the hassle of haggling is something that I never look forward to (although I've gotten better at it. A little).

Initially, I'd been waiting (and waiting... and waiting... and waiting... UPDATE: ...still waiting...) to hear from my company about what public school I'd be in before I invested in either a motorbike, if it was far away, or a bicycle, if it was close by. Because I plan to be here more than 10 months, a rented bike would be more expensive than purchasing the same bike outright, and I wanted to wait and make the choice.

XE ÔM RIDE!!

Yesterday I got some video of what it's like to be on the back of a motorbike going through Saigon at 7am. I've been trying to get a good trip video for a week now and finally realized this is about as good as I'm going to get.

The driver in the video (not the one in the picture on the left) is my regular guy - he camps out where my side-alley exits into the main street - and he is a little faster than some of the other xe om taxis that I've taken. Not the fastest on the road by any means... some people with their own bikes really zoom. But he doesn't limp along like some of these weaker bikes I've been on. I like that. He also doesn't go the wrong way down one-way streets, which I ALSO like. He's a good driver.

Check out the video after the jump...