This is not what I thought a communist country was going to
be like. Vietnam is a strange mix. The complexities of Vietnam can’t be ascertained
by one trip passing through the country as we are doing now. Multiple trips would probably not give you
the ability to ascertain even a small portion of what Vietnam is all
about. The best you can do is open your
eyes, and your heart, enjoy the experience and glean little snippets of
information here and there.
I see is much capitalism going on all over the country. There are two things that people are making a
fortune on here.
First: Scooters. There are millions of scooters
everywhere. Cars are very expensive here
and a very small percentage of the traffic.
People use their scooters for everything. It is not uncommon to see a family of four,
today we saw a family of five, riding down the street. The next time one of your friends tells you
that they need to get a minivan because their car is too small for their family,
remember our pictures and laugh. Today I
saw a guy carrying five 60-80 lb sacks of rice, a scooter pulling a trailer
with a 500lb pig, a scooter so loaded with bamboo that I have no idea how he
ever stopped or turned a corner. You see
girls riding sidesaddle without holding on while they continue to text. People are on their phones while driving
through traffic with buses whizzing by, people driving the wrong direction,
cows running across the road, bad roads and the list goes on. It will blow your mind.
Second: Small plastic chairs. I understand scooters, I understand
motorcycles even more, but why these people love to sit on these little plastic
chairs, I don’t get it. Whoever is
making these things is making a fortune.
We are passing through these small towns at speeds that are probably
double the posted limit, if there are any posted limits, and there are tons of
these chairs at every shop we pass. The
reason I say I don’t get them is because, when you are 6’ 1” 178lbs sitting in
a chair where the average person is probably 5’ 4” 130, they don’t work very
well. Today was a good case in
point. We stopped for lunch and
beer. We sat down on these small
chairs. As I went to drink a sip of my
second beer I leaned back to poor it into my mouth and the chair buckled
underneath me sending me to the ground.
“Man down!” my travel mates cheered.
“Robert finally went down!” I am
not a fan of these chairs, but I applaud the capitalism.
The sale of great food throughout the country side is also one
capitalistic venture I whole heartedly applaud.
The one aspect that seems to have eluded the Vietnamese people though is
the concept of proper sanitation and food handling. If you are someone who is at all worried
about germs, Vietnam is not the place for you.
I have seen people selling raw meat that has been sitting on a wood table in the warm
sun all day. Now think about it for a
second. If you pulled out a cutting
board to cut up a steak would you not immediately wash it liberally before you
used it again? I guarantee you that they
have been putting meat on that wood table day after day and the thought of
cleaning it might never cross their minds. Today we ate at a fine establishment in the
country side that had some pretty amazing food.
The Thit Heo Quay, or roasted pig, was sitting in a display case in the
sun, for God knows how long, before it was brought to our table. They also pulled hardboiled eggs, fish and
some other meat that we were not sure what it actually was, from the same
case. All of this was cooked in pots
that sat next to us and looked like they were cleaned once a week maybe. That was topped off with plenty of warm beer
in a glass with ice. The food was
awesome.
Enough about capitalism in a communist country, there will
be more time for that later, let’s talk about the riding and other fun stuff. Today was not really a day of twisty roads,
but one of congested streets with us weaving in, out, around and barely missing
everything on the road. Some of us
missed everything. With Keith in the
lead, Scott following and me taking my usually position in the back, we saw a
few cows in the road. Going about 40
mph, and in heavy traffic, a truck coming the other direction swerved off the
road into the grass to avoid the cows. This spooked the little cow sending him into
Keith who was hard on the brake but still going at least 20mph. As Keith swerved to the right he hit the cow
with his left knee and the left side of his bike. He hit the cow right in front of its front
legs as it was jumping in the air and it spun the cow around almost a full 360
degrees in the air before it landed and ran off the road apparently
unhurt. Keith was able to keep control
of the bike while we yelled through the headsets. We were amazed at what just happened. When I say little cow I just mean that it was
not a full size cow, but it was still pretty big. Wow!
We managed to make it to our
hotel without any further incidents and without anyone going down on their
bikes. (Just me on those darn little
chairs.)
Then Ngoc took us to one of the
biggest waterfalls I have ever seen. We
walked down right next to the falls and got sprayed by its power before walking
across a small suspension bridge to the other side of the river. This bridge gave us great views of the falls
in their totality. Once on the other
side I followed a fisherman down a trail to the base of one of the small falls
that was an off chute of the larger. I
walked across slick rocks as the water was rushing past. It got pretty sketchy. At one point I even had to put down my beer
to continue following him. I gave up the
chase as I witnessed him get into the water at the base of the falls and
continue in until only his neck was showing.
I watched in awe from my slick rock as he slung his weighed net into the
rushing water below the falls. After
pulling a few fish from his net he continued on closer and closer toward the
falls repeating his feat. After taking
many photos I scaled back over the slick rocks on the river’s edge and joined
my buddies on top of the hill. They
apparently witnessed this whole thing, beer in hand, from above and were hoping
that I would fall in so they could capture the whole thing with their camera. Sorry to disappoint.
Posted by Robert the one who can’t
sit in a little red chair.
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