Dragon Fruit

(PICTURE: A field of dragon fruit.)

One of my favorite parts of our trip was to see all of the changes in agriculture as we drove from the north to the south. Around the beach in Mui Ne were fields upon fields of dragon fruit. This is perhaps the most interesting fruit I've ever seen grow. Basically, the farmers erect a concrete pole in the field and then strap on some dragon fruit leaves. The leaves grow like vines around the pole and then sprout lots of fruit.


(PICTURE: The fruit sprouts at the end of the leaves.)

Huyen pointed out that it is so weird how such a moist fruit is grown in such a dry area. There seemed to be no water anywhere near the fields yet dragon fruit is always very juicy.

(PICTURE: A dragon fruit. One of the more interesting looking fruits in the world.)

My poor helmet

(PICTURE: A reflection in Cao Bang.)

Nice picture, right?

Well, I thought so. That's why I stopped on top of a hill to take this shot. Per my usual picture inspired moment, I pulled over to the side of the road, removed my helmet, placed it on the side-view-mirror, and dug through my bag to find my camera. As soon as I removed the camera, I heard Huyen make some noise that sounded sort of like, "Whoooaaaahhhhhhh whoaahhh". What she was reacting to was my helmet falling off the mirror and rolling down a very steep hill into the water below:

(PICTURE: My helmet about thirty feet below us.)

There was no way to climb down to the water because it was extremely steep. The only place to get to the water level was about fifty yards downstream. I immediately gave up on the helmet and said that I would buy a new one in the town we were staying in. The road we were driving on was very back road and I decided I could make it thirty minutes without a helmet. However, my wife isn't a quitter like me. Huyen said we had to get the helmet since it was a very good helmet and we wouldn't be able to get another like it until we reached a major city. I agreed to give it a shot and went off to find a long stick. Huyen's plan was to throw rocks at the helmet and help guide it towards the river bank. As crazy as that sounds, it totally was working until it was about fifteen feet away. At that point it started to drift across the river...

...and that's when the only fisherman we saw all day came miraculously to our help. This guy was floating upstream on a bamboo raft and quickly turned course to get my helmet. You should have seen the look on this guy's face. Confusion would put it mildly. The guy kindly retrieved our helmet, gave us a wave and continued on his way.


(PICTURE: The fisherman getting my helmet.)

The helmet was drenched with water that didn't seem to be the cleanest. I drove back for about twenty minutes with no helmet on as to let it dry. Then when we got closer to the town and traffic, I put on the helmet without the drenched insides. That night we washed and dried the padding and it was practically good as new. However, throughout the trip, whenever I'd put the helmet on the bike, mosquitoes seemed to flock towards it. Maybe it was my shampoo...

Highway Rest Stops

(PICTURE: Nothing like taking a driving break.)

You've got to give it to the Vietnamese, they know the true definition of a highway rest stop. Once you hit the center of the country, there's places all over the road that have hammocks waiting for you to take a little snooze. There's really no way to better ail a sore butt and back then to swing in a hammock for thirty minutes while downing a coconut.

Guilt

(PICTURE: The Arlington of Vietnam.)

As an American, the hardest place to mentally travel through was the center of Vietnam. It seemed that every road we were on would have some monument or cemetery dedicated to those who died fighting America. It often seemed that the small the town, the more people who had died during the war.

On multiple occasions, Huyen and I were passed by vans filled with family members who had just recovered a body from the war. Furthermore, there were lots of roads we drove down that had bomb craters in the fields. One time on the road, there was a sign that warned people there were still land mines in the area. At another point, a woman told us that the area around us had all been doused with Agent Orange during the war.

Right around the DMZ line is a massive Army cemetery with over 10,000 people interred there who died fighting America. Huyen and I had stopped here to pay our respects and to see if by any chance her uncle's name was written anywhere. The cemetery was organized by provinces and we quickly found Ha Nam but couldn't find Huyen's uncle's name. We ended up going to the center of the cemetery, lighting some incense, placing some sticks on random graves and then leaving. It was pretty somber.

Warning: Beards scare children

(PICTURE: A common reaction to my beard.)

The first time I met Viet Huong, my nephew, I learned an important lesson: Beards scare children in Vietnam. At that time, I had a solid scruff working, nothing compared to the full-on beard I've been sporting during the motorbike trip.

A lot of children have looked at me with pure puzzlement as if to say, "Why isn't that monkey behind bars at a zoo?" Some kids have even smiled at me and waved. However, those responses always change the second I get within five feet. Once I get close, well the fear starts. I can't tell you how many little kids cried on this trip because their mothers tried having them meet me.

The kid in the picture above was at a motorbike repair shop we stopped at to fix a flat tire. At first he was about ten feet away with his older sister. The two of them were staring at me, completely transfixed. I decided to go over and sell hello to them which got this little one absolutely wailing.

I just hope my one day half Vietnamese kids aren't petrified of daddy if he doesn't shave for a week or two!

VIP!

(PICTURE: The owner of the restaurant who insisted we were VIPs.)

You may recall that I once wrote there's a funny saying about each province in Vietnam. My two favorites I wrote about in the past were for Hai Phong ("the most beautiful but meanest girls in Vietnam") and for Huyen's province Ha Nah ("9 sweet potatoes become 10 sweet potatoes" about people taking shits off bridges).

Well, I've got a new contender, Thanh Hoa. Thanh Hoa's catch phrase is, "An rau ma, pha duong tau." This translates to, "eat ma vegetable and destroy railroads." Apparently people in Vietnam think that those in Thanh Hoa are only good for those two things.

Well, I've got to disagree. When we pulled into a small town in Thanh Hoa, the locals completely laid out the welcome mat for us. Huyen and I strolled into a rice shop and before we knew it we were directed into the VIP room by the owner. Of course as soon as we sat down, we were given ma vegetable to eat. The VIP room had a nice fan and a heck of a lot of VIP flies. I'm 99% sure the owner threw us back there so that the other restaurant patrons would stop staring at us and eat their food so he could turn over their tables.

Nha Tro

Back to the most bizarre day I've ever had in Vietnam...


(PICTURE: These two things being in the room should have been a sign that this wasn't an ordinary hotel.)

When leaving the village, Huyen was drunk and I felt the tiniest bit of a buzz. I don't like to drive if I've ever had more than one beer so immediately after getting off the dirt road, I pulled over to a little road stop to have a drink of water and some sugar cane juice. Huyen immediately started looking for something to eat and found a bag of chips that suited her appetite. I, on the other hand, started to down a bunch of liquid. Originally there were only three people at this snack shop and the husband couldn't stop talking to me. The guy was most likely drunk and kept saying, "I once saw a tall guy with a beard like you. He was from Cuba. But he was younger than you. Maybe 23." I think he repeated this about six or seven times.

Finally, two other dudes pulled up to the roadside shop and tried to practice their English. They spoke roughly three and a half words each. However, this didn't stop them from trying to speak more. Huyen started to translate and then said with slightly slurred speech, "Please don't make me translate for you right now." I laughed at this and decided it was time to get going especially since one of the new guys lit up a cigarette and was making no effort not to blow it in our face (this is very typical as people generally assume in Vietnam and especially in the countryside that nobody minds cigarette smoke).

So Huyen and I hopped back on the bike and drove to the nha tro in Pleiku (you may recall from two days ago that we had thrown our bags in a room and laundry in a machine before we set out for the hydroelectric plant). Well, when we pulled into the guest house, the owner came out and said, "I'm sorry, but you can't stay here. We're not registered for foreigners." Immediately something clicked in my brain: this was a whore house and not a hotel. You see, when we first came, I think they had assumed we were just going to have sex and leave. In fact, when we left for the dam, the woman came out and said, "Are you leaving now?". We had said no and took off to sight-see.

Frankly, this place was pretty gross even for our standards on this trip, so we said it was no problem. We agreed to pay the woman half of watch she originally asked for and then grabbed our bags and wet laundry. Naturally though, as soon as we got back on the bike, it started to rain. We then drove to the next hotel on the main street and were told that they were full. So we hopped on the bike again and went to the next hotel, a very nice establishment. The owner there too said they didn't allow foreigners. Now keep in mind, on our hole trip this had never happened to us. But in Pleiku it happened at the first three hotels we went to. Finally, we found a very nice hotel in the center of town and paid the second most we've ever paid for a hotel room.

As we checked into the room, I glanced at the clock and saw it was 2pm. So to recap, before 2pm we had nearly had a machine gun in our faces, got a private tour of a hydroelectric dam, drank rice wine with a bunch of drunken villagers and were thrown out of a whore house. And then, to top it all off, I checked my email and found out that our change of schedule the past week had been for naught since Linh's hometown was Pleiku and not Buon Me Thuot. What a day!