EPIC TRANSPORTATION FAIL

This has been the week of bad bike karma.

As you all know, I recently bought a bicycle. I was starting to feel like a legitimate inhabitant of this city, as I wound my way through the market-filled alleys and carried large bags of food in my front basket. Then, the other day while riding my bike home from work, the front brakes fell off. Literally. Fell. Off.
I had to ride the majority of the trip during rush hour using my significantly less effective back brakes- an exciting trip to say the least. This is an irritating setback, especially since I just bought the bike, but I have faith it will all work out, although I’m not too sure about the return policy of the random guy on the street I bought the bike from….

Setback number 2. I finally brought my motorbike home from work to practice driving it at night when the streets are empty. Last night, after enjoying an iced-tea with the three men who live nearby who invited me to sit and watch Vietnamese TV with them and say things to me in Vietnamese I don’t understand and then laugh, I decided to take my motorbike out for a spin. 20 minutes down the road, it ran out of gas and I was stranded with a dead motorbike and only $4,000 VND in cash (the equivalent of $0.25). In my defense, it’s hard to tell how much gas you have when there’s no fuel gauge. Fortunately, my friend Jon and his boyfriend came to my rescue with a plastic water bottle full of gas and saved the day! In the end, I only had to spend about an hour waiting and playing charades with the security guards at the hotel/night club I happened to stop at about why I was loitering- and I learned a valuable lesson:
ALWAYS CHECK THE GAS.