Hitchhiking in Vietnam: Dong Ha
18th to 20th of October, 2024.
Dinh is the young woman with her baby girl Yumi. Her husband is Nghia, who works from home, dealing with international companies. His younger sister, Nhi, is a teenager who wants to improve her English, so we will keep chatting. Their mother, No, is a lovely woman who is always carrying about me, worried if I am comfortable and if I have everything I need. Unfortunately, she is dealing with some serious health issues, having even a special diet, to help her to recover from her illness. Still, she’s always smiling.
There are also the neighbours, all very kind and nice people, who come from time to time to check on me, and to chat. Their names are: Si, Tom, Ben, Bao, Ni, Nho, Bun and Vinh.
This first night, we chat and I explain everything to them about my travels and my life style. We have dinner altogether, which is really nice, and after that Nhi and I even go for some ice cream. How sweet!
Dinh can understand English really well, and can also speak some. Nhi is basically the same but she just needs a bit more practice. Her brother Nghia can understand also very well, but as he never practices the speaking, he still struggles a bit with conversation. So I tell him that he must start practicing conversation, and he tells me he will.
The father of Nghia, which is travelling at the moment, works as a truck driver, delivering charcoal. The family tells me that on Monday morning he will go all the way to Laos, to the boarder crossing where I am also going, La Lay. So they invite me to stay one more night, and enjoy tomorrow, which is Sunday, by going around the seeing a little bit of Dong Ha, so on Monday morning the father can take me along to Laos. I think it’s a very interesting idea, and been so “coincidentally” propitious, I accept.
Then, Nghia tells me we must go together to the police station, so he can register me as his guest. This is the my least favourite part of Vietnam. Why to do this bureaucratic thing? Who cares? And as usual, the police officers are 1) piece of shit; 2) ignorant to anything regarding paper work and or actual laws. The worst part is, they think they know so much, when really, they don’t know shit! It’s actually embarrassing how little police officers know about anything.
They tell Nghia that I can only stay in his house for one night. I told you, bullshit! And one of them keeps going through my passport, as there is something wrong with it, and he is going to find out. Idiot!
When we go back I tell them that I will just leave tomorrow morning, as the initial plan. But they all insist that it will be fine and I can just stay another night without problem. At first, I am a bit reluctant, as I don’t want to cause them any problem. But as it turns out, I decide to accept and keep it on with the plan of going to Dong Ha tomorrow.
After breakfast, Nhi and I go to town in her motorbike. She has some extra classes going on in her school, so we make a plan that I will explore a little bit the area around it, and in a few hours we will meet again at certain square.
Cong Vien Fidel, or Park Fidel, is actually the first park ever to be named after Fidel Castro. And I am guessing that this is apart from Cuba, of course. Fidel Castro visited the city back in 1973, when he was fighting for Cuba Revolution, and now he has a bronze bust in his honour there. To be honest, I not only liked the park / square very much, but I also felt good there, mostly by taking a photo with Fidel, I mean, with his bust. The truth for me is, we can know very little for sure about all the past events involving him and the U.S.A. What I am sure of is how the latter can persuade the whole world to believe in mostly whatever they want; plus, they have done, and do that constantly, mostly when it comes to their enemies and their interests. I tend to like Fidel and Che and I agree with many ideologies of Communism. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of fake Communists out there, using tyranny and authoritarism and calling it Communism. And the world buys it.
At night I go chat with the neighbours, Nhom and her husband, for a while. They are the parents of Si and Tom. We actually have a really nice chat about all these regulations in Vietnam, and Nhom’s husband tells me that, there were quite a lot of foreigners coming to Vietnam and taking advantage of its hospitality to make money, and that’s why now the government and the police are more strict about foreigners staying with locals. I just wish they could be more capable of filtering the actual threats and criminals, from people like me. As they invite me for dinner, Nghia arrives saying that dinner is ready. But as I already ate with them last night, and am already staying with them another night, I kindly tell him that I will accept Nhom’s invitation. We go all the way to town, right to the city centre, for a traditional restaurant for Pho Bo. I come with Nhom in one motorbike, and Tom comes with his father in another. Si somewhere else, so we just take some food home for her. The Pho Bo here is actually really good!
Back at Dinh’s home, another slight change of plans. As her father in law arrives, he lets us know that he will have to remain in Dong Ha for a few days, to fix some stuff, so he’s not going to La Lay, in Laos, tomorrow morning. I mean, there’s really not much harm, as I simply lost a few days. And I didn’t really lost, as I had a great time with this lovely family and could see a little of Dong Ha, and experience a bit more of Vietnamese culture, so it is all good.
We all sit on the floor, family, neighbours and friends, and watch Yuni trying to walk from one person to another, being all cute and adorable. I try to make some of the teenagers to practice their English, just by asking them simple questions. They also ask me some questions, which I love to answer! One of the questions is who is my favourite celebrity. I tell them it is Aamir Khan and explain why and how I met him.
Next morning Nghia buys us some delicious breakfast: fresh spring roles with some crispy onions and garlic on top, plus sweet chilly sauce. Yummy! And to be even better, he also bought us those “homemade” soy milk which people sell on the streets. Oh, I missed that!
I make two of my signs: La Lay, Laos and Pakse. The latter is a town half way to my volunteer work destination in Laos, in the Don Det Islands. I say goodbye to this lovely family and start walking to the highway again.
10 Years Around the World 