Hell's Potatoes

On Saturday afternoon R and I went off to get motorbikes but instead came across an establishment called the "Potato Café". We responded to the call and went in for a drink. Upstairs there were groups of 4, all playing cards. We asked the waitress if we could have a pack of cards and she smiled as she said no.

As the  only potatoes in the joint, we were treated very well and the staff helped us learn to insult each other in Vietnamese. At one point, as my enthusiasm took over, I asked them if I could have a job on the weekends to learn Vietnamese? They suddenly couldn't speak English.

About half an hour later a couple of other potatoes arrived. They weren't as cool as us (no insults, no banter) but were still treated with kindness.

A few drinks later we decided to find somewhere to rent our motorbikes. As we departed the Potato Café we found that the staff had recovered their English skills. Using a lot of confident pointing, they advised us to go up the road for the best prices. We went up the road and saw nothing. We asked some guy who was leaning against a pole. He confidently pointed back up the road then grabbed my arm and escorted us to his store, a travel agency directly across from the Potato Café.

We sat down and asked for a 3-month rental rate. He offered $5/day, ie $150/month. I lied that our friends who teach English here only pay $40/month and that is our target price. He nodded and said we would need to go somewhere else and led us down another series of alleys, no doubt to find a purveyor of scabby bikes.

Eventually we found ourselves down a very dark and narrow lane. Our tour guide rang a doorbell and eventually a man in a white singlet yelled out at him from a window 2 stories above. This made him ring another doorbell, which did not answer at all. It felt as if we were buying heroin; a lot of heroin. Or a gun.

Then a door opened across from us, a woman appeared and started whispering a fairly lengthy monologue. She was wearing a loose white t-shirt, light blue pyjama bottoms rolled up to look like riding breeches and gold high heels. It was the type of outfit you would imagine necessary to ride a large stuffed animal (competitively). She spoke softly and slowly, pointed back up the lane a lot while at the same time kicking off her heels and slowly rolling down her pyjama bottoms such that when her monologue was finished she looked like any other  poorly dressed doorway woman.

Eventually we were taken back up the street to about 6 doors from the travel agency. Our guide dumped us with another woman and wished us well. She was very friendly and while she started at $50 we got her down to the target price.

She gave me a black motorbike to test drive. I told her I really can't ride a bike and asked her where everything was. She laughed at each thing I asked and pointed to the brakes, the indicator, the gears and the throttle. As I set off without a helmet and into the busy stree for my test drive, she  chased me down and flicked up the bike stand which was still down. As I took off again, I heard more yelling and looked behind to see her shaking her head and her hands at me and laughing. But I figured it was too late and just kept going.

When I came back she showed me where the foot brake was located and we signed a contract. This contract had a list of conditions, the first being that you promise to be a very experienced and safe rider. I felt I'd learned a lot in the past 3 minutes and was happy to tick it.

Both of us now had motorbikes and were ready to roll. At the first traffic lights R pulled up beside me and said "What are we going to call our gang?" to which I replied "Hell's Potatoes". We both nodded solemnly and attempted a snarl. Then we gingerly put our bikes into 1st and slowly lurched off down a long road that neither of us recognised.