January 28, 2013

We were on the main road with plenty of motorbikes and trucks when Chan asked, “Do you want to take the main road, or do you want to be adventurous?” “Uhh, adventurous.” I replied, not quite sure what I was getting myself into. We end up turning off the main road onto a narrow concrete road I never would have noticed before.

Suddenly, everything was quiet and peaceful. We were riding with a canal on one side and homes or storefronts on the other side. There was very little traffic and lots of trees offering shade. We passed by rice fields and flower growers and biked through fish processing plants. Everyone was smiling, waving and shouting hello.

Chan and flowers

Crazy flower

Quiet canals

OSHA approved bike path through factory?

We have heard that the Vietnamese people are not as friendly as their neighbors, but we have not found this to be true. The people seem almost more outgoing, as we get greeted by more adults here, not just children. My favorite response we get is from the older people pass by. They always give a little “Ah”, like they were expecting us and we have arrived late.

We biked along the canals until a hand written sign pointed the way to Long Xuyen and we had to leave our quiet path. We were immediately in the center of an active city riding with tons of traffic. We had no trouble finding a hotel and storing our bikes. Chandler told me we were on the third floor, but there was an elevator! Our gear isn’t that heavy but it is separated into 10 different bags, so the rare elevator is a real treat.

Rooftop view

We spent the rest of the afternoon as the locals do, sitting down in a cafe watching the traffic while sipping iced coffee. The coffee is very strong, which forces you to drink it slowly, as the ice melts the flavor changes. A pot of green tea is also generally provided to enjoy with the remaining ice in your glass. We hung out for a hour before setting out in search of food.

Our cute waitress

Mmm coffee

We had a chay meal of fake meat – Chan had “com chay” which is served with rice and I had “mi chay” which is the same meal with noodles.

Fake chay meat dinner

We watched a movie on TV and made plans for another awesome ride in the morning.

January 27, 2013

We grabbed egg bahn mi sandwiches for breakfast, then went on a short bike ride to the high school with Truc, our new friend from the night before.

Breakfast!

The room we were meeting in was already full of students and teachers. We were given places of honor, right up front. Immediately, we were descended upon. First, we met all the teachers and answered questions. We discovered that there would be a fashion show along with some singing and dancing. Also, would we mind getting up and talking with the students and answering any questions? Did we want to be judges in the fashion show? Yes, yes, of course.

The kids were a little more shy with us, but some of them were brave enough to try their english out on us, which was quite fun. The hardest question was, “how are Vietnamese traditions different than American traditions?” Wowzers, weren’t sure that could be summed up in a couple basic english sentences, or if we even knew how to start answering it. We managed to blunder on about about how our typical family structure/living arrangements was different which seemed to satisfy the questioner.

Best dancer in the school

A little Gangum Style

Duet

Winter collection

Spring fashion

The 4 hour meeting was a whirlwind of activity and conducted entirely in English. Everyone spoke good, clear English and we were both impressed with the participation level of the students. They had been divided into 6 groups of 6 to 8 students. Each group designed a “collection” for the fashion show and everyone got up at some point to preform a song or dance.

English Speaking Club

New friends, Truc is next to Chan

It was so fun to be around this energetic group of kids and adults. I think we took about a million pictures with everyone at the end of the meeting. As we were leaving, I asked Truc if we had just witnessed a typical meeting. Oh yes, sometimes they do even more activities, like play games.

Truc and two of her friends joined us for lunch at the chay restaurant. We were able to ask her lots of questions about the meaning of words and what other foreigners do in the town. She said she would take us on a tour after we go have a nap and the sun isn’t so hot. I took her suggestion and passed out, while Chandler just read.

Around 4, Truc and her two friends met us in the lobby and took us on a bike ride to the other side of town. We were going to go on a little hike to see a lake, a pagoda and a beautiful view of the green fields. Somehow, we also picked up 4 extra friends on the bike ride over.

Tri Ton is set in a valley and we were able to get a nice view of the area.

Green Fields

Us

The pagoda was beautiful, as they all are. This one had a connection to the Khmer minority that lived in the region. It was surrounded by a series of statues in various scenes. Truc told us the statues tell a story, but none of them knew the story. Guess we’ll just make one up.

The princess

Haircut

We headed back to the hotel as it got dark and said goodbye to our new friends. We were both so happy that we decided to stay for the whole day.

January 26, 2013

I have obviously had the name of this post in my head since we started the trip and have been just dying to use it. And a good morning it was. The first several miles were along the ocean.

Fishing boats

It ain't easy being the sexy fisherman

The riding was a bit challenging due to a number of factors. We had been spoiled in Cambodia with such flat terrain and definitely made me slightly lazy, so I was not doing well on the hills we encountered. The towns that we traveled through had a lot more activity, which requires constant attention and can be mentally exhausting. Some days, the miles seem to fly by, but today they dragged on forever. Even the roads between towns were pretty hectic with motorbikes flying into our path from all directions. While it was exciting to be in the middle of so much energy it was also tiring, and we weren’t used to it, so we had a hard time getting into a stride.

Vietnamese fiddleheads

Our next major destination was the city of Long Xuyen, but it was too far away for us to make it there in one day from Ha Tien, so we pretty randomly selected a town mid way there called Tri Ton to try and find somewhere to sleep. Usually we do a little bit of research on the next place we’re going and stay at a place someone recommended (crazyguyonabike.com has been a great source for us), however there wasn’t much out there that we could find on Tri Ton, so we were kind of winging it.

When we got there we did a quick tour of the town and didn’t find anything resembling a hotel or guesthouse. We decided to grab a bit to eat and try again. I had done some research the night before and found that people in Vietnam regularly eat vegetarian two or more days every month as part of their Buddhist belief. There are many restaurants catering to meat-less eaters- just look for the word CHAY in the restaurant name. We found a chay restaurant immediately and had noodles, veggies and a few sorts of fake meat.

The ladies at the restaurant didn’t speak English, but we were able to write down the word for hotel and they mimed that there was one up the road. A very kind man insisted upon showing us the way on his motorbike.

When we got there, a big truck was unloading coffins into the parking lot. Luckily they were all only 5 foot long, so they weren’t expecting us. The hotel ended up being great; hot water, clean, with wifi and A/C for just 180,000 dong or $9. We took showers and did a little research for the next day’s route before dinner at the same chay restaurant.

Berries or peppers?

Once we settled in for the night, there was a soft knock at the door by a teenage girl. She was the owners daughter and needed to collect our passports. She also had a little boy with her who wanted to give us a present, two lollypops! Before she left, she invited us to her high school’s English Speaking Club the next morning. We agreed to go for an hour or two. She came back a short while later and asked if we could attend the entire meeting from 7:00am until 11:30am, because otherwise we would miss the show of music and dancing.

We were about to refuse, saying we needed to keep going. We were in a go-go-go mode because we needed to get to Ho Chi Minh City to obtain our Chinese Visas and I need to get some paperwork notarized. However, we didn’t come on our trip to just bike from one place to the next. We quickly realized that we had to jump at opportunities to interact with local people, otherwise we’d just be strange travelers passing through at arms length. Tomorrow’s a rest day!