Fresh Greens 2
- krolesh
- Mar 24, 2024
- 3 min read
Cuc Phương
I just noticed rat shit on my window sill.
That's not good, as I have food with me, including a big bunch of bananas that I couldn't possibly eat in one sitting. Hmmm. I'll have to come up with a plan.
I'm in my room in a little guest house only a couple of clicks from Cuc Phương National Park. It's after 5pm, getting dark, and I only just arrived.
I was planning to camp in the national park, but it's late, and it's drizzling, and I rode past here and decided to get a very cheap bed for the night (about $6 Oz).
I didn't plan on the rats though, we'll see how that goes.
It was a long, cold, but super beautiful and interesting ride today.
My brekky. Sad but true. I did add boiled water and threw in a couple of raw eggs, for their own two minute cooking. Pretty delicious actually.
It was raining when I left my little hotel.
I've been completely overwhelmed by the attention I've been getting along the road around here. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has been shouting out to me from the sides of the road, from their motorbikes or bikes or tractors or whatever. Old people, adults, kids, toddlers, you name it.
Cars, vans and trucks beep me, and not just to let me know they're there. The kids scream, laugh, shout and film me. If I happen to stop for some reason or other, I get mobbed. It's sorta cute.
When I stop for whatever reason I quickly get surrounded by motorbikes or bicycles, and people try to communicate with me, even though they can't speak English at all. It's pretty much all Google Translate.
But it's fun.
When I eventually say "bye bye" and wave, they wave but then don't move, even though I'm trapped in our little happy bubble by their motorbikes or other vehicles. Eventually as I move off they'll reluctantly move, but not after constantly asking me for pics, or to go and eat with them, or to just hang out some more. It's so sweet. They pretty much never ever get to see foreigners, let alone meet them.
I've basically been heading east since I left Laos, have come out of the high mountains and am now only about 50 clicks (as the seagull flies) from the northeast coast of the country, the Gulf of Tonkin.
But there's no hint of the coast here. It's super green farming and produce land, there's karst hills everywhere, and this region is part of the second largest food basket in the country.
As soon as I could, I got off the main road, and cycled through tiny towns and villages. It was beautiful. Totally quiet and peaceful (except for the dogs).
The dogs can actually be quite annoying around here sometimes, bless them. There's so many of them, and I seem to be just as popular with them as I am with all the human animals.
But they're not always friendly, unfortunately, and most of them around here are a lot bigger than they were in Laos.
But so far so good.
Yeah, I'm a son. And a father, brother and friend. But actually sơn means paint. It's a brand of house paints. Also, notice the Viet flags. They're absolutely everywhere in these parts.
Well hallelujah! I think that's the prettiest dam wall I ever did see!
Just pruned.
Flockaducks
Spirit shrine in the field
Sugar cane local processing plant.
Gathering raw materials, the old way.
Dragonfruits. Yum.
Pineapple nursery
Pineapple crop
The roads got pretty rough as the day wore on. But it's def worth taking them anyway, it's so much nicer and more interesting.
It was a long day. And actually I did have to detour because of a pretty much impassable road, which added quite a few clicks to my journey.
But I'm here, I'm resting, and my young host kindly said he'd organise some veggie egg rice food for me. Which means I don't need to go to the small town nearby to eat. Such a sweetie Ah Tang is.
What an absolute feast! Just what the sports doctor ordered.
And actually, never leave your chopsticks sticking out like that in your bowl in Asia. It's not kosher, and is very bad luck, as it resembles incense burning for deceased relatives. I only did it because there was no one around.
Go to Part 3
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