My in Sa Pa

Two quick additions to the motocycle diary:

1) H'mong culture: Ben and I both managed to pick up H'mong people and drive them around on our motorcycles. Very cool. Also Ben got a flat tire and spent his time waiting for me in a H'mong household with tons of people, letting them play with his walkman, etc. Then he went on my bike to town, while I stayed with the two guys that didn't go back to work immediately, and they smoked the bamboo tobacco bong, we drank a bit of rice booze (gio, maybe?), and played the flutes one of them had just made.

2) I think the word "Infection" stems from a greek mythological figure. Poseidon. Infection. It just fits. This particular God has taken quite an affinity to me (or maybe he's pissed at me. Maybe it's Zeus utilizing his right hand man, Infection, to strike me down for some unintentional way in which I've really peeved the whole of Olympus.) Last month, infection struck in Jackson sans injury. Very odd. The irony, of course, is that had I not gotten that infection, I would not have visited the doc, and thus would not have gotten the extra prescription of antibiotics that my father advised me to carry. Thus, had I not gotten the first infection, I would now be stuck watching red lines sneak up my leg AND arm (yes, my nemesis threw them both at me this time) as I injested, probably futilly, the penicilin and the other mystery drug the phramacy gave me here. As is, however, I've learned two lessons. First, I always get infections. It's obviously my calling in life - I am a host. Second, listen to your father. He knows best.

So we did meet at the arranged location at 8:00 with the mystery man (actually a hotel employee down the street) to make the swap - One travelers check for much less than its true value in Dong. But we got it done, paid our moto providers (who were just two guys who happened to own motos), and they immediately laughed at us again and one of their wives handed me her baby. Yup, their reaction to crazy people from My (The word for america here is My, pronounced Me-e depending on who you talk to. Also, written with a squiggley thing over the y.) who had just crashed their motorcycles, come back a day after they said they would, and then didn't have any money was to hand them their child and say "Vietnam number one." Very cool. (I also managed to tell them that we wanted to be friends, which I think helped.)

Then we headed out to Sa Pa, and had an absolutely fantastic time on the bus speaking with the bus guy in Vietnamese and actually managing to converse. We laughed a lot, and the woman next to me who was getting carsick even slept on my shoulder. This is all due to the language skills we've acquired - I swear, people who don't even try to learn it just shouldn't be traveling. It's not that hard, really, to learn enough to 1) get by 2) get respect and 3) be able to more fully interact. --- not to toot my own horn (obviously a lie, get ready for blatant self-praise/narcissism) I was called both "brilliant" and "intelligent" yesterday due to my language skills. Makes you feel all warm inside.

We found that Sa Pa is indeed flooded with many more white people, and otherwise very similar to the places we have already been. We made a good choice in heading East instead.

W hiked a bit in the afternoon through the highway of whities, dodging cries to buy everything in sight [today two Dao girls (pronounced Zao) were trying to sell us these thumb instrument things for probably 5 minutes in the rain, so I tried to sell them my piece of paper - read: trash - everyone involved had a great time with it], and broke away into a jungle trail. Then back to the hotel, had some dinner at the market - delicious - met an israeli girl and a german girl, both traveling alone, and then on to the hotel for tea (they drink tea at every turn here - and it's sort of served up mate style, for you Argentinians out there, except poured out of the pot to a little cup, rather than drunk through a straw). Here we met a girl, Hanh (with a dot under the a. Pronounced Hai) who spoke perfect english and is studying to be a Korean Interpreter. Very interesting conversation - the first, really, about the war, politics, etc. albeit brief on each subject.

Then next door, where I met Huong (all sorts of crazy squigglies in that one) who spoke just enough english that combined with my Vietnamese we hung out for probably two hours talking and laughing. Smoked a little Tobacco Bong with her brother (?) and just felt really welcome overall, as though we'd actually made genuine Vietnamese friends, finally.

An absolutely fantastic day due solely to the people we met. Such is life, no?

Today the plans for trekking were foiled by the downpour (and the lack of sleep last night due to the screaming pig outside), so we've now had two breakfasts, a couple coffees, and a few hours of internet. Only 5 more hours to kill before the bus....