Mountains, Rice, and Purple: Recent Photographs

One of the ever-present Bahn My sandwhich stalls. In our small towns, when there seems to be nothing to eat, there is always Bahn My. A crispy French baquette, dribbled with soy sauce, sprinkled with cilantro, shredded carrot and cucumber, and then fried egg or that unnerving pork patte stuff.  Delicious.

One of our recent riding views. If there is a quota on using "ooohs" then I have nearly filled it, riding the coast of Vietnam.

A typically unfortunate bathroom, which are always available and free at the gas stations here. As in Thailand and Cambodia, don't flush the toilet paper.  Put in bucket.  The "garden hose" serves double duty as Butt Sprayer and Flusher.

Pedaling down a back road, off the Highway 1, quiet peace from trucks and views into small farming life. Down roads like these, I feel like we might be the only foreigners who have come down here....at least for a very long time.

Roadside drying racks: some sort of large rice paper things.

The local Merlot-Cabarnet and I wear matching raincoats. The city of Hue: fine enough to buy wine but situated such that cold air becomes trapped by the mountains here, making it chilly enough that a coat is necessary.

Strolling through the deliciously rubbish-less and tranquil riverside park in the city of Hue. City parks are wonderful things: greenery and peace in the center of concentrated humanity and commerce.

This here is very Vietnam.

Must have those requisite photos of flowers. 

Bits

Two weeks left.

Today I ate almost an entire papaya.

We ride a train tomorrow to get a bit farther north.

Accumulated a fellow Mr. Portugal bicycling traveling man. How nice to speak English, about bicycling, with someone!

I have eaten more white rice in the past 2 months than I've consumed in my entire life. This is not hyperbole.

Butt poking and other stories

We woke this morning, just at dawn, in the town of Chi Thanh and a characteristic bicycling day commenced. Pack clothes left out to dry, stretch out kinks, load up on drinking water from someone's clean jug, and pedal out for breakfast. It's 6am but most of Vietnam is awake: trucks honking through town, women setting up chicken behind breakfast stalls, men smoking and consuming coffee sitting in ever-present Little Red Chairs. Even before leaving town we stop for breakfast; a stall displaying slices of egg and rice noodles. A loudspeaker broadcasts a mix of talking and "rousing" country pride music at the street corner nearby. I find that the smaller towns have this broadcast system: I suppose to spread news or some such to everybody.

I'm standing there, peering at the display of rice noodles, and feel a sharp poke in my butt. Looked up in surprise and there is a gray-haired little woman grinning all cheeky at me. We both laugh; I must say, these bike shorts sport humongous padding and I'd too want to poke any butt inside them.

Bike shorts or no, however, both Lady Elise (aka "Buddy Lissy") and I have noticed the Vietnamese to be unfettered in their grabbing and touching. Last night a Mrs. Soup latched onto my arm to lug me over to her pot, and I've had my short hair picked at while bending over my bicycle. Lady Elise has been led by the wrist to fruit displays, and my watch was plucked and examined today. We are no doubt very curious creatures, and the Vietnamese seem to have a much different sense of personal space than do Americans.

We continue riding on Highway 1. Forgive me for writing the following: mist-shrouded mountains, teal blue ocean waters, untouched sandy beaches, craggy mountain outcrops. Writing these things I feel trite and like all those novels describing "beautiful scenery". But it is true! This is stunningly marvelous to ride through. I get chills sometimes, even through the merciless and vigorous sweating.

And it is hilly. Compared with some of the grades we climbed in Thailand (thoughtlessly steep buggers)--and Cambodia was flat--the hills here are thoughtfully no more than 10%. But lugging five water bottles and a hand of bananas (this is me at Maximum Capacity) up any sort of hill, especially in the heat, is no easy matter. Standing and pumping and reaching and sweating....  Today a loaded truck climbed next to me; it's gears growled it slowly and steadily up the hill. So close to me....I've always wanted......hm!....why not...

So I maneuvered just a little closer, carefully balancing, and reached and grabbed one of the tie ropes. Ta-da! A nice tow up that long hot hill.

"VERY NICE": photos along Vietnam's coast

The coastal city of Nha Trang: we had a rest period here. I ate of yogurts and drank of an orchid-garnished cocktail, played Tossed At Sea in the beautiful ocean, and slept in until 6:30am! Lovely, all around.

Leaving the city of Nha Trang (all choked with motor bikes and buses it was), this is the traffic we encountered. What a contrast!

Riding in the mountain pass of Co Ma. See the gray! We were essentially in the clouds!  Stopped to"ask" for some directions--ie, pointing at our map and grunting.  People love to show us their babies, even though we are thoroughly perplexing to said babies.

A very classic morning view: rice gloriously green, mountains through the distant haze, palm trees.

Very small fishing village north of Nha Trang. The playful painted fishing boats make me happy.

We stayed in a small village near the shore. "Very Nice", hm?  (this is the guest house featured in the video) The room cost us 100,000 dong, which is $4.30! The room came with toilet paper, air conditioning, only a few mosquitoes, and was decently clean.

Kissing smooth pavement after finishing a dastardly, decidedly too long, stretch of gravel. Bicycling on gravel and road construction: where you see your life of near future spread out before you, in dreadful unending continuation. Jittering and wallowing along, jolted by grumpy stones. This is an exhausting way to pick along on a road bicycle. I shall stop taking pavement for granted!

A video!

(not sure if this will work but...)  A little tour of our hotel room, from Very Small Village, Vietnam coast.

Up Vietnam's Highway 1

[A few statistics: this is my 70th post! And, allegedly, there's been 5,226 page views in total. But many of those may be alien robots, so that count may be a bit enlarged]

Greetings from Nha Trang, the biggest, most touristy city we've been in since Saigon. A beach town, with an immensely long stretch of sand, dotted with Russians in Bikinis. In Thailand there were the French, in Cambodia the Chinese, and in Vietnam it's the Russians. Oh, tourists!

So here we are, bicycling north up Vietnam's coastal Highway 1. One of the top 10 most scenic highways, according to some reviewers. We'd heard complaints from bicyclers about the traffic on this road, but after Cambodia, riding this is a dream. Also, whenever we can manage to dip off the main highway for a bit onto one of those "little red roads" (anonymous but still on our map) we are all in glee. Stretches of white sand and painted fishing boats on our right, scraggy tall mountains to our left. So much to look at.

Yesterday we rode through church. Down the aisle between two sets of rocky mountains, outcrops all jutty.  To be that small and under your own power, pushing along in the sunshine through such glorious earth features all looming: wow. With bicycling there is such an awareness of movement and progress across the land. Approaching the mountains, riding through the mountains, finally with them falling away behind you.

Another noteworthy part of the day was finding 15,000 dong! This felt like an Easter egg hunt, in a way; we'd stopped along our deserted road--yet still with exquisitely tended medians all flowery bushes--to eat bananas and "see a man about a horse" and there ah-HA! was a little curl of money lying lonesome in the grass. 15,000 sounds so impressive doesn't it?  But really, this is about 75 cents.

Stretching my legs out in a hammock for a coffee break: I'd eaten a sweet potato, 3 cookies, a handful of charming crackers like pinwheels, and jack-fruit chips. Lady Elise offers me more to eat, and following is a characteristic example of me when I'm a little loopy from riding so much:
"No thanks. I'm filling, fulling...erm, becoming full!"

Last of the Hilarious English Signs from Cambodia....

(the end of an era; just collected these off my camera for you)

(Cambodia)
Money laundering?  But, seriously, how businesses co-mingle usually sends me for a bemused laugh. 

(Cambodia, Siem Reap)
A Washington State license plate! Here?! I had to have my touristy photo next to it. Seeing this thing, here in this strange land, gave me almost the same zing as seeing Mt. Rainier. 

(Cambodia, Battambang)
Save the bananas!

(Cambodia, Siem Reap)
We went after dinner, so I guess we did have a Food Massage. 

(Cambodia)
"Yes, I'd like one order of the fruitful: I have a lot to do today."
But not 11., thanks.

(Cambodia)
At least once they spelled it correctly.

(Cambodia)
Good guif Charlie Brown. 

(Cambodia, Siem Reap)
No hilarity here, just celebration. Gin and Tonics for 1 dollar!