Russians in Bikinis

Ripping ocean breeze, buffeted water, long stretch of sand. We are in the coastal town of Phan Thiet today!

There are Russians in bikinis here. And the Vietnamese swim in all their clothes. The Russians have considerably more surface area, though, and for some of them it comes in impressive folds.

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Today was one of those rides that elicited from us grateful cries of "wowh!" and exclamations of "this is why we're doing this!" We had country roads, decent pavement surfaces, few trucks, and coastal views. This celebrated riding, after Cambodia with barreling honking trucks, coughing dust, and stagnant air. Here the air is all fresh and breezy.

Quite breezy. Windy, in fact. We are biking into the nostrils of the wind beast and this is very tiring, especially an ocean wind of power. Pedaling into wind is so wasteful; you work extra hard but don't go any farther. But the wind is the only complaint: really, Lay-DEE Elise and I are delighted to be here.

Bicycling in Vietnam? What is this like? What do we see?

We began this morning pedaling out of town, stopping at the little market spilling into the road. I bought a bunch of miniature bananas (about 40 cents) from a display on a cloth on the pavement. Even this short transaction drew a crowd of market women who apparently thought I was just hilarious; they laughed as I refused a plastic bag for the bananas (gah there's enough plastic around here already) and giggled while I fumbled through a wad of dong to draw out 8,000.

(I've seen dong come in notes as small as 500 and as big as 500,000. So yeah, I can bust out of ATMs now, loaded with half a million. Ha. Although keeping track of the number of zeros sends me for a ride: I recently handed over 300,000 when I was buying snacks for 30,000. But dear observant Elise caught this and saved my zeros.)

In the morning we pass small school children in uniforms (red neck ties all Socialist) bicycling, wearing colorful cartoon-painted backpacks. We ourselves were passed by buses traveling between towns. Local buses did not exist in Cambodia (too hard to keep organized and on time, and nobody was riding them), so it's refreshing to see them here. In the bright morning light a man walked a large contented cow with a shoulder hump out into a field. A few sharp mountain peaks stood in the distance. Men sat in groups at road-side cafes, sitting in those ever-present red plastic chairs, smoking and drinking coffee.

In fact, it seems like most of the establishments we pass are coffee shops. In Thailand, restaurants were ubiquitous and effortless to find, but in Vietnam it seems like nobody eats, instead just caffeinating and smoking. We have to really concentrate to find a proper restaurant, if we wanted something other than Pho or Banh Mi stalls. (Pho = beef soup with fresh herbs, Banh Mi = baguette sandwich with egg or pate and soy sauce and fresh vegetables).

Mid-morning we bicycle ourselves into Dragon-fruit Land. What a sight! Dragon-fruit has the happy distinction of being a large fleshy tropical fish; the things are bright pink with green-tipped "fins." When cut in half, inside is white flesh with small dark seeds. They taste like watermelon with a buttery texture and a hint of banana-floral. Amazing. The plants that grow them are also a hoot: they are a cactus, but look like they have dreadlocks. Remarkable plants and fruit stretched for kilometer after kilometer. We stopped at an enticing pyramid display and bought four to relish.

And then we rattled down a little side road where fishing boats--red Vietnam flag flapping from the masts--congregated in the seas. Smaller boats, perfectly circular--like a floating soup bowl--were paddled adeptly (how to paddle a boat without an obvious bow!?) by browned men. Elise and I sat on the sand, eating a Dragon-fruit, admiring the chiseled rocks, the teal waters, the fishing boats. "It's these moments where you absolutely feel like you're in National Geographic," observed Elise.

Back at pedaling, we pass platforms all covered in shiny fish bodies, drying in the sun. Bougainvillea plants were so roaringly pink and growing enthusiastically, there were like a firework frozen in mid-air. Exquisitely tended resorts lined the beaches, with names like Peaceful Resort and Ocean Dunes; on my budget I would not ever stay in one, but they were certainly gorgeous to admire.

I've really been enjoying how tended things are in Vietnam. Elise and I gaped when we saw a small boy stop and get off his bicycle when he dropped a piece of trash. Granted, that doesn't mean this place is spotless: by no means comparing with the USA, but it is spotless compared with Cambodia.

We pedaled and gazed contentedly at the sea and were cooled by the wind. Dreamy, dreamy riding. A bicycle in paradise.