This just in

Motorbike in Ha Tinh Province, Vietnam: $350

Motorbike repairs in three months since buying it: $40

Check-up and repairs at the Yamaha dealership at some point this weekend: $??????????

Waking up, deciding to go to the supermarket, starting your motorbike, and having it work perfectly: Priceless.

Yes, folks, you guessed it. My motorbike won't start again. As much as I like and respect Chi Hang, I am now beginning to think that her taste in mechanics is questionable (at best). Chi Quyen told me I should not have gone to some side-of-the-road mechanic but instead should have called her immediately, and she would have helped me to take it to a Yamaha repair-shop. Well... wish I had known that at the time.

The worst part is, the whole reason that I was going to the supermarket so early was because I had a craving for western spaghetti and meat sauce. I was going to buy the expensive imported Barilla pasta and some ground pork. I already went to the market on my street and bought onions, tomatoes, lettuce (yes! I wanted to make a salad with my new Italian dressing!), and herbs. The supermarket was the last step in the plan before embarking on my newest culinary endeavor.

Fate had other plans in store for me, and does not want me to purchase expensive Barilla pasta or ground pork. Guess I'll have to stifle that craving and make do with Vietnamese food for the 320137203712039127th time.


Spaghetti and meat sauce, please wait for me until I have adequate (and safe) transportation to come scoop you up in my arms from the supermarket. Pho or xoi or banh mi or whatever other Vietnamese food I will be eating this weekend in lieu of the spaghetti I had envisioned, please accept my begrudging acceptance of you as sustenance. Please do not be offended if I treat you like a second-class citizen. But, I'm sorry to say... you weren't my first choice.

In other news from the "I hate transportation in this country" department, my bicycle has two flat tires. Are you laughing right now? Because as I typed that last sentence, my mouth actually broke out into a smile. The absurdity of this situation is... well... just that. Absurd. I would have a non-functional motorbike and a non-functional bicycle, all at the same time.

In Vietnam's defense, I am beginning to realize that things break and/or wear down more easily here because living and working conditions are so much less ideal. The streets by my university (if you want to call them "streets" and not "gravel roads," which is what they really are) are filled with pot-holes and big rocks. I'm sure I must have punctured my bicycle tires on one of the various hazards in the street. And since the streets are dirt-and-gravel, I'm sure some dirt or other irritant must have gotten into the engine of my motorbike and messed everything up.

There is an explanation for all of this madness, but that doesn't mean that I am any happier at the prospect of being without transportation for yet another weekend.