My father used to say that the two best days of a trip are the day you leave and the day you go back. I assume that he heard this from my grandfather, who had heard it from his father, and thus the origin of the saying could be found by following a proud lineage of Slaters in a genealogical exercise of incomparable boredom for anybody under the age of seventy.
To be fair though, the message is good. There seems to be an obvious and undeniable appeal to the idea of coming home. Nobody understands this better than a traveler; with the possible exception of A
von Barksdale, the world's preeminent incarcerated philosopher.
~
So while I was a little mopey about leaving the chilled out oasis of Dalat, departing wasn't all bad. For one thing, it meant the imminent possibility of acquiring fresh underwear (which should always bring a smile to your face). Also, I have about three days worth of interesting anecdotes, historical tidbits, and thoughtful observations. Usually these can be stretched out over several months of brief conversations at events and parties, so people often have no idea how boring I actually am until it's too late to stop answering my calls without feeling prickish. Unfortunately, when condensed into three actual, sequential days, the process is considerably accelerated. I was happy that Jerome would not be subjected to my usual fourth-day conversational offerings, which consist alternately of mumbled weather updates ('Still cloudy') and declarative grunts about my need to eat, sleep, or find a bathroom. And finally, I was looking forward to seeing the surrounding countryside of Dalat in the daytime. The last two hours of our approach had been conducted in pitch blackness, and we'd seen virtually nothing along the way save the pockmarked surface of the road.
Our last hours in Dalat were spent having a leisurely breakfast at the Peace Cafe and conducting a surprisingly difficult search for Dalat's famous preserved sugar-fruit candy. After we finally located a stall which sold the delicacies, and proceeded to single-handedly finance college educations for the proprietor's six children, Jerome and I moseyed back to the hotel to gather our things. We crammed the candy into our bags, learned to our annoyance that the mini-bar items weren't free, and thanked our hosts. Then we kicked the '67s into gear and zoomed away.
We made a farewell circuit of the lake, gazing at the swan boats as they pedaled lazily across the calm blue water. We passed a lovely small pagoda and some dilapidated old villas as we climbed out of the city, making a few obligatory wrong turns and hurried map consultations in the centers of roundabouts. Eventually we navigated to the crest of a narrow mountain road and stared down at the thin black pavement snaking through the forest.
~
A quick aside concerning mountain roads - my love of going up is matched only by my fear of going down. In October of 2012, I was on my way to the town of Pai in northern Thailand. The road from Chiang Mai was famous for being both steep and curvaceous. Although it is only 135 km long, it manages to squeeze in 762 curves, many of the blind and/or hairpin variety. We were crammed into an ancient minibus when, about 50 km outside of Pai, we barreled into one of those hairpin turns only to see the pickup truck ahead of us slip off the road and tumble down the mountainside. As we passed by, our Thai driver not bothering to stop or even slow down, we could see the unlucky pickup methodically flipping downward, end over end like a large and inflexible Slinky. Soon we were far beyond the scene of the accident, and nobody called an ambulance.
~
Which I suppose is a long and overly detailed explanation of why Jerome beat me down the mountain by an embarrassingly large margin. When I finally caught up to him on the Uncle Ho Memorial Good Time Number One Super-Happy Driving Road, I was delighted to find that the surrounding countryside was as pastorally charming as anything we'd seen on the trip up.
The mountains of central Vietnam loomed regally in the distance as we rode through small outcroppings of buildings on what was basically the country's nicest frontage road. We passed a few bright green fields of rice and bands of schoolchildren in blue uniforms with red kerchiefs. Some of them shouted 'hello' and then exchanged loud guffaws with their friends, as if they'd just committed some outrageously daring feat of bravery. We squinted against the sun and rumbled onward.
Before leaving Dalat we had decided to make the return journey over two days in the hope of avoid both night driving and looking like exhausted homeless people at work on Saturday morning. As such we had the luxury of a more leisurely pace, along with the chance to take a few pictures along the way. Jerome, the bohemian archetype, of course did not pack a camera, so I was in charge of taking interesting photos on the road back to Saigon.
The problem with Highway 20 is that while it is generally a pretty good ride, providing photographic evidence of this is nearly impossible. At no point did I feel that I really captured the beauty of a particular area - there was always a mechanic's shed inconveniently peeking into the background, or a curious mountain fog that seemed mysteriously beguiling in person but merely fuzzy in pictures. However, at one of these spontaneous pit stops I did notice something interesting.
 |
| Bendy panorama, meh. |
Unfortunately, that 'something' was an enormous black cloud creeping ominously across the sky. Since we'd managed to entirely avoid rain on the trip to Dalat (in the middle of rainy season, no less) ut seemed obvious that the rain gods were about to let us have it.
Like most pessimistic predictions, this one proved uncannily accurate. For the next five hours we were plagued by intermittent blasts of precipitation followed by deceptively tranquil intermissions during which we nervously scurried from village to village, hiding under coffee stand awnings and gas station canopies when the downfall grew too heavy. At one of these unscheduled pitstops I bought two cheap plastic ponchos to cover our rain-soaked clothes, a classic example of shutting the barn doors after the horses escaped, drenched your iPod, and turned the money in your wallet into a soggy multicolored clump.
The rain was not without its diversions, however. During one particularly fierce deluge, which surely had local ark-builders rubbing their palms together in delighted anticipation, we holed up at a coffee stand directly in front of a massively flooded stretch of road. As we anxiously sipped hot tea under a perilously overstressed umbrella, we were treated to a uniquely fascinating experience - the breathtaking stupidity of Vietnamese motorists.
~
Vietnamese motorists are inarguably the
worst in the known universe. Just in Saigon, there were
133 traffic deaths in January and February alone. It would be safer to drive alongside a drunk, blindfolded toddler than a typical Vietnamese. Whether they are pulling blindly out of an alley at breakneck speed, abruptly cutting across three lanes without signaling, or just texting as they veer carelessly into oncoming traffic, the Vietnamese exhibit a special lack of regard for road safety that would almost be impressive if it wasn't also life-threatening. Driving with the Vietnamese might be less dangerous than an intoxicated game of Russian roulette, but only if your name isn't
Christopher Walken.
In fairness, said motorists can't be entirely blamed for the atrocious conditions of this particular road, which suffered from the painfully obvious design flaw of being deeply concave. The rainwater settled in a vast pool nearly one meter deep, almost to the knees of motorbike riders. Yet this did not deter them from speeding gamely into the abyss, barely bothering to tap the brakes as they sloshed into the murky brown 'puddle'. Several motorbikes coughed, sputtered, and quietly died as their carburetors were choked with gallons of muddy rainwater. Others hydroplaned wildly and toppled over, gingerly picking up their soaked vehicles and looking utterly flabbergasted as to how this could have happened. Worse still were the buses and trucks, which blasted their horns and splashed heedlessly into the mess, screeching to an uncertain halt when their manic drivers finally noticed the floundering motorbikes ahead. For half an hour this continued, even after a few clever souls discovered they could avoid the whole ugly scene by detouring ten meters off the road onto a gravel embarkment. Ignoring these helpful examples, most people elected to crash full-speed into the flood, where they met the same damp and dangerous fate as the idiots in front of them. They behaved like big, dumb, motorized lemmings.
After several pots of tea and some increasingly desperate bargaining with God to call off the flood, we ventured back onto the road. It was nearly 3pm and we needed to cover some ground if we wanted to make Saigon at a decent hour the next day. We still had 200 km to go. During brief snatches of shouted conversation atop our speeding '67s, we decided to stop for the night at a landmark we called the 'boulder'. Jerome said he remembered several guest houses nearby, and I agreed that it would make a perfect place to make camp before the final leg of the trip.
We had passed by the 'boulder' on our way to Dalat, as we traveled through an area known for its once-active volcanoes. Although the fire-spitting behemoths had long since sunk back into the earth, evidence of their presence could still be found in the giant igneous rocks scatttered about like a child's playthings. Our particular rock was noteworthy because it was perched on a tall pillar, teed up as if it was a mammoth golf ball. As we rode onward, the 'boulder' became increasingly magnificent in our minds and the pillar grew ever more slender, until it assumed the almost comical proportions of an enormous Tootsie Pop. Erroneously or not, we began to get quite excited about reaching the amazing balancing rock.
Sadly, even as we were overestimating the boulder's grandeur, we were underestimating the distance needed to reach it. A combination of night driving and long-haul fatigue had completely distorted our estimation of the boulder's whereabouts. At each little hamlet we passed, we fully expected the boulder to be just around the corner. Our hopeful quips gradually morphed into grim-faced mutters as the sun sank lower and the clouds grew darker. We stopped for gas and I glanced nervously at my watch, trying to calculate the remaining hours of daylight and the likelihood of imminent thunderstorms.
 |
| Squeezing in a few klicks between storms. |
Around 6:30pm we passed through Tan Phu, notable for being perhaps the most hideously depressing victory of the Vietnamese crusade against attractive architecture. For an interminable stretch we sputtered along the ruined Main Street of this provincial abomination, looking glumly at the endlessly repetitive rows of garages, coffee stands, and cheap restaurants. The few rundown hotels scattered amongst the charmless milieu looked so decrepit and uninviting that we decided to press onward, unable to bear the thought of tarrying a moment longer than absolutely necessary.
If the Vietnamese military ever gets its hands on a reasonably sized nuclear bomb, I would suggest Tan Phu as an excellent testing site.
~
About two hours later, we reached the boulder. After a day of fitfully slow travel and hours of feverish imagination, it was a welcome if slightly underwhelming sight. It wasn't quite as grand as we remembered, though after the featureless wasteland of Tan Phu we were grateful for anything less ugly.
Unfortunately, the guesthouses and restaurants that Jerome recalled proved to be entirely imaginary. In fact there seemed to be almost sign of human habitation for 10 km leading up to the boulder. With thunder cackling lugubriously in the distance, we were quickly running out of options.
Luckily, we found a small hotel about five minutes up the road, set in the center of a sad little cluster of shabby buildings. We gingerly eased our dusty bikes into the courtyard and greeted a bemused old woman in blue pajamas, who beckoned us to come around back. We parked the '67s in a large room with tile floors and began the difficult process of negotiating with a young woman who was apparently convinced that we wanted the smallest possible room with one bed and no windows. Eventually we found ourselves in a spare but comfortable room with two large beds and a painting of a naked river nymph hanging above the door. There was a nearby balcony which, in the absence of other guests, we quickly appropriated as our own for an important discussion about the prospects of dinner.
An hour later we wandered down the stairs, freshly bathed and feeling somewhat human again, intent on dining recommendations from the owner of the hotel. The owner turned out to be a pleasantly fat, shirtless man with a powerful body odor and surprisingly good command of English. In rapid succession he informed me that he had a sister in North Carolina, that he was very drunk on banana wine, that there was only one placed that served food in the area, and that it was probably closed. I asked him to point us in the right direction anyway and we walked off, thanking our host quickly before he could invite us to stay and drink.
In retrospect, this was a bad choice.
Everyone who has lived abroad eventually experiences a phenomenon in which a group of locals, usually quite drunk and unsavory in appearance, accost the unwary expat and quickly entangle him in a web of garbled conversation, unidentifiable liquor, and uncomfortable innuendo. It is usually easy to see how long the expat has lived abroad by timing how long it takes him to escape. There is a delicate balance to strike between being forceful and polite, and few would argue that it is not a vital survival skill when traveling. Interestingly, it's also a skill that abandoned us at the worst possible time.
We walked into the restaurant, which had a low thatched roof and several clusters of cheap plastic stools around rickety tables. A tired-looking woman halfheartedly fanned the flies away from a pot of chunky grey soup while her young daughter stared vacuously at the anime cartoons chattering away on TV. Jerome caught the woman's attention and placed an order in halting Vietnamese as I gazed skeptically around the room.
My eyes soon found the only other patrons still hanging around - a group of five bedraggled, clearly intoxicated locals gathered around a small table and staring curiously at the two foreigners who just straggled in. One of them leapt to his feet and sprinted over to me, beaming and babbling incoherently in a drunken slur. As I weakly protested he dragged me by the arm over to his table, shouting to his friends and nearly tripping over his own chair. I smiled unhappily at Jerome and considered just running out the door, but he soon joined me at the table and it was too late.
And so began the most creepily unenjoyable meal of my life.
~
Our dinner companions were rural Vietnamese bumpkins of the foulest and drunkest variety. By their bleary eyes, rancid breath and general inability to stop swaying, they had been drinking for some time - there were bottles of homemade moonshine littered across the table. They had the worst table manners I have ever seen; when the woman brought over our noodles they immediately began loading the bowls with chili sauce, soya, and shrimp paste, mixing the condiments together with their dirty fingers. When we looked skeptically at the contaminated soup, the hillbillies took this as an invitation to spoon feed us like infants, snatching the utensils out of our hands and attempting to cram huge sodden clumps of vegetables into our mouths. One of these neanderthals even grabbed a handful of corn kernels and shoved them in my face, as if he was feeding a goat at the petting zoo. I shook my ahead and dreamt of murdering him.
Perhaps this could have been mistaken for genuine misplaced camaraderie if not for the increasing disturbing behavior of the table's drunkest occupant. He was a weathered old man missing most of his teeth, and his hands were covered in motor oil. I noticed this because he tried to grab Jerome's hands constantly as he ate, each time frantically pumping his arm like a small-town mayor at a church bake sale. After every unsuccessful attempt he would leer drunkenly and cackle an obviously profane joke to his friends, pointing at our hair, clothes, and general looks of discomfort. Some of his pals joined in the mockery, which one particularly sour individual simply glared at us and fiddled with his cell phone.
We wolfed down our unappetizing grub, picking around slices of synthetic pate and chunks of spinal cord, trying to avoid both eye contact and confrontation with the loathsome quintet at the table. One of them shoved a pack of cheap Vietnamese cigarettes in my face, gesturing for me to join him in a smoke. I shook my head and produced a pack of Marlboros, which I had bought in Dalat for the main purpose of buttering up mechanics, waiters, or policemen on the way back. I distributed cigarettes to several of the bumpkins. who stared curiously at the gold lettering and mumbled inaudible comments to each other. Suddenly the sulky drunk looked up from his phone and snatched the pack out of my hand, greedily fingering the remaining cigarettes as if they were rolled with solid gold. THen he turned to me, the wheels clearly spinning deviously fast in his tiny brain, and pantomimed an unmistakable question: where do you sleep tonight? He grinned and pointed toward our hotel, obviously the only accommodation for miles.
I vigorously barked, '
khong, khong,' and gestured forcefully in the opposite direction. '
20 kilo-nit, you stupid piratical bastard.' Jerome and I hurriedly left the table and half-ran back to the hotel. In the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that we had been neither robbed nor murdered.
 |
| Jerome and the boulder. |
After we woke up, Jerome fixed a flat tire on his '67 and we headed back to the boulder to snap a few pictures before leaving for Saigon. Along the way we passed a bizarre monument commemorating either A) a local military victory, B) worker-peasant solidarity, or C) Vietnam's unrivaled supremacy in stair-building. Forsaking the ten-story climb, we drove our '67s up a very steep path to the top of a small hill overlooking a lake dotted with ramshackle floating cottages. We posed for a few photos and continued on our way. Part of me was disappointed that the journey would soon be over, but another, hungrier part was quite enthusiastic about getting home and ordering the
Big Cheese from Black Cat.
 |
| Finally - the sun. |
~
Several hours later, we were back in Saigon proper, wedged between giant diesel-belching lorries on the semi-paved deathtrap also known as Highway 1. My heart sank as I looked around at the teeming hordes of blank-faced motorists and clouds of noxious smog. There's always a bit of postpartum depression after an exciting trip, but especially when you are returning to a city as ruthlessly ugly and congested as Saigon.
Sensing that my mood was dangerously sour, Jerome suggested a celebratory beer at an alley pub on Bui Vien. It was hard to argue with him, so we slowly made our way to the city center, immensely relieved when we reached our destination and eased our aching haunches off of the sturdy little '67s.
After an ice-cold Tiger I was feeling a bit better - generally I am not big on beer, but there's a certain satisfaction in living the romantic cliche of knocking back a frosty brew after a long journey. I bid farewell to Jerome and we exchanged the awkward one-armed bro hug that is the closest acceptable expression of friendship between two hetero Western dudes. Then I hopped on my bike and headed home.
~
Less than a minute later, I was caught in the fiercest rainstorm I have ever experienced. The gusting wind nearly knocked me off the bike, and my face stung from millions of sharp little raindrops pelting me at Mach 8. I fishtailed my way through a few intersections and splashed into an enormous puddle in the alley leading to my house, all the while cursing God's decidedly antagonistic sense of humor.
Standing at the front gate, buffeted by torrential rains, I fumbled through my dry bag, searching for my elusive house keys. My fingers brushed cold metal and I quickly jammed the key into the lock, twisting frantically. Nothing happened. I swore loudly and tried again. Nothing. I checked to make sure I had the right key. Yep. I checked to make sure I had the right house. No problems there. But still the fucking door wouldn't open.
Now I was soaked from head to toe, thoroughly pissed, and probably stranded. I grabbed my cellphone out of the bag, thinking I'd call the landlady to find out what the hell was going on. Then I saw the text message from my roommate:
Cleaning lady got robbed. Keys stolen. Had to change all the locks. You won't be able to get in. Catch you later.
Yes, I was back in Saigon all right.
