Although it is not for lack of trying. You know the saying: flying is safe; it's the landings that will kill you. I am fine driving on the straightaway. I can handle the curves, and the traffic does not bother me. BUT (and it's a big BUT) I have a lot of trouble turning left or right. I'm not very good at slow speeds either, so starting and turning is really hard. I completely lost my line on a right turn today but the driver in the left lane had the good sense to get out of my way. Later I had to start through a narrow opening and immediately turn left. You know, if you stick out your legs, flail around, and weave uncontrollably, people tend to give you a lot of room. I don't think they could understand the exact swear words I was saying but they got the drift.
Other than these two minor incidents, it was a blast today. I was tired when we started on Monday and thinking it was probably not a good idea to close my eyes while sitting on the back of a motorbike. I was still tired yesterday and thinking it is probably even worse to fall asleep while driving a motorbike than a car. But I finally convinced someone of my Civilized Tour Company concept. We did not start until 9 this morning, and I crashed (figuratively) early last night (which is why yesterday's post was not sent until today). Today I felt great riding. And one day, I am going to learn how to make turns.
The roads we drove on today had even less traffic than the back roads I biked on the last two weeks. We rode along the coast, through sand dunes and villages, with the outline of mountains in the distance. It felt like Route 1 down the California coastline but without the cliffs. And it felt like we were finally away from the tourists and seeing people where they really live. Our guides are wonderful about taking us to interesting places, both unusual ones and the ordinary. For example, this morning Chien walked us through the market and explained to us the things we could not recognize.
Then we went to a rice paper "factory." This is the rice paper they use for making salad rolls and the factory is in the side and back yards of the house.
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| Fermented rice water with drying rice paper to the right |
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| This woman makes the rice paper one at a time like a crepe |
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| She lifts off each "crepe" and put in on the table which rotates |
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Masked woman in hat takes the "crepes" off the table and puts them on bamboo racks to dry
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| Drying racks in the side yard |
Next we drove through fields of dragon fruit orchards and then salt farms.
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| Dragon fruit orchard |
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| Blossoms on dragon fruit |
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| Ripe dragon fruit |
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| Dragon fruit growing |
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| Baby dragon fruit stalks tied to concrete "stems" |
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| Dragon fruit in my hotel room when I arrived |
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| Huy and our driver Tom in front of the salt farms |
Next we stopped at beach to watch the fisherman and we walked to a woman's house who served us another Vietnamese meal - rolls made in rice paper of tuna and squid. I am eating everything. I also said hello to her in Vietnamese and she got so excited she hugged me. Usually when I try my limited vocabulary of hello and thank you, people laugh at me.
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| Those round things in the foreground are boats, some paddled, some with an outboard motor. |
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| Weighing and splitting the snail haul |
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| Would you go to sea in this? |
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| Pre-Lunch |
They build temples here to lots of people and things. I'm still struggling with understanding what they mean by "worship." Not everyone they worship seems very holy. Today we visited a temple to a whale. A whale from the 17th century who helped people in storms. His skeleton is in the very long, narrow temple. He was 25 meters long and weighed 55 tons, although I have no idea how they know that. But who am I to question a venerated whale. In the courtyard of the whale temple, men were building the original round boats from bamboo.
We also stopped in a harbor with fishing boats. I do wear my helmet when riding.
Then another meal. This time whole shrimp (okay, I refuse to eat shrimp heads), spare ribs, and some green stuff (okay, I didn't eat that either). Then to our resort for tonight, Aroma Beach which is even nicer than last night's. We got here a little after 3, so I took my chromebook down to the beach for some quiet e-mail and reading time. And then it was time for dinner. We went to the local goat restaurant for a two course meal. They put a burner on the table and we grilled marinated goat meat, then rolled it in rice paper. The second course was a hot pot with goat meat, vegetables, and noodles.
Finally, a Vietnamese toast. Mo, hai, ba, something.
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