My original plan was to head back inland and up into the mountains for an all-day jaunt on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But at dinner the previous night, while planning the next day’s ride, I decided to stay on Highway 1 for most of the day, hoping that would get me a little more quickly to my next real stop, Hue.
The upside of that decision would be that I’d have much more slack as far as gas was concerned, Highway 1 being positively littered with Petrolimax stations, Vietnam’s nationalized gas company. And I’d avoid the mountain roads, with their uncertain condition, dogs and children suddenly darting out onto the road, and of course, the lack of gas.
The downside is that Highway 1 is a nerve-wracking, lethal game of chicken, played by suicidal maniacs. Not my idea of fun.
But when the mist turned into serious rain about 20 minutes into the ride, I knew that I had made the right choice. Mountain roads in the rain suck. Uncharacteristically, I pulled over and put on all of my rain gear before getting soaked. Then I got back on and roared through the wet.
About an hour into the ride I saw a shape on the highway through the droplets on my face shield. Once I got close enough I could see that it was a motorcycle on its side in the middle of the road. Next to it was a man, supine on the ground, writhing in pain. And just in front of him was a dog, screaming in agony, dragging its limp hindquarters behind it. The man, wearing the usual motorcycle gear here in Vietnam, flip-flops and no helmet, had obviously hit the dog and gone down. I slowed as I approached, but bystanders were gathering to help the man, and the poor dog was plainly not going last long, so I rolled past them.
Apparently my choice of Highway 1 wasn’t going to shield me from darting dogs.
The sight stayed with me as I kept going. But traffic on the highway roared past me unabated. Very often I was forced to the shoulder as two oncoming buses or trucks passed each other with no regard to oncoming traffic. And the rain kept pouring down.
By noon I was in Dong Hoi, which originally had been my planned destination for the day. By sticking to Highway 1, I had gained a half-day’s slack. But oy, what a physically and mentally exhausting ride it had been.
So I turned into town and found a roadside café to get some lunch. The proprietors, a mother and daughter, spoke no English. But I pulled out my Vietnamese phrase book and managed to order a delicious meal of stuffed rice pancakes.
The daughter, who looked to be about 10 or 11, was taken with my phrase book. And while I ate she leafed through it and found questions to ask me, like, was I married, how many children, how old was I, where was I from, etc. The mother seemed greatly amused.
From Dong Hoi I sped west again, away from Highway 1, and then turned south back onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail. My next destination was the Truong Son cemetery, where the Vietnamese buried thousands of their dead from the American war.
It’s a peaceful place. Incense wafts thorough the still air, with row after row of grave sites, each bearing the names and dates of the dead, separated into zones designating the provinces in which they were born. There is also a large section of gravestones marked only with the inscription: Name Yet Unknown.
I wandered through the cemetery, reading the dates on the stones. Most of the buried were 18, 19, or 20 years old.
While I wandered, a young man came up to me and seemed to want to talk to me. His English wasn’t very good, but he asked me were I was from and why I was here. I told him I was American, and that I felt I had to come here. He then told me that his uncle was buried here, and he was visiting his grave. I said that I was sorry. He only smiled and shook my hand with both of his. Apparently he didn’t blame all Americans for his uncle’s death. Very sad time, he said.
Truong Son Cemetery
We wandered some more, and he told me that he was a doctor of ophthalmology in nearby Dong Ha. When we both reached our motorbikes, he asked me for my address, and we swapped them. He seemed interested in my riding glasses as I put them on. To protect my eyes, I told him. Protect eyes, he mused. It seemed a novel concept to this ophthalmologist. Then we parted, he riding off in flip-flops, no helmet, and no eye protection.
I wondered how many American nephews, visiting their dead uncles at Arlington, would have the grace that this man had if they ran into somebody from Vietnam there.
The run down into Dong Ha from the cemetery was a short one. I crossed the old Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and for the first time I entered what was formerly South Vietnam.
I found a hotel run by an old man who kept trying to kiss me while he showed me the room. I don’t know whether he was gay or just very affectionate. But I ushered him out of my room as soon as I could without causing a scene. Ah well, at least the room didn’t have any cockroaches.