Return, Legs 1
- krolesh
- Apr 5, 2024
- 2 min read
Dong Van
As I'd been riding steep hills for 4 days, I decided to chill for a day in Dong Van, before embarking on my return legs, to allow my own legs to return to some sort of normality.
The view from my room
Fully mooning again
The Old Town in Dong Van
Tao phớ, a rice ball sweet served with a sugar syrup, peanuts and sesame seeds. It was interesting, not my fave. Rice balls can be a little bland sometimes.
Tribal dancing in the square. For tourists.
Making bánh cuốn, a local specialty. They're basically little rice noodle packages, often made with egg cooked into the gooey rice pasta, and then wrapped around local mushrooms or meats, or left empty, and served with a broth and greens.
I've had it a few times now, this one was particularly good.
Downtown Dong Van
Traditional clobber
I skipped on the horse.
Yes, I found a place to eat that had everything I could ever dream of.
Sweet banana-flavoured bread shaped like a banana. What on earth will they think of next.
Delicious local rice-based sweets, soft and a little spongy
Walnuts for 60c Oz/bag
Salted dried local plums. Vitamin C bombs. I bought loads.
Local designs
Mèo Vạc
It was actually raining when I left town today, but it only lasted for about 10 minutes, even though it'd been raining for hours earlier in the morning.
I was lucky.
But it was super foggy, so a lot of today's views were obscured
Tacky innit
Nice spot for a cottage
Heading over the Ma Pi Leng Pass. Incredible beauty.
Had to be extra careful today. The rain did some damage
Café wall in Meo Vạc
A seriously massive block of tofu
Mường ethnic group, common in the Meo Vạc region
I hung out with Johnny Ray this afternoon and eve, a super interesting guy from Boulder, Colorado, who gave me a fascinating insight into what it's like living in the US at the moment, and how he believes his country is falling apart at the seams, with so much of the population struggling just to make ends meet.
In his view, immigration issues, crime, chronic and entrenched racism, housing unaffordability, soaring food prices, deteriorating infrastructure, and political and corporate corruption and greed are all causing society to break down in the US.
He told me that life is so different there to what it was even 10 years ago, and painted a pretty bleak picture of the future, fully expecting Trump to be elected for a second term at the end of this year.
I can now, for the first time ever, finally understand why people are voting for Trump. He very cleverly blames Biden for the infinite problems facing everyday Americans, and they're so frustrated with their worsening daily grind that some proportion of them will vote for Trump simply because they want change. That proportion was enough to get him in the first time.
JR and I stayed up late, and the interesting conversation wasn't all we shared. Beer and 'appy 'erbs also made their way into the mix. It was so nice to chill and speak English.
Johnny Ray in India. He spent a long time there recently, cruising on his motorbike.
Go to Part 2
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