A family meal and a homestay

Chilli's Roasting in the Sun

Today was to be a day of buses, bikes and lifejackets, and boy oh boy were they fetching life jackets.  Even out here, in deepest darkest Vietnam, Health and Safety manages to grip us in its ridiculous claws.  I say ridiculous, because judging by the state of some of the rivers we crossed, lifejacket or not, you’d probably either bounce straight back into the boat or die from blood poisoning before you’d had a chance to drown.

Commuter's Convenience Store

From the hotel we took the bus to the boat and this was a chance for some soul-searching – was I going to ignore the dissent from my insides, “dry my eyes” so to speak and crack on?  Or was I going to be sensible and sit today out?  Tim, in a much worse state than I was, yet sat there in his cycling gear, showed there was no way to back down.  Julia of course saw things completely differently, but we wouldn’t be husband and wife if we agreed on everything!

Our first stop was at the first ferry crossing.  The locals simply loved the Exodus Fashion Show, with this Spring/Summer’s collection causing quite the stir (being a variety of lycra outfits with clashing orange lifejackets).  We picked up our bikes on the other side and set off, in my case gingerly, with the sun promising to make today a hot and sweaty one.  Yum.

Before long we were on another ferry and this time the locals could see the reasoning behind the lycra (we had our bikes with us)….though the lifejackets were still probably beyond them.  I mean if you’re lugging your life’s savings to market on the back of a moped, a foreign berk in a lifejacket probably looks a bit soft!  There were chuckles and fingers pointed and once again without meaning to we stuck out like sore thumbs. 

Off to Market

Back on the bikes on the other side and yes, our predictions were right, it was baking.  We were on the way to our Vietnamese guide’s family home.  Mr. Lam’s mum apparently cooked a mean lunch and so I spent my time figuring out how to justify the inevitable stomach pains that would come of eating anything other than rice. 

We arrived in the village and already people were calling out to him and starting up conversations.  After so long traversing the 3 countries in an almost anonymous state, it was interesting to see one of the guides with their home town network.  A short wait to re-group and a final 50 or so metres on the main road, then we turned off down an alley; this was to be a small revelation. 

We’d spent ages cycling roads and only seeing what was, in essence, a 2 dimensional view of the towns and villages we went through.  When we turned down this alley we realized what was behind the facades.  It was lovely.  More housing, but of a different style, almost “real” in comparison to the shop-front style we’d seen so far.  Here were families, children at play and gardens where we saw what Nee had told us about Vietnam; how the people are very industrious and use every inch of available space to grow things.

Mr. Lam’s family was across a small creek and the ubiquitous welcoming party of small children had huge smiles on their faces.  We crossed the wooden bridge and were welcomed to tables laden with ….actually groaning under the weight of….a beautiful spread.

Clearly I had already dispensed with “sensible Alex”, so I got stuck in.  The food was delicious and though I would come to regret every mouthful….I don’t regret it one little bit.  It was with heavy stomachs that we departed the Lam family home.

A local Banksy

Nobody had bothered to turn the thermostat down when we got back on the bikes and the sun was really giving us a kicking.  As we approached a bridge where we would have the opportunity of becoming sensible and jumping on the bus, we found that “the bridge was out!”  So we had a diversion along the river of a few km – which was…. nice.  In the end we made it to our final boat trip and as I looked back at our bikes disappearing behind us, I can’t say as I was that sorry.

Team Pain

We were off to our homestay evening; a kind of binary event in that it was either going to be great or a nightmare.  It was most definitely the former.  We all settled into our rooms, showered then joined the host family in their big kitchen to help them prepare dinner.  I hadn’t realised how much I miss cooking.

Dinner was a boozy affair, with rice wine and beer and more ….oh so much more…..delicious food that I relished.  Once again we had those pangs of guilt as we didn’t finish all the food on our table, but if you’re going to serve up enough food for 12 on a table of 5 (2 of whom are ladies and 2 of whom are men with dodgy guts), there is going to be the odd spring roll left over.  Actually there were no spring rolls left over, but that’s by the by.

That noodle was 1.5m long!

Off to bed, a little tipsy and our first night under a mosquito net.  It looked very romantic, although the fact that each room had four walls that DIDN’T connect with the roof, meant that you could hear everything in everyone else’s room.  At this point I’ll pause briefly to let you know that a) Cambodian stomach bugs are not to be trifled with, b) having to carefully extricate yourself from a mosquito net every time you need the loo is annoying and c) a lack of sound-proofing on the bathroom is at the very least embarrassing, if not downright disgusting. 

Come the morning, having spent most of the night sat on a bench in the room waiting for the next upheavals rather than try and be graceful with a mosquito net, I was knackered and really looking forward to being sensible.  Yes…..I quit and got on the bus.