What a great day of pure cycling. Heading to Hai Van, my average speed tops 26kph, probably a trip record over a sustained distance. My pace barely breaks when I hit the hill, and an hour later I’m at the top of the pass. I stop to take in the view. I am superfly Lance Armstrong.
As I rest, a postcard-hawker attaches herself to me and begins describing the local points of interest: the American hilltop bunker, nearby islands, etc. Her English is quite good, so I am excited when she repeatedly describes “leprechauns — about 200 of them — right below the pass.” My excitement fades a few minutes later when I mentally resolve “leprechauns” to “leper colony.”
The woman realizes I’m not in the market for a postcard, so as I saddle up, she crouches by my bike and begins fingering a metallic object. I take the bait, and she shows me the Liberty dollar which she supposedly found in the bunker, a memento from an American serviceman.
Despite the obviousness of this lie, I am taken with the coin. It’s hard to tell whether it’s even real money. It feels suspiciously light, and the eagle has been rubbed into a bare outline.
Even though the Hai Van pass wasn’t as difficult as I feared, I still feel that now is an appropriate moment to memorialize the trip, the distance I’ve covered, and the coin could be the perfect token. Also, I’m looking for a reason to give the woman some money. I offer her three dollars.
“Three dollars? I make no profit!”
“You said you found it in a bunker.”
She gives it to me for three.
I wheel my bike through a crowd of tourists who have bused to the top of the pass and are snapping pictures of one another before the view. “Out of my way, you homunculi,” I think. “Better hide your ladies if you don’t what them to find out what a real man looks like.”
The next day, 12km into a fairly easy ride to Hue, I blow out my right ass muscle in way that is painful and difficult to ignore. I hail a bus. Guess the marketwomen were right.
