6-9 July, Savannakhet, Laos to Hue, Vietnam
(a)Oh! The glamour of travel! A nasty five-day flu had kept me in bed and put us
behind schedule, so we opted to take the bus the four-hundredish kilometers from
Savannakhet to Hue. Following the advice of Madame Phouthavy, we arrived at the dusty
station at eleven p.m. an hour ahead of departure time in order to get a
decent seat. But when someone indicated the bus we were to take, we peered in and
discovered there would be no good seats. Our home for the next fourteen hours was a clunky
old communist-made thing, with five seats across and no legroom at all. Our fellow
passengers were overwhelmingly male, and they all seemed to know each other for some
reason. We suspected they all worked on some construction project together (indeed, many
wore hardhats the whole length of the ride), but this was never confirmed.
Just getting out of the bus station was a bone-rattling experience, a harbinger of
things to come. We did our best to wedge ourselves into sleepable positions, but I ended
up spending most of the trip looking out the window at the moon-drenched landscape. The
first thirty kilometers (which we had ridden upon ten days earlier) were relatively
smooth, but beyond the scungy town of Xeno the road turned into something unsuitable for
oxen. As the bus screamed and jolted and lurched into the night, I began to wish I had
brought a hardhat too. Every two or three hours the bus would come to an abrupt stop, the
lights would come on, and everyone would clamber over those sleeping in the aisles to exit
the bus for a pee. My first lesson in Vietnamese culture was that the people here (at
least the men) pee with utter impunity, letting loose anywhere they please. The few women
passengers, on the other hand, meekly made their way through the multiple streams to more
discreet quarters.
When the sun finally rose we saw that we were once again in an area that was grindingly
poor, poorer than anything wed seen elsewhere in Laos. The huts were shabbier; the
kids were dirtier, and everyone seemed to be engaged in extremely heavy labor at dawn.
Women pounded grain, men plowed fields with yokes over their shoulders, and filthy little
kids ran around naked or stared at us listlessly as we bounced by.
Not too long after sunrise we were at the Vietnamese border of Lao Bao, where we spent
three pointless hours heeding the border guards every whim. To kill the time, we
changed Lao kip for Vietnamese dong with a fresh-faced Dutch couple crossing into Laos.
With typical Dutch cheerfulness (highly irritating at six a.m.), they told us that the
road to the coast was good. I feebly tried to convince Fred that we get on our bikes and
ride, but he reminded me that I was still in a weakened condition and ought to take it
easy.
As it turns out, we made the right choice. The Dutch couple must have been
hallucinating, or trying to play a cruel joke on us, because the road from Lao Bao to the
coast was nothing short of nightmarish, a construction project on a massive scale, and
perhaps the biggest source of dust and grime I have ever witnessed. Discomfort
notwithstanding, I found the view out the window to be fascinating. The instant we crossed
the border (finally) it became apparent that we were in a new and wonderful country,
unlike anything Ive ever seen before. In marked contrast to Laos, there were people
everywhere, all engaged in some sort of activity. Flocks of cone-hatted women carried
ridiculously cumbersome loads on their bicycles; policemen talked animatedly with village
folk; houses and other structures were going up everywhere. And the houses looked way
different from the ones in Laos, made of concrete, adorned with geometrical gee-gaws and
painted in a multitude of bright colors. Public buildings and flags were everywhere,
especially in the town of Khe Sahn, about twenty kilometers past the border. Khe Sahn (so
it says in our guidebook) was the site of the worst battle in the American War, and today
the inhabitants were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their liberation. Music was
blaring out of loudspeakers; banners were flapping; and locals were milling about and
stuffing their faces with a variety of snacks.
We passed through a rugged landscape of scrubby-looking, denuded hills (defoliated by
napalm or Agent Orange?) and over innumerable partially finished bridges as the
temperature continued to rise.
By the time we reached the coastal highway at Dong Ha the capital of Quang Tri
province since American forces obliterated the actual town of Quang Tri sweat was
pouring off our bodies. I had imagined the infamous Highway 1 to be a nightmare of
hurtling steel. But in reality it more resembled a meandering country lane than the main
thoroughfare of a country of sixty million souls. As we bumped slowly along through an
eerie landscape of bomb craters and graveyards, I tried to imagine what kinds of battles
were fought here.
A lunch stop was imposed upon us after a half hour or so on Highway 1, which was a
little frustrating with only a few kilometers to go to Hue. It was our first stop since
the border, which we had left five hours before. I wandered into the pig- and
chicken-filled yard out back in search of a toilet and found the other passengers of the
bus peeing everywhere with reckless abandon, mysteriously avoiding the numerous toilets
and pissoirs provided. Our first meal in Vietnam was extra nasty, two bowls of
flavorless oily broth with rubbery chicken and undercooked noodles. We hoped it
wasnt an indicator of meals to come
Another fifteen minutes of bus hell ensued, and then the drivers assistant was
telling us to get off the bus. "Here Hue city," he kept saying, even though we
appeared to be neither in a bus station nor any kind of urban area. We protested for a
moment before loading up our bikes. When I took mine I noticed two much-valued items
missing: my mileage counter and the small Buddha that Fred had epoxied to my handlebars.
Travelers we had met had warned us that Vietnam was full of thieves and this was rather
sobering after only a few hours in the country, putting us on our guard.
Pedaling alongside the Perfume River into Hue felt surreal. Bicycles were everywhere,
and many of the cyclists pedaled alongside us and engaged in simple conversations. The
Vietnamese, we learned quickly, are not a shy people. We penetrated the massive walls that
delineate the Citadel Hues historic center through an ancient gate and
my feeling like Dorothy arriving in Oz intensified. Absorbed into a sea of bicycles, we
crossed lotus-filled moats directly in front of the "Purple Forbidden City," the
imposing palace of the Nguyen emperors. The town had the look of a huge park, full of
trees, birds and flowers. We found a little hotel down a quiet street, had a quick and
highly necessary shower and set out to explore the town.
Hue at least the intra muros part of it-- is perhaps the most attractive
Asian town Ive ever seen, leafy and relaxed, almost rural in aspect. People raise
animals and vegetables in the many moats and lakes, lounge in the countless courtyard
cafes, and play soccer alongside the massive walls. The serenity of the place and the slow
yet purposeful pace of its inhabitants made us feel like wed entered another time,
another dimension.
A late afternoon nap almost killed me. Dragging my sorry ass out of bed for dinner
required a monumental effort one that wasnt warranted it turns out. Just
outside one of the old city gates, in the newer and more bustling part of town, we stopped
at the first place that caught our eye, a restaurant that catered to the backpacker set.
While the food was almost edible, the overall cleanliness of the place was appalling. Will
every meal be like this, I wondered? The best part of the meal was the cyclo ride
back to the hotel. I hadnt been ridden in a cycle-powered taxi since Java, and it
felt great having someone else doing the pedaling for a change.
The following two days in and around Hue were blissful. I, for one, had lost my heart
to Vietnam and I think Fred quickly began to share my sentiments. Our first two meals in
the country notwithstanding, we had no more problems finding decent food, and our
haphazard explorations of the countryside were delicious.
Our first day took us across the river in search of the Imperial tombs, Hues
biggest tourist draw. We, however, were only half-hearted tourists, more interested in
absorbing the flavor of this new country. We spent the day getting lost in the sticks,
playing billiards, drinking numerous cold drinks and chatting with the friendly folk who
sold them to us. We did manage to visit one tomb that of emperor Minh Mangand
it failed to impress either of us, so we skipped the rest, preferring to pedal aimlessly
through the forests, villages and religious centers that surround Hue.
Perhaps the most endearing aspect of the whole experience was that nearly everyone was
getting around on bicycle. Xe dap is the first word we learned in Vietnamese.
Meaning bicycle, it is painted on the many businesses and dwellings that double as bicycle
repair shops, and we frequently hear it uttered in astonishment as we pedal by.
In the golden light of the afternoon we explored the citadel some more, discovering it
to be surprisingly vast. We found a funky place to eat in a lopsided wooden pavilion built
over a pond and gorged ourselves on spring rolls and other delicacies while watching a
thunderstorm pass over. Later, we checked out the nightlife at a bar called Apocalypse
Now, where we chat with members of a tour group from Australia and
the Yale
Whiffenpoofs. We had housed some of their predecessors when we lived in Paris, and now
they were on their first-ever tour of Vietnam.
Returning across the river to our hotel by cyclo in the silent sultry air I felt
overcome with happiness. I couldnt think of anywhere Id rather be than in this
magical land.
The following day we got onto our bikes again, staying on the left bank of the Perfume
River this time. First stop was the Thien Mu pagoda, a beautiful spot and a working
monastery. Somehow the many monks that live there manage to retain an aura of calm while
being snapshotted by hoards of sweaty pink tourists. Further upriver we stumbled upon the
less impressive Temple of Literature, where we caught a few moments of solitude a
very rare thing in people-filled Vietnam.
The heat drove us inside for the hot part of the day, which was followed by our
now-customary pedal around town. Today we headed along a canal full of thousands of
houseboats perhaps not Hues best neighborhood, but indisputably picturesque.
Later we found a popular café and hung out there for a while, drinking iced coffee and
sweating under the curious gaze of dozens of other patrons. With time to kill before
dinner, we found another more peaceful café by the riverside and played many rounds of
backgammon as we watched another thunderstorm approach in the fading light. Dinner also
had a commanding view of the river, from the top floor of the fanciest hotel in town.
While the food wasnt bad, the service was execrable. Our waiter totally disappeared
for at least an hour, and when he still didnt show up after we asked his colleagues
to hunt him down, we did something very brazen: we dined and ditched. Never before have I
left a restaurant without paying the bill, and we both felt a little guilty as we mounted
our bikes and headed back to our place. With a possible APB out for our arrest, maybe it
was a good thing that we were leaving Hue the following morning