On the Train
Written by Amy Lyon
We’re on the sleeper train heading from Hue to Nim Dimh. Out in the dark we cross the 17th parallel. Evidently there is not much to show tourists here and there is still a possibility of a hidden landmine so we are covering 600 kilometers of central Vietnam to get just a few hours south of Hanoi for to start the northern segment of our trip.
What a scene it was to get the six of us and all of our luggage onto the train. Tang is the Yin to all of our Yang. We need to tell Spice Roads that Tang is well suited for a bunch of Middle Aged Jewish (mostly) Americans who all like to be in charge and all have the best ideas and have very specific preferences around food.
Speaking of food, today Tang most happily acquiesces our daily allowance for both lunch and dinner and we fend for ourselves at lunch and buy picnic food for the train.
For lunch Andrew and Shari, our most intrepid travelers, although Rebecca follows a close third, head off to the market while Mike, Jonathan and I decide to dine at colonial Hotel Saigon on a Croque Monsieur and pommes frites. Unfortunately for the culinary experience the French have been gone too long. .
I am put in charge of buying food for a picnic on the train and really and truly Tang is completely relieved when he hands to me a total of 360,000 dong, 60,000 dong ($4.00) each to pick out train food. Although a box lunch comes with the train bunk, we ware not convinced that we’ll be able to stomach or digest it. I start shopping by almost blowing the entire budget at the hotel. And although the hotel had lost the recipe for a Croque Monsieur, they did remember how to make a very good chocolate tart. Each cost $1.50.
Next stop, the market. There are no supermarkets in Vietnam, at least that we have seen. Most people do not have freezers and not all have refrigerators, so they buy their fresh foods daily. Which means beautiful displays of all kinds of fruits, vegetables, rices, meats and fishes. We see them daily in small villages and cities. I am accompanied by Tang and I feel like Julia Child. We stop at the first stand and plucked a healthy looking bunch of Ramatans. Mike taught me on day one that although more expensive, the ones with the leaves attached are best. These are small red hairy fruit that one breaks in half revealing a large white grape like fruit with a large seed in the middle. You put the whole thing in your mouth at once and suck the fruit off the seed and then gracefully spit the seed back into the shell, or wherever.
We sample a Mangosteen. Mangosteens have dark purple skin with with a green stem area that looks like a flower. One cuts or tears them open horizontally to expose the inner ball of white plump segments. They are sweet and juicy. Tang negotiates with the vendor for the total of 30,000 dong, or about $1.80, which offests the splurge on pastries. We move on to find long avocadoes, mangoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and red chili’s. We'll have guacamole with crackers for dinner on the train.
The time has come to say good bye to the big white bus that had been trailing us up and down hills, through narrow village roads, to the embarrassment of some of us and relief to others. The driver Tuie and his assistant Fong, drop us and all of our luggage off at the local train station and head off on their a 24 hour trip back to Ho Chi Minh City. Besides the chicks that some of us think Tuie ran over, he did a fantastic job avoiding the pedestrians, children, water buffalo, cows, motor bikes, bicycles carrying bales of wood, ducks, scrap, baskets, tools, buckets, vegetables, fruits and people. And all of this without any of us wearing a seatbelt. They also cleaned our bikes every night, pump air into our tires, fill our water bottles numerous times, Tuie fixed my sunglasses, and most of all, appeared when needed them most.
For me that was a few times up serious climbs when the climb I most needed was to climb inside the bus; or when one or another of us had our bought with stomach maladies and needed to sleep it off, despite our competitive impulse that most of us have, say except Jonathan, to keep up with the group and make sure we get all of our miles in.
To date we have ridden over 300 miles which includes a 100 kilometer ride the day before this train ride that starts at 7:00 am in Hoi Ann and finishes close to 6:00 pm in Hue. We start on a newly paved rode that has replaced the fronts of many homes. The construction literally chopped off the fronts of homes, revealing living rooms and bedrooms, altars and beautiful ceramic walls. The homeowners had been compensated and had new homes just down the road, but some evidently did not want to leave their old homes, so were living in the rooms that still existed, and had turned the expose rooms into a kind of front porch. This beach will be full of high rises the next time we are here.
All over Vietnam there is building. This place is paving roads, building homes, resorts, bridges, you name it. And, we have been fortunate, thanks to Tang and Mike, to ride along many newly paved roads, some so new they are not open for traffice. This was the case of the amazing pass between the hill town of Dalat to the sea side town of Nha Trang, that afforded us a 17 mile downhill. This morning the new road brings us along the sea toward De Nang, a scene of such violence and now a newly built well thought out town with a wide boardwalk along the river.
We ride through town around the bay to the beginning of an 11 kilometer climb up the hills that surround the water to the peak and then a wonderful descent that wound us back around to the sea and to lunch and a swim.
Hot means hot here. But it doesn’t stop us from indulging in a dark Vietnamese coffee, bolstered by sweet condensed milk. That and a few Alieve, and we’re good to go for the afternoon ride through villages that hug the water and take their living from the sea and fields.
It is hot here. Did I say that? We lather on lotion and at night finish up with balms to heal. Rebecca, medicine women aka UCC minister has a remedy for everything. When I tumble over to the top of my bike because my pointed straw hat falls in my face and I squeeze my front brake, Rebecca pulls out arnica and put its under my tongue. I am sure it helped, though I do have a nice bruise just above my elbow.
It was a magical moment , like hundreds of magical moments on this trip, but this one is a personal one. When I realize I am flying over the top of my handle bars, blind, I relax, and fall into a roll. A calm feeling overcomes me and I know I am going to be all right. And the moment I land I dart up, since we are on a narrow bridge just leaving the village of My Son (Mai Lai), and I know there are motorbikes galore. It is scarier for Rebecca, Andrew and Shari who are behind me watching it all, and Rebecca, in order not to hit me, has to abruptly stop and she falls into the guard rail. Rebecca has a matching bruise on her hip. All is well that ends well and the fall doesn't stop me for more than a minute, although when Jonathan sees what is happening, he drops his bike, quickly runs over and somehow cuts his leg, which I felt needs to be tended to with an alcohol swab and Bandaid. Tang and Michael are far enough ahead not to be directly involved in the fray, but when they hear what is happening, they swing back, so what happens to one of us happens to all.
Magical. More than one of us has used that word. So much magic. The people are genuinely curious in us as we pass through their worlds, the water and land and sky in all its variations stun us continually. The blue boats in the lagoons painted with large eyes like whales, round baskets that are boats. The night fishing for squid, making the coast look like a constellation, each fisherman a star luring the white luminescent creatures from below. The surprise of sweet fruits inside dusty dark shells, the shrieks and laughs of the children who swarm us for high fives as we pas through their villages. And I was most worried about dogs nipping my feet, never thinking the worst hazard would be barefoot children rushing us for high fives as we whizz through their worlds. Evidently after the war the birth rate produced 51% males, which is an unusual statistic and today more than 70% of the population is under thirty. That is a significant percentage of potential high fives.
We are a feisty bunch, jabbering non stop about politics and government and the relations between the two; about where to stop, how far to cycle, about who got to the top of the hill first, about Americans abroad, at home, about where it is and isn’t safe to eat. Tang is barraged by us with questions about the Vietnamese, their social, political, familial, religious habits, how they feel about gays and women, abortion, drugs, the deformed. You name it and the social worker, therapist, minister, writer, history buff and dreamer all prod and poke. And he answers us all.
We are right about the food, although Andrew bravely goes forth and opens the little containers and eats what is inside. Rebecca searches for rice and the rest of us breathe through our mouths since the odor is far from appetizing. We sit around and talk and watch Vietnam pass outside the window. We make the guacamole and consume it, chase it down with beer, whiskey and the expensive French pastries. We are all now tucked into our cabins, Shari, Rebecca and I wrapped in our silk sleeping bags, Rebecca purchased in Hoi An and gifted Shari and I with one, saving us from laying any part of our body on the sheets and blanket that also come with the metal bunk. We have only a few hours to sleep before our expected 4:00 am arrival when we'll shower change and, yes, get ready for a full day's ride.
1 comment:
What an adventure! Lynn and I love reading the blog (we check it daily), though we are somewhat surprised that a straw hat could prove to be so dangerous. Even on Amy. Thanks to all of you for sharing with your comparatively sedentary friends and family.
xxoo
lynn & laurie
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