Summer Camp/History Class: Revised

If the moon had plants on it, the very north of Vietnam is what it would look like. A view of mountainous hills covered in black rock that looks as though volcanoes just bubbled them up, and they've been there since the beginning of time. Mix in a few limestone cliffs, some of the steepest mountains I've ever driven on (the switchbacks hit 12% grade - the slope itself was obviously much, much more than that), sporadic hmong villages completely (almost) isolated from the rest of the world, and BLAM, you've got yourself a road trip that makes route 66 cower.

About those Hmong villages living their traditional lifestyles: First, remember camp as a kid, when the counselors always made you saw a log with that stupid two-man saw from the pioneer days. Yeah? Well, the Hmong still do it that way, apparently, as I saw some on the side of the road today with the full on setup - kettle of tea nearby and all. So next time you run into one, and someone tells you its a relic, tell them no, it's Asian.

Also, they have mini "subsistence" quarries in additon to their farms, where they dig up rocks and build absolutely stunning walls to fence their houses, to hold up trails on the mountainsides, to provide support for their paddies.... The sheer amount of labor that goes into putting all those things up would blow even the brightest mind. And they're not cemented together - just stacked - and yet somehow hold up trails that atlas himself would shrug off and walk away from. (It should be noted, of course, that they do make concrete on their own in the quarries as well, but it's not widely used.) So while you're down here showing the saw guy how the world really is, bring along your ancient civilizations teacher who's absolutely dumbfounded at how the pyramids were constructed and how the maya possibly had the know-how to make perfectly fitting joints for their structures, and fly him down here to show him just how much use one can get from rocks given the time.

Also on this trip we finally got a glipse of what this communism thing is all about. Loudspeakers in town blasting "radio vietnam," vietnamese flags carpeting the sky in every village - you'd think Ho Chi Minh had come back from the dead and the people were ready for him to visit every village in the country - propaganda on big red signs on light posts, and a conversation with two americans working for the english newspaper who described the censorship - they would even get newspapers from China, through the Vietnamese government, with passages blacked out in marker.

Also, we experienced bureaucracy at its best - though Ben and I disagree on just how communist this particular point is, as I think in the good ol' US of A there can be just as much "bureaucratic bullshit." (Seriously, the guidebook plainly states that "bureaucratic bullshit" keeps most people away from the north.) When we awoke in Ha Gieng all set for the journey north at 6 am sharp, we quickly were shunned at the police station, then run around by various parties until about 10 am when we finally got the privilege of paying for a guide and more for a travel permit that we were told it would be. And, we got to deal with having a guide the whole time - which wasn't terrible, but wholly unnecessary. It was like burning money and robbing him of two days of his life all at once. Sometimes you just want to hit the one bird with the stone.

Let me here reiterate - despite the crap, this road trip was cooler than Miles Davis on ice. (you dig it. Admit it, you dig it.) Among the greatest things anyone on this planet has ever done. Period. Climb Everest Blind, you say? Pbbbbtttt.....

Back to Ba Ca today, and we don't have enough money to pay for the bikes because we're idiots. Plus we have to pay more because we both crashed them (the owners just laughed at us for this, as well as the fact that we were supposed to be back yesterday, and shrugged it off after charging us a total of $12 for the damages they have no intention of fixing - they're all cosmetic.) And there is not an ATM within 2 hours of here. And no one takes travelers checks, as everyone seems skeptical that they're worth anything. Being that there's no bank in town, I'm not surprised.

So I wandered the town looking for travelers willing to loan out some funds, but found none. That is, I didn't find any travelers. Not one. The restaurant where they always hang out looks like the Sahara.

So we've got one more option tomorrow to meet a guy at 8:00 - sounds like a drug deal - and the bus leaves at 8:30.

The adventure continues.