Wind. Great gusts of wind, whipping the tops of the palm trees, blowing steadily from the east.
A headwind is the worst thing for biking. Strong gusts can cut your speed on level ground from the mid-twenties to less than 10. 40 km can take a day.
I had once again grievously miscalculated, assuming that the ride to the sea would be a pleasant two-day journey over rolling hills. So confident was I that I didn’t leave Buon Ma Thuot until 11:30 in the morning. Facing a stiff headwind, I had no hope of putting in a full 90 km.
I resorted to a now-familiar routine: 1) bike until sunset; 2) abuse the hospitality of a local household. In this case, the local was Vinh, a university student from Saigon who had returned home to visit his family for the Tet holiday. He had three university friends with him, all 20 years old, all proficient English speakers.
We were ecstatic to have found each other. Vinh was honored to host his “first foringer,” and I was excited about the prospect of an evening of reasonable conversation.
The first thing I learned from Vinh is that the Vietnamese hate that cheap rice wine just as much as I do. He repeatedly filled the shot glasses scattered around the table. Then he would call out “50 percent!” or “100 percent!” to indicate how much of the shot we had to take in one gulp. Glasses clinked, jaws tightened, shots tipped back, a chorus of groans and grimaces ensued. We were having fun.
Vinh’s younger sister was eager to talk, but her English was shaky. I encouraged her to use her textbook. Flipping through, she found the one question she most yearned to ask this representative of an exotic race and far-off land. “How. Often. Do. You. Go. Swimming?” Somewhere Barbara Walters heaved a sigh of relief, confident that her job remains safe for the foreseeable future.
Vinh took out a battered guitar and told me to name a song. I asked him what Beatles songs he knew. Blank stares all around. The Beatles? You’ve heard of the Beatles, right? Love Me Do? Lucy In The Sky? The freaking Beatles, for the love of Mike! OK, no Beatles. I can go in more obscure musical directions, but I’m not sure that will help.
Love Me Tender proved to be our one point of shared musical knowledge. Together we all crooned the first six words of the chorus, and the guitar returned to its place by the wall.
I was shocked, embarrassed, and deeply touched when, later in the evening, the children in the house ran up to give me money. It was a Tet offering, meant to bring good luck to the givers, and it was impossible to refuse. The sums were tiny tokens, thank god, but the notion of Vietnamese farmers giving gifts of money to an American tourist was just too preposterously wonderful for me to comprehend.
Dinner was a communal affair. We sat cross-legged on the floor, and Vinh’s family filled my bowl continuously with the best pieces of meat. Dining in people’s home provides a chance to sample food that I couldn’t get in restaurants. In this case, a stew that tasted like tender corned beef and noodles flavored, surprisingly, with fresh dill.
At 9:30 I lay down on the mattressless bed that Vinh and I shared. As expected, sleep was intermittent, and at 3:00 I woke for good. At 4:00, Vinh got up and, despite his sister sleeping fitfully in the same room, flipped on the lights to do some reading. Privacy simply doesn’t exist in the countryside.
At 6:00, I started biking. The air was cool and breezeless. Ahead of me lay rolling hills, rice paddies, eucalyptus groves, and one mad, frantic descent to the sea.
