Vietnam :: Hanoi to Saigon :: 2011 : Part 3
Day 10 - Hoi An to My Son and back - Cultural diversion
I rode out to the My Son ruins through flat rice paddy meadows and over lazy streams. Arriving at 10 there were already many tourists, so i had to wait a while for a guide. A lovely young lady called Ms. Yung took me around the ruins. I felt wrong for doing such a touristy thing but I had never seen Hindu sites modern or ancient, and the experience was interesting. I had the opportunity to talk to Ms. Yung a while about her education, growing up in the country and moving to Saigon to go to college, before settling in Hoi An to work at the ruins.
I arranged for a guide to accompany me to my next major destination, Kon Tum, for two days. I had heard there were some beautiful secret waterfalls in the valleys ahead but needed some local knowledge to find them. By the evening I was tired of the fake hippies around Hoi An and was looked forward to being in the middle of nowhere again.
Day 11 - Hoi An to Kham Duc - Venison's dear isn't it
I rode out of Hoi An with war veteran guide Mr. Binh, we soon stopped at his sister in laws for some much appreciated water. Binh is an older chap and the riding was slow going, I saw him narrowly miss a few nasty scrapes and wondered if I had made a mistake.
Near some drying tobacco plants, we stopped to talk to another of Binh's relatives, a 17 year old girl trying to learn English, something she believes will allow her to work in tourism and therefore provide better for her family. Our staggered conversation drew the attention of the cutest gang of troublesome stick wielding kids, laughing and screaming at my presence and alien language. Their eager dog friend demanded to be part of everything they did, the minor obstacle of genetic actuality not a recognized hindrance. They were terrified of my camera and ran off as the lens opened up.
Mid morning we stopped and ate fresh pineapple picked from the mountain earlier that day.
Soon after that we rode off the road up a bumpy jungle trail to find a quiet valley with a waterfall. I made plenty of audio recordings climbing around on the rocks for different perspectives.
For lunch we stopped for a meal of mountain deer meat, egg, rice, greens and chilies, which was very spicy but great.
I then washed the bike for the first time using water piped from a nearby waterfall. Not fifteen minutes down the road we were soaked in a torrential downpour, which would have done the job just as well.
That night we stayed in Kham Duc at the Kham Duc Hotel, which was expanding from little more than a hostel to a mini village in order to house the foreign workers employed at the local gold mines. So I got my own beautiful little bungalow in the middle of a muddy building site. That night dinner was at a local restaurant where, strangely, Binh was the only Vietnamese customer, the others being Australians working at the mines. Binh explained that many Vietnamese had died, and many still do, mining for gold on the mountains around Kham Duc, without the expertise of a professional setup.
On a lighter note, I didn't see an ugly girl in Kham Duc, they were all either quite or very attractive, which was nice. But the reason being their families sent them there was to try to find an Australian husband, which is more complicated than “nice”.
Day 12 - Kham Duc to Kon Tum - Bye bye Toto
Someone was blasting 'Enter Sandman' by Metallica from their hotel room as we left, somehow out of place reverberating down the shabby muddy streets of a small Vietnamese mountain town. Something from Ride the Lightning would have been more welcome at that juncture.
Mid morning we stopped at more waterfalls and crossed squealing rickety bridges. On returning to the bikes a group of young local men had taken a keen but entirely reverential interest in my vehicle. On the ground next to them was a bag. A mysteriously twitching bag.
On seeing the two little paws sticking out the near side, I realized it was a small dog. I then spotted a bowl of herbs, a cruel looking blade, and a rusty old cooking pot. On sensing my will that these objects had nothing to do with the contents of the bag, one of the locals pointed to the dog and then into the pot. I walked around see the dog was having some kind of fear fit, upon asking I was assured that it was healthy. Just frothing and hyperventilating with terror then.
We were offered to join but I didn’t feel I had the stomach for it. As we saddled up the dog was hoisted away into the jungle to become lunch.
By mid afternoon everything was getting very hot, dry and dusty. We stopped at one of the traditional tall communal houses that the local tribes use for meetings. A small boy with a chained up pet monkey gnawing at him wanted to say hi.
We stayed in a decent hotel in Kon Tum. In the eve we went for a Viet-Valhallian cook it yourself BBQ feast of deer, jungle pig, rice, popadom and some pigeon soup.
Binh told me of his previous jobs, he had worked at the Hoi An docks loading cargo ships by hand when the war entered his life and he was given a gun to go fight for the Americans. I didn't want to ask too much about the war, but after it was over Binh had simply returned to the docks.
When it came to farewell I tipped Binh the equivalent of 15 dollars, essentially doubling his fee. He sincerely and tearfully ( but incorrectly ) said 'you are very kind' in his croaky old way. It cut me like a knife that the old boy would be saying such a thing in that way to a lucky young git from another world, just passing though.