Viet Road Trip Day 18

Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Viet Nam. This is day 18. Day 17 can be found here.

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ay 18 started with some heavy traffic on the way out of Hanoi. The weather was cold and damp, but luckily there wasn't much rain. Because I was only traveling in hot countries, I didn't bring any cold weather gear on my trip. The ride on day 18 would be my coldest ride yet.

The ride out of town started with this friendly encounter. I didn't know it, but this would be a day full of meeting new friends.

This guy was pretty funny. He's in the video above, around 0:30. He says hello and then keeps trying to talk to me. I'm not very good at multitasking and I don't like distractions while I drive. Especially when I'm in Vietnamese city traffic. I didn't really know how to respond other than saying hello and nodding.

Here's me leaving Hanoi. This is another video getting further away from the city center.

fter leaving the city, the tiny little road cut through miles of farms and rice fields. The road reminded me of the bicycle paths around my town in Germany. They were calm, quiet, well maintained, smooth, and a pure joy to ride on. The land and the villages and villagers were fun to look at.

As I rode through this area, a gentleman saw the GoPro on my helmet. He said hello, then kept talking to me in Vietnamese. It seems like he rode next to me for 5 minutes. I took his photo and eventually our ways parted.

Everyone that I know hates dubstep. I can't say that I particularly care for it myself, but I won't let a little thing like that stop me from torturing my audience every now and then.

he road turned back into a normal highway, and the landscape opened up and got more and more interesting. The weather also got colder and colder. It wasn't raining, but there was a very dense fog. After a few minutes of riding my pants were soaked through and my shoes were full of water.

My skin gets itchy when it's cold, so I kept having to pull over and warm myself up. I was also hungry, but I hadn't seen anything that looked good to eat in the small villages that I was riding through.

I pulled over on this bridge to warm up and snap a few photos.

had pulled over and spent about 10 minutes on this bridge. I was hungry and I really wasn't looking forward to getting back on the freezing bike again.

After taking the photos above, a kid pulled up on his scooter. He said hello, but the rest of his English was pretty rough. He had a dirty old water bottle that could only be liquor. He held it up to offer me some. I really didn't want to drink, I still had about 80 kilometers of miserable riding ahead of me.

One thing that I learned early in my trip was that you rarely have any adventures if you say no. So I said yes. What the heck? Maybe the alcohol would warm me up. I said yes and the kid pointed to my scooter and motioned for me to follow him. This wasn't what I'd agreed to, but I followed.

We drove a few meters down the highway and turned down a mud road where houses were. He had me park my bike under his house (the house was on stilts), then we walked up a little path to his friend's house.

As much as like meeting people and getting into weird situations, I was starting to get wary at this point. This is when I started wondering what I'd gotten myself into. This is when I started thinking about emergency exits and makeshift weapons. So I was a little nervous when we started up the path.

The path to the friend's house.

Guard dogs on the path.

Grandma aint got no time for foreigners!

Tea and greetings.

hen we got to the house, I relaxed. The group was a bunch of boys around high school age. One kid looked like he was about 13, another one looked to be in his 20's. A mom, a sister/wife (unsure about how everyone was related), and a baby were also there.

They offered me tea, which I wanted a thousand percent more than I wanted liquor. As the tea warmed me up, I was introduced to everyone. Between everyone in the group, there was enough English to share most ideas. They took photos of me, I took photos of them, we all took photos of everyone.

The tea was all that I needed or wanted, so I wasn't very enthusiastic when they asked if I was ready to drink shots. What I hadn't yet realized is that the Vietnamese rarely just drink. It's always done with food. So when I agreed to take a shot or two, they cleared out the living room, laid out a mat, and the women started bringing out food.

Here's what we ate.

1. Cucumber.
2. Morning Glory soup (I think, they said it was a flower and I've seen Morning Glory soup on menus). Everyone picked out plants with chopsticks, I don't recall if anyone ate the broth with spoons.
3. Fried chicken strips. The breading was different from what I'm used to, but it was really tasty.
4. Pickled vegetable. They reminded me of okra, but they could be mini-green tomatoes? I loved these, they were salty instead of sweet.
5. Braised tofu. Delish! This was my favorite.
6. An edible leaf used to wrap up the chicken/tofu. It left my teeth with a rough feeling, similar to when I eat spinach.
7. Possibly a dipping sauce. They also had small bowls like this with a salt/pepper mix for dipping the vegetables in.
8. Sriracha.

We ended up taking 4 or 5 shots. One of the kids fell asleep where we were all sitting. With my weight and the food in my belly, I was only mildly buzzed. Everyone kept telling me that I should take a nap, or spend the night at the house. I'm sure they would have cooked up their best food and brought out their best drinks. It would have been awesome, but there's no way they would have accepted money from me. I didn't want them going through all that expense. I declined as politely as I could and made my way back to the road.

These kids loved the shit out of my e-cigarette. If I'd had an extra rig, I would have given it to them, but I didn't. I figure it's less harmful than all the cigarettes they were smoking.

These guys really made Day 18 into one of my favorite days. Even with the cold, miserable riding, Day 18 is a special day for me thanks to Vietnamese hospitality and grace.

ack on the road, things seemed a little warmer. The land was gorgeous and I was feeling happy about making some new friends.

Once I got into town and found a hotel, I didn't do much of anything. I know that I went for a walk, but couldn't find any food, so I ate chips in my room. Other than that, I don't recall much about Tan An.

More adventures await as I explore the north of Vietnam. Until then, ride safe!

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Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Vietnam. Read about days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7.1, 8, 8.1, 9, 9.1, 10, 11,12, 13, 14, and 15-17 here.