I developed a new strategy to (attempt to) keep my weight on. I call it 'binge in the city, starve in the country'. At breakfast: a platter of fruit, peanut buttr, a stack of Bannana pancakes, and a plate of fried noodles. All for about 20 quarters, or $5.
The road hugs the Vietnam coast, we rode hugging it with our eyes. Again, indescribable beauty. Taking photographs does not do justice to whAt I actually see. It's almost an insult to take a photo of something so beautiful, clouding nature with pixels.
We got to hue but that wasn't worth writing about- we didn't stay long enough and found ourself in the backpackers district. Just another Vietnam Disney land equipt with sovrnerr shops, English speaking 'natives', and hamburgers. I feel pity for the travelers who willingly find themselves in these areas.
If there's one thing that I plead you to do thus far, it's to research footage from the Vietnam war; news broadcasts, photos, articles. Horrible body numbing, breath hijacking information. How coulld humans do this to one another. Where now I drive by getting smiles, waves, and 'hellos'--[this same brain and body] minus [forty years] plus [the same geographical location]--I could be committing the same atrocities. Whose to say I wouldn't. Whose to say you wouldn't. You dont know what you'd do had you found yourself in the same context. But in a sick way I can understand it. I bicker with a street vendor for no meat on my sandwich, 'kawm titt kawm titt'. The misunderstanding can be unbearably frustrating. It's easy to hate, reject, fear, despise the difficult. It's much harder to love and embrace something so abstract and foreign. It's easy to kill something you can't communicate with, something you internally dehumanize. Which is partially why I ask for kawm titt.
In Vietnamese culture it is good manners to touch your right arm with your left hand when you exchange goods or shake hands. We met some guys at a noodle shop drinking rice whiskey at one in the morning. In typical fashion, they offered us some and wouldn't take no as an answer. Accepting the powerful water, we reached out our arms, touching them with our left hand. They did the same. The humorous thing is they probably thought we knew to do that action by instinct.
New navigational tactic- write the city name on my arm and point to it when asking for directions. Saves the trouble of trying to pronounce and is more readily available than a map.
We were told to be weary of the Vietnamese, that they woould only be your friend so that they could get a buck out of you. Which turned out to be bullshit advice. Actually it proved true once, and even then he took us to the best mechanic in hue city.
The interesting list of things I've seen people take on a motorbike thus far: televisions, cows, pigs, breast feeding mothers(3), a desk, a bicycle, a mattress, bird cages, chainsaws, 5 people, boat propellor, and 15 something cases of beer.
Everyday that Bon jovi song sticks in my head. He puts it well, if only there wasn't the cheesy 80's stigma. It's all the same, only the names will change. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes it's not for days. The people I meet, they all go their separate ways. And times when your alone, all you do is think. And I do ride a steel fuckin horse.
We keep saying, "that was the best (fillingheblank) amount of dollars I've ever spent." because it's true...every time. I've yet to say the opposite.
I have common material for starting a 'conversation' with a person who owns a cat. Simply point at it and say meow. It gets a smile every time.
It was a certain night and it was decided that we were going to make it all the way to Hanoi the next day; 465 kilometers, 4 inches on yhe map. We slept at another shop owners house in pha nah khe bang national park. She offered for us to stay inside but this time we slept out front in the dirt to be as little nusince as possible. At 6 am we woke to a crowd of men drinking instant coffee, becomming their "morning entertainment" as usual. We strapped our bags to the cold metal for the last time and took off.
I've been offered a minimum of 12 shots of whiskey from 12 different groups since my Vietnam stay. That morning the streak was not to be broken. As Gus filled petrol down the street I was flagged over to a table where a half dozen men sat. My left hand was occupied by a cup of tea, my right 1.5 ounces of sting. It was 7 in the morning. I saw Gus ride by so I slugged the shot and downed the tea. "gamoon" (thank you) and i raced away with chuckles sounding off behind me. "it's a good thing they don't have liquor stores here or it would be game over. These people drink like fish." Gus rightfully observed.
We rode, rode, and rode. 3 bike fixes, 600,000 dong, 7 pull outs of the map, and 18 hours later we arrived in Hanoi covered in moonlight.
We went into a store that was their equivalent of Walmart. It was te first commercial place I had seen in weeks. Overwhelmed with the stimuli, I caught myself walking around with a mouth dried out from hanging open. Happy songs with children singing in unison, short Asian people racing around frantically, florescent lights, sanitary smells.
I say, " if irony has its way, this final stretch is where were going to crash." Driving into the city we saw two motorbikes get in a head on collision. We ran up, I took out my first aid kitAnd started to fix up the man, dazed with a bloody gash in his forehead. He stood wobbling, I put pressure on with peroxide and gauze as he looked through me. It's funny how instinct kicks in almost mechanically; instinct to help.there was little free will involved in that scene.
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