Buying a Scooter

Meet my new scooter, Pippi.

Pippi (as in Pippi Longstocking) is a 2012 Suzuki Hayate SS 125cc automatic motorbike. I've had Pippi for about 48 hours and she's been back to the shop twice now. :/ The first time was 20 minutes after buying the bike, we went to put gas in it and the latch to open the seat trunk (to get at the gas tank) was jammed. I remember checking it out at the dealer and it was fine. Marshall drove it back and they fixed it in a few minutes. The second time, I brought it in because it runs way too lean on a cold start and dies anytime you touch the throttle. The only way to get it to run is to let it sit with the choke on for about 10 minutes until it put-puts its way to a warm engine. They spent an hour on it today so hopefully it starts right up tomorrow morning! 

With buying a used scooter, there are always kinks and pains to work through... at least I did some research and found a reputable motorbike dealer that gives the bikes a 1 month full warranty. And he's easy to talk to and doesn't seem to bullshit much. I really hope Pippi is just testing the waters with me and doesn't make this a long running game...

Marshall is still on the hunt for a more motorcycle style bike. With a bad back, the scooter position isn't great and also the auto transmissions kill the ride quality for him. Real motorcycles are a bit of a rare find here as anything over a 135cc engine is heavily taxed. There are some Honda 67's here which is like a scooter engine bolted onto a simple motorcycle style frame with a manual tranny that he's pursuing. There are a ton of cheap Chinese Honda knock-offs here that make it difficult to find an authentic bike. We'll see how that goes!

Another funny thing about Vietnam is that foreigners are not allowed to own anything like a car, scooter or a house. My scooter is technically owned by some local guy and the document proving this is a small blue laminated card that was issued by the government. How it works here is that there is no documentation of transfer of property. There is no standing in line at the DMV to transfer the title and pay tons of fees. What you do is just hand them your little blue card. The sale is done and who ever is holding the card, owns the motorbike. 

The learning curve to driving here is very fast, and it needs to be otherwise you'd probably kill yourself. I find the chaos and constant threat of impending doom to be almost... peaceful. Channeling your inner Zen Monk is the best way to make it through. If you start getting irritated, pissed off, or nervous it just makes everything worse and more dangerous. You just have to embrace it, love it and go with the flow.

I'm happy to say that my transformation into a local, seasoned scooter rider is almost complete. I've got a long sleeve jacket (even though its 90 degrees F), my backpack is hooked around my handlebars so thieves can't cut it off my back, and I've already carried two giant boxes that were held in place by my feet as I drove. I am one giant fabric face mask shy of being an authentic motorbike rider! 

Local style.

Also, for those who haven't seen the Top Gear Vietnam special - watch it here! It really is pretty accurate of how things are like here. I do appreciate how if you are in trouble or lost, people will come up to you and will try to help - and it's out of kindness and they never ask for anything in return.


** Posts are a little infrequent lately due to most likely the 'bamboo firewall'. Sometimes I can access the blog and sometimes it's blocked. If the blog disappears one day, just come back later and maybe the government has released the block.