A Journey to Well Known Places

Well, this place was quite an experience. Partially for the sights, but mostly for the motor bike accident. It is famous for the jutting peaks similar to Halong Bay or Yangshou. We took a row boat for an hour and a half down the river through caves that we just tall enough to sit in the boat and not hit your head. The river carved them out under some pretty big hills. That was neat to see. It was also neat the see the river people culture. Some of them have houses right on the river with steps down to the water. The only way to get in or out is on boat. They have snail farms there. I’ll bet the mosquitos are terrible.

The next day we decided to rent a motor bike and ride through the Vietnamese bible belt. Our trip took hours and took us past many Catholic churches built in the 1800’s. Some were very impressive. We ended at Phat Diem which is a large-ish complex of churchs built about 120 years ago. We sat down after our rode trip and were decended upon by some youths wanting to practice their English. It is nice to talk to the locals. The three most common questions we get asked are: where are you from?, are you married?, when are you getting married? The first three time we are asked were a little uncomfortable; especially when the inquisitive person just revealed that he was in Catholic seminary and followed the question with ‘Do you love God?’ Now we just look at our watches and tell people ‘Well,not today.’ On our way back the hostel things we going great. I got the hang of the manual shifting on the motor bike and was dodging pot holes and bicycles with the best of them. When we reach highway 1, largest highway in the country, we stopped at a light. When it changed I put it in gear and twisted the handle for some gas. Just as I was getting started a teenage girl on a bike cut right in front of me. I swerved left. Too left. And the moto slid right out from underneath me. It happened so fast I didn’t even know what was happening until I was on the ground in traffic under a motorbike. The most common cause of death of peace corps volunteers is traffic accidents. Well, I have never been much of a volunteer but I did have an instant panic of being part of a similar statistic. Probably one having to do with inexperienced foriegners and motor bikes in Vietnam. Luckily there was a cop close by that steered the rumbling dump trucks around us. I got some pretty bad road rash, but Erica escaped most unscathed. Being an experienced rider she jumped free while I went down with the bike. It still stings when I get in the ocean and it has been 10 days. We spent the next day feeling sorry for Marc and the day after we took a long overnight bus ride to Hue.

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