Day 1! I got started around 9 am this morning after a little breakfast and alone time with Steff. We went downstairs to the bike just to see that the bike had leaked fuel out all over the ground again so I knew there was still some enormous issue with it. I bought this bike from some rando in Da Nang selling it for about $100.
So at 9 the first thing I did was drive to the mechanic. I had had a similar issue with a bike before where I could fix it by shooting some compressed air up the little drip thing from the carb. I have yet to really know if it is fixed or not. There is a shutoff switch so I will use that from now on. I started driving straight west as it seemed there was a border crossing there for me. By going straight west I would be going through gorgeous lush rain forest rather than passing through the beach cities that I have driven through countless times now.
It really only took about 20 minutes of driving west of Da Nang for the driving to seem pretty rural. As I journeyed further and further the roads steadily got narrower, there were more pot holes and tons more animals around the roads. Much of the drive followed a windy brown river that subsisted on the waterfalls that splashed their diamond clear water across the roads. The jungle was so lush it was bursting out into the road . The trees were tall and enveloped in vines. As I got further and further from Da Nang I could see more and more surprise on peoples faces as I passed. It was obvious that I was one of the veeeery few foreigners that had journeyed down that road. I should have seen that as a sure sign that at the end of that road would not be a border crossing, but I chose to ignore those thoughts on the way.
About halfway to the border I stopped at a gas station where the attendant spoke pretty good english, I filled it with gas as an old lady walked by with a big sack of little round brown fruits. I had never tried them before so I ordered a sack that’s about 2 kilos for 85 cents. They are now one of my favorite fruits. When I passed kids that seemed in awe of how weird I looked to them I offered them some of these fruits and they were always excited to get some.
Next to the gas station I stopped for lunch, ordered some Bahn Xeo and sat down. I stood up to plug in my phone and this man ran up to me and stood weirdly right next to me. There was another guy he was talking to and laughing with and I figured out pretty quickly that the one that ran up to me thought he was taller than me and ran up to me to prove it. His buddy who was a very silly small guy was laughing and making fun of him because he was still a good 4 inches shorter than me. I sat back down, ordered a beer, and 2 beers for those guys who already seemed to have had quite a few. They invited me over to eat with them so I did.
They knew very little English and my Vietnamese is rough at best. I tried using google translator but the guys just couldn’t understand how to use it, so we just stumbled through some conversations about things. I finished lunch and headed for the border, another 2 hours of driving and I was there. It was such a magical place on the way there. All the people seemed so happy and the all smiled or yelled HELLO!! As I rode by them. Right at the border there was a lot of construction going on and I realized almost instantly I wasn’t going to get through. There was one guard and when I approached him he looked sad. He told me it was only a border for Laos and Vietnamese people so I had to drive another 10 hours out of the way to get to the international border. I was a little pissed but realized there was nothing I could do so I started driving back, It would waste about 5 hours of driving having not planned better, but that is the story of my life. It started getting dark and I started getting hit will little spurts of rain, nothing bad though. I found a local hotel where I am now. The family offered me dinner and I ate with them. The 7 year old son knows some English but no one else does. The dinner was great, their chili sauce was soooo f*cking good. When I asked for the recipe they said it’s just chili, garlic, and lemon but that’s hard to believe.
