I made it to Ho Chi Minh City… let’s just call it Saigon, OK? It’s used interchangeably here, and Saigon is so much easier to type. OK, so I made it to Saigon two days ahead of schedule. I didn’t plan it that way. But it made sense to do it, and so I did it.
I left Hoi An early enough to make My Lai by late in the morning. Once again there were no signs along the highway indicating where to turn off and which road to follow. But I’ve gotten into the morning habit of memorizing each day’s way points so that I can make educated guesses, and so far it’s worked fairly well.
Anyway, I rode off Highway 1 to the east for about 18 km along a road that skirted rice paddies and banana plants. My Lai is just inland of the South China Sea, so cool breezes made it a very pleasant ride. I had some trouble finding the little museum, so I had to ask directions a couple of times. But I finally rolled onto the site where the village of My Lai once stood.
All that remains there now are the foundations of the villager’s huts, and next to them are a memorial statue, markers indicating mass graves, and the small museum.
What I can say about My Lai? Whatever fragile conceits I had about Americans being somehow more decent and humane than other people, that we were better than the Nazis in Germany, the Serbs in Srebrenica, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the Hutus in Rwanda were undone in My Lai. It’s quite plain that we’re just as capable of the most unspeakable crimes as anyone else.
So I left My Lai. But I don’t think it will leave me.
I got back onto Highway 1 for the last short stretch to Thach Tru, where Highway 24 leaves the coast and heads west into the central highlands.Now you might think that the only east-west highway that links Highway 1 and the only other main north-south highway (the Ho Chi Minh Highway) in Vietnam would be marked, right? Think Highway 101 and I-5. There’d be a sign indicating the only road linking them for hundreds of kilometers, right?
Nope.
Once again I took an educated guess and guessed right. I was a little worried about setting off on Highway 24 because it was a very thin line on the map. In fact, it was the thinnest line I had ridden so far. And some of the fatter lines had been very poor roads. Plus, the distance between the two main highways was right about at the limits of my tank’s range, and I didn’t think I’d encounter any gas stations.
It was very steep in parts where it ascended from the coast, some 10 percent grades here and there. But it was scenic and twisty, albeit very isolated.
Late in the afternoon I stopped to take a picture and thought I heard thunder in the distance. The sky had clouded considerably and it seemed to me that I detected the damp smell of rain in the suddenly cooler wind.
Sure enough, about 15 minutes later the first fat drops pranged loudly off of my face shield like bees. I pulled over to put on my rain gear, but I was too slow. The skies opened up and I was instantly soaked by a tropical downpour.
The deluge kept my speed way down. I could only see about twenty meters ahead of me, and even then could only make out large shapes. Any small animal unfortunate enough to dart out onto the road would have made a quick exit from the gene pool. And I probably would have become intimate with the pavement—the pavement that in some places was obscured under a torrent of rushing, reddish-brown water.
OK, so that was not fun.
Occasionally the rain would ease. But then it would return with a fury. And it kept doing that right up until I rode up to the front steps of my hotel in Kontum.
I’ll call it the Mosquito Hotel, because when I checked in to my room and opened the drapes, about five or six mosquitoes flew off of them. And there was a cloud of them right outside my window, and a gang in the bathroom. That night I slathered myself with my natural Lemon/Eucalyptus mosquito repellent, which works as well as the DEET based repellents (and doesn’t melt plastic), but doesn’t last as long. So you have to keep reapplying it every four hours or so. And that’s problematic when you’re asleep.
No worries there, though. You’re sure to be snapped awake to apply more when you start scratching the half-dozen bites you’ve received in the mean time.
The next morning I realized that the funny-looking oblong box above the headboard contained the mosquito net. D’oh!
I got an early start the next day and tanked up before heading south on the Ho Chi Minh Highway again. My destination was Buon Ma Thuot, in the heart of Vietnam’s coffee country. Sure enough, by late morning I was rolling past huge coffee plantations. There were beans drying on large tarps alongside the highway. And the perfume from the coffee flowers was a big surprise to me. It’s a sweet, jasmine-like smell, and quite strong. I had detected the scent in other parts of Vietnam, but it was only here that I realized that it came from the flower of the coffee plant. Who knew?
The highway was smooth and fast, and almost deserted. So I made Buon Ma Thuot by noon. The Lonely Planet guide told me that there’s nothing much to see in Buon Ma Thuot unless you’re a coffee nut, which I’m not. All the sights, mostly ethnic villages, are a distance away from the town. So there didn’t seem much reason to hang around for the afternoon.
A quick glance at the map showed that Dalat, my destination for the following day, was a little more than 200 km away. Doable, I thought.
So I turned southeast and sped out of Buon Ma Thuot.
The road to Dalat was not as smooth and fast as the Ho Chi Minh Highway. And there were several unsigned forks in the road along the way, but my best guesses turned out to be correct every time. Obviously the motorcycle gods were smiling on me.
The landscape, though, was uninspiring, dry scrub and slash and burn farm plots. And the clouds were gathering again. Oh please, not another deluge!
Yes, another deluge. This time I had time to get my gear on before I got drenched. But it was just as fierce as the day before, if not as lengthy. And by late in the afternoon I was a smelly wet dog approaching Dalat.
My plan was to spend a couple of days there, another rest spell. The LP guide gives the impression that Dalat is something of a placid resort town, high up in the forested highlands. So it seemed a good place to rest my weary butt for a while. I had even picked out what seemed the ideal hotel, well outside of town and set on its own scenic grounds.
But when I arrived there, they had no rooms available. Damn! The helpful desk clerk offered to find me another place. I told her what I was after, a quiet and comfortable place, preferably with a nice view. So she makes a call and gives me an address, and I ride off to find it.
Well, quiet and comfortable it was not. In fact it was on the busiest street in town, and my view was of an empty lot littered with garbage. It also turns out that Dalat, far from being tranquil, is a very busy and noisy town.
I think I was the only one staying at the hotel. The desk clerk seemed very put out by my presence, which I made absolutely intolerable by asking if I might please have a towel and a bar of soap. The effrontery!
But she was very obliging in helping me to decide to leave Dalat the next morning.
And thus I find myself in Saigon after a hellish run into and through the city. I’m staying in a pleasant hotel in the “backpacker” area of town, a place that came highly recommended. The room I have is up on the fourth floor. It is airy and bright, has all the mod-cons. The friendly desk clerks are cheerful to a fault, and I think I might just stay right here for a few days. Perhaps I can get some of the rest here that I wasn’t going to get in Dalat.
The two extra days also gives me a few more options for the next portion of the trip: the Mekong Delta region and Cambodia. And it’s good to have more options.
This evening a man came and picked up the motorcycle to ship it back to Hanoi. So I’m wheelless again. That’s OK. I can always rent one here for zipping around town. But I think I’ve gotten just about all of my motorcycle ya-yas out for a while. Perhaps I’ll just get about by foot and bus and boat for the rest of the trip.
But I fear for my safety. Until today I was protected on my motorcycle. Now I must turn the driving over to those lunatics I’ve been dodging for the last eight days. Pray for me.
The Minsk