18th of October, 2024.
Hitchhiking in Vietnam: Vinh to Dong Ha
When I finally get to the highway… it sucks! It’s one of those “freeway”, or “speedway” here of Vietnam, where the road is elevated, and there’s no hard shoulder or any place at all for cars to park. I can barely walk. Ah! And I had to climb over that division in between the sides, with The Hulk! It was intense, but nice. This phrase can be so over interpreted…
I am dying. I keep walking for a while but for some reason I’m feeling really tired. There’s almost no cars, and it seems difficult for anyone to stop here, due to these “circumstances”. But at the same time, I have the feeling that someone will. It’s just how people are, there’s always some really golden heart out there willing to help.
A pick-up stops. There are going somewhere nearby. There almost no space as I took both my backpacks with me. They are three men. The two men in front are friends, and they are taking the young man on the back somewhere. Anyway, they drop me off not far from where I was, but all that I am just hoping for is that the highway is different here.
The logistics of Vietnam highway sucks! I cannot stand nearby where I am because this part of the highway only goes North, so I have to go through this small town in order to get to the SAME highway but going South.
I try to hitchhike on the way and a very nice man stops for me. He’s only going to Ha Thin but I decide to come with him anyway. He’s really happy to help and we stop to have breakfast. I have Bun Cha (chicken soup), and he has Pho Bo (beef soup).
Finding the best highway to stand is not always easy task. Sometimes you just have to use your guts. This one which I chose is not so bad. An orange pick-up passes by, but I see them turning around and coming back. At first, I am not entirely sure about them, and I wonder why. But a young man sitting on the back, with stylish black long nails, gives me a good vibe, and I decide to get in. They are going all the way to Dong Ha. Yay!
The driver is the father of the two men in the back, and his friend is on the passenger seat. The two brothers are so different from each other. The young boy I mentioned, Hung, well, his nails already tell a lot about his personality, right? He is cool and into more modern things; his brother, on the other hand, strikes me as someone very traditional, and that’s the bigger difference between they two. And one more thing I “noticed”, more like I read in the interaction of the whole family is, the elder son does a lot to please his father, kind of being the “perfect son”. While Hung, being only sixteen but already not afraid of embracing who he is, his personality and his will, might suffer a bit with some exclusion from his father.
We stop for lunch in a very simple restaurant but which is full of people. I was not expecting such a buffet! The father order so many different dishes. I feel so sorry that I didn’t take a picture! There is a whole grilled chicken, a full fish in a red sauce, another chicken also in some sauce, some pork, a huge omelet, and of course lots of rice and some soup.
We also stop at a wind turbine. Actually we drive a little bit out of the road to check it out. At first, I was not so excited about it, have seen many of those during my travels; but then I realize I have never been this close to one of them, I’ve never touched one of them, so in the end it was a nice experience.
By the time they drop me off in Dong Ha, it’s almost sunset time. I charge my phone and use the wi-fi in a cafe for a little while, and then start walking towards the highway, looking for a family home to ask for help.
But I actually end up asking in a company. Well, kind of. It’s an events company, with a house attached to it. Everything is quite big, and quite fancy, but there’s this huge garden surrounding the property, and that’s why I came here. Everybody is nice here, the workers with whom I talk are very helpful and kind. And even the owner, when one girl call him, offering to pay me a hotel, as he says I can’t really camp there. But I kindly refuse and decide to look for another place.
And then that same fifty-fifty situation of Vietnam it happens again. While some people are freaking scared of me, some are really willing to help. In a small street, a group of people, all neighbours, gather around me, and as someone of them can speak English, they are all together trying to understand what kind of help do I need. A young woman, holding a baby in her arms, tells me I can come to her house, so I follow her. That’s how the story of me and the Dinh’s family starts.
10 Years Around the World 