We arrived in Vietnam and all the memories of why we loved the place so much the first time came flooding back. The vivid, sprawling emerald greens of the rice paddies, the old ladies trundling along on their bicycles sheltered from the searing sun by their non la, the Mekong Delta splaying out in all directions.... Who are we kidding?
It's the fact that you spend your time with your eyes glued to the streets watching cart after cart after cart serving up the freshest, tastiest food you've ever had, it's the waft of something delectable coming in from the street not leaving the bus for the three hours that we were on it, it's the old lady that made sure Nix's pants didn't catch on the rusty old bus seats as we got off, it's the personal jokes I share with Vietnamese men with them pointing at me, pointing out the window, firing a few sentences at me and then bursting out laughing with the expectation for me to join in despite me having not the slightest idea what we're laughing at and it's the madness that a million and one mopeds weaving around you creates. We're back and we sort of feel like we're at home.
**As I write this, now on a different bus, a lady has just handed Nix a mandarin. A lady that we hadn't made eye contact with up until this point. And here comes a second one...**
About Chau Doc. We had one night there on a tour a few years ago but we were in the teeth of those dreaded Malaria medication side effects and didn't see much more of the city than the hotel room. It deserved another chance and presented an opportunity to adjust to the rhythms of Vietnamese life.
Our time in Chau Doc was spent wandering around going from ca phe to pho to sugar cane juice saying hello to every kid under ten and even having 18 year olds waving and yelling hello.
We had a tiny little girl one night pointing to the different pictures on a drinks menu and demanding that we pronounce them properly in Vietnamese in between bouncing her rabbit puppet around in front of us and trying to press our noses down flat in an attempt to make us look more normal.
We woke up early on our final morning and in a sleepy stupor remarked how nice everyone had been here, in particular the old man who had crossed to road twice to point to Nix's tattoos and say, "very beautiful!." As we walked down the street looking for breakfast a couple of stall owners sort of made an attempt to get us to sit down but one from across the road started yelling very intently in our direction. It was the old tattoo man again.
He sat us down and soon Nix had a fishy broth complete with chunks of succulent Mekong fish and super soft udon-like noodles but I had nothing. I waited patiently and out came my breakfast - a strong ginger gruel laden with bits of congealed blood, strips of pork, some strange sort of pork cake and the strongest, most bitter pork intestine I've had. All the world's ginger could not have masked the flavour of that intestine. It turns out the fish noodle soup is for the woman and the offal gruel for the man. Make me strong ;)
The fun didn't end there. He brought out coffees and demanded that Nix put in more and more sugar, ran into the back of his shop to bring out a pink lily for Nix and a chrysanthemum for me, again for the woman and the man respectively and then made another dash inside to to find some Buddhist beads to place around my wrist. So yes, the man that took convincing to wear a watch and a wedding ring now also wears a bracelet.
It's moments like those why we love to travel and it's people like that that make this part of Vietnam so endearing to us.
